[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 26 (Monday, July 5, 1999)]
[Pages 1257-1265]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Interview With Susan Page of USA Today Aboard Air Force One

June 30, 1999

President's Medicare Modernization Plan

    Ms. Page. We want to talk to you first about Medicare and then about 
new markets. You've got your long-awaited plan out on Medicare. What do 
you think the prospects are, especially looking at the early initial 
reaction that you got yesterday? What do you make of that?
    The President. Well, first, I think it's a good sign that we have 
the Republican leadership with the door open. That's what having Senator 
Roth and having Congressman Thomas and the other two Republican 
congressmen there--McCrery from Louisiana, in particular, is a guy I 
know and have a regard for. He believes in getting things done. McCrery 
would like to make an agreement on Medicare and Social Security--very 
serious man. So these guys came, even though there were only three House 
Members and Bill Roth, they were the right people.
    I think, also, the breadth of the presence of the Democrats 
indicates that the most liberal Democrats have acknowledged that we need 
to make serious structural reform. And our moderate-to-conservative 
Democrats believe that this is enough structural reform to unify and 
coalesce around. So I think we've got something to go forward on.
    And what I intend to do is to call the leaders--Senator Lott and the 
Speaker and Senator Daschle and Mr. Gephardt--and ask them to come and 
meet with me the day we get back from Fourth of July recess, and let's 
try to make a plan for how we could do it this summer. Because I believe 
that I

[[Page 1258]]

can do the same thing with the Social Security I've done with Medicare, 
I can offer them something. We could even maybe build on it and get 
the--done, because we can't know that we're really going to pay the debt 
off which, as you know, I believe is profoundly important, unless we 
understand where we are on both. But I think the first thing to do is to 
get the Medicare because there's a real interest in it.
    Ms. Page. When you have this meeting with the congressional 
leadership, are you going to give them a deadline for action? What will 
you do, specifically, at the meeting? What do you want to come out of 
it?
    The President. Well, what I want to come out of it more than 
anything else is a common commitment to the goal. In other words, if the 
leaders will all say we want to do this and we think we can, it doesn't 
mean we will, but it will get us a lot closer. That will send a signal 
to the rank and file in both caucuses that this is something we're 
really going to try to do.
    And it would be a phenomenal gift to the country to do it. And we 
have the money to do it, and the only reason not to do it, frankly, is 
if somebody makes a real decision that the money should be diverted to 
something else. There is no reason not to do it. We're close enough 
now--we're much closer now, frankly, on Medicare than we were before we 
did the omnibus balanced budget in '97.
    Ms. Page. This meeting, or really, the release of the plan is the 
start of a process. Some people think the end of the process could be a 
deal that enables Republicans to get some of the tax cuts they want and 
you to get the Medicare plan you want. Do you think that's what will 
happen? Is that a possible end of this?
    The President. Well, I think it depends first on whether we can get 
close enough so that--on the particulars of the structure of the 
Medicare--that is, can we get everybody, or more or less everybody for 
the kind of structural modernization that I think is imperative, where 
we have some genuine competition, but we do it in a way that doesn't 
sacrifice quality--that's why I want to set up this extra fund, because 
most people believe that in the '97 Balanced Budget Act we had excessive 
savings in some areas of Medicare from the point of view of providers, 
so we set aside a fund for the Congress to deal with that--and then 
whether we can get a general agreement on the structure of the drug 
benefit.
    A lot of our people--and I'm very sympathetic--and maybe some of 
theirs--would like to accommodate both the people that have huge drug 
bills, and the biotech industry which wants to be able to sell these 
drugs if they keep investing and pushing the envelope on the big things. 
But I thought it important not to have a drug benefit that would be 
subject to the same criticism that we leveled at one of their tax 
programs back in '97--that, okay, it looks good for 5 years--so now 
we've avoided that.
    But I think that if we can get agreement on the fundamentals of this 
and then if we can get agreement on real commitment to paying down the 
debt and taking the interest savings and plowing it into Social 
Security, then I think there is enough funding left over, not committed 
to either of those pots, given this new budget, that we can probably 
make it a kind of omnibus agreement covering other things.
    But I think we----
    Ms. Page. Including tax cuts?
    The President. Yes, but I think that what we have to focus on is 
first things first. I think that for the Democrats and for me, the 
important thing will be having the right kind of Medicare reform, having 
the prescription drug benefit, and getting the details right here. And 
so that's why I think we have to really--we've got to focus on that.
    I think the other stuff, assuming, as I said--it's a big 
assumption--assuming you get the financing right on the Social Security 
piece. I'd also like to have an omnibus agreement. I'm going to try to 
get them to agree on Social Security, too. And a lot of people--most 
people don't think we can do that. I disagree. I think there's a lot 
more commonality than most people think. I spent a lot of time just 
quietly thinking about it, on our trip to Europe and other things, 
trying to write out different scenarios. But I think there is much more 
energy right now behind the Medicare issue and a much greater sense of 
urgency. And frankly, you've got one that

[[Page 1259]]

goes broke in 2015 and the other one, if they just hang with the money 
I've got, will stay all right until 2053 or 2055.
    So I think Medicare first, see if they want to do it, see if they'll 
commit to try to do it by the summer. And then I think they can raise 
their other concerns once we get into the framework of the substance. 
But we've got to stay--this is a big, big--changes in Medicare, and we 
need to focus on that first.
    Ms. Page. Are you concerned at all, though, that there may be a good 
number of Democrats who are afraid there will be a deal that they won't 
like? And I know you've said you want to----
    The President. But none of them think that so far. In other words, I 
have worked very, very hard to keep our caucus together. I took a good 
deal of time to come out with the specifics of this plan, and we did a 
lot of serious work--all of us--and I include the White House in that, 
too--really trying to take the politics out of this in terms of what 
specifics we recommended. That is, I really tried to figure out what I 
thought had to be done structurally for this program to work, what kinds 
of savings we had to achieve, whether the economics really would support 
getting rid of all the co-pays on the preventive screening if you put in 
the co-pays on the lab tests that tend to be--most people believe are 
overused. That kind of stuff.
    So I think that--all I can tell you is that the negotiating process 
that I would support would be designed to produce an agreement that 
would be supported by the overwhelming majority of our caucus, and I 
would hope the overwhelming majority of theirs.
    If you look at the balanced budget agreement, we did a pretty good 
job. They had a slightly higher percentage of Republicans voting for it 
in the House than the Democrats, and in the Senate, we had a slightly 
higher percentage of Democrats voting for it than Republicans. But in 
both Houses, there were big, big majorities in both parties. I think to 
get an agreement, we're going to have to do that.

President's Agenda and 2000 Election

    Ms. Page. Given how important it is to you to try to win the 
Congress back, or as much as you could, for your party, do you ever feel 
personally torn about a deal versus trying to give Al Gore and the 
Democrats an issue?
    The President.  No, because I don't believe--it might help some 
individual Republicans get reelected to Congress if they voted for such 
an agreement, but I believe that for Democrats what is good policy is 
almost always the best politics. The ``do right'' rule is almost always 
best for us because we get hired to do things.
    The American people, when they vote for Democrats, they hire them. 
They give you this job and you get a contract, and your contract is 2 
years, 6 years, or 4 years if you're President. And they hire us to go 
to work every day and to do things. And I don't believe--for example, it 
didn't hurt the Democrats in 1998 that we had a big budget at the end 
where there was a compromise that a lot of Republicans voted for, and we 
got the big downpayment on 100,000 teachers and a lot of other 
educational priorities; it didn't hurt them at all.
    The only--this is not going to turn into a status quo country, and 
there are too many issues on which we are too deeply divided. If we can 
reach agreement on--and I'm not saying this could happen--if we could 
reach agreement on Medicare, Social Security, taxes, investments in 
education, and there would still be differences in 2000 on next steps in 
education, on guns, on patients' rights--even if we pass a Patients' 
Bill of Rights, there are going to be differences, unresolved 
differences--on choice, on a lot of issues.
    In other words, there will be a vibrant election-year environment in 
2000 for issues still to be decided by America that will be clear in the 
Presidential race and clear in the congressional races. Even if both 
parties--even if the Republicans join us--if you look at George Bush's 
message--it's assumed he will be nominated on this compassionate 
conservatism thing--and that both parties are competing for the dynamic 
center of America, I happen to think that's a healthy thing. If you just 
look at the real substantive differences--all just the issues I've 
mentioned, and others, we'll have plenty to fight about, argue about in 
the election.

[[Page 1260]]

    So I think that actually both parties will be better off in dealing 
with the agenda of the 21st century, if we dealt with the baby boom 
problems right now; if we dealt with Social Security and Medicare and 
committed to pay the debt down. If we did all that, the Republicans 
would still say we need more for tax cuts than maybe we get, or here's 
our next round of tax cuts, or whatever. There will be plenty to debate.

President's Medicare Modernization Plan

    Ms. Page. One last question on Medicare, before we turn to new 
markets. Senator Breaux was critical, saying your plan didn't go far 
enough by addressing structural reforms. And you, yourself, since 
``Putting People First,'' have supported things like means testing. Are 
you frustrated that politically it wasn't possible to go farther than 
you went in this Medicare plan?
    The President. No, I think--well, first of all, I think the 
structural reforms in the health care--there are two issues there. One 
is the means testing, which was not in his report, either, because some 
of the Republicans didn't go for it. I don't think that's as big a 
problem as some people do, and I'll come back to that.
    The second is an area on which we have an honest disagreement--
Breaux and Thomas and me--and it's an honest disagreement. I want there 
to be--I want the managed care Medicare people to be given the maximum 
opportunity to make their program attractive to people in the 
traditional fee-for-service program, if they can do so. In that regard, 
I go just as far as they do.
    Now, what I don't do, and I really don't think I should do, 
especially given the level of anxiety Americans have about managed 
care--even though I have imposed a Patients' Bill of Rights for 
Federally-funded programs, so our guys, our Medicare people, get the 
Patients' Bill of Rights--what I don't do that they do is, I don't 
permit a level of what they call competition in the fee-for-service 
program in a way that would permit the cost of the traditional program 
to the beneficiaries to rise so rapidly that it would force people into 
managed care, whether they wanted to be there or not. That's the only 
difference. And we just have an honest, philosophical difference about 
that.
    Now, on the upper income premium issue--I ran on that in '92. I've 
never made any secret to the American people that I think that's the 
right thing to do. But it is not as compelling as it once was--and a lot 
of people have forgotten this--for one simple reason: We took the income 
limit off of the Medicare tax in the '93 Balanced Budget Act. So every 
wealthy person in America today is paying much more in Medicare taxes 
than they will use anyway. In other words, if you're making a quarter of 
a million dollars a year, you don't have that $67,000--I think it was 
$80,000 cap, something like that--you don't have that cap anymore.
    So since '93, you've been paying a great deal into the Medicare 
program. So you don't have the equity argument you used to have. One of 
the reasons that Medicare program was extended in its life, apart from 
the cost savings we effected and waste, fraud, and abuse stuff, which we 
really did better about than most of us thought we could, is that we 
took the earnings limitation off the Medicare tax. And I think that a 
lot of times people who say upper income people should pay more have 
forgotten that and forgotten just what a significant amount of money 
that is to a lot of people.

New Markets Initiative

    Ms. Page. We better turn to new markets, because we want to talk a 
little about that, too. So you're going next week from Appalachia to 
Watts. Tell us why you're doing the tour.
    The President. Well, I'm doing it first to shine the light on these 
areas in America, because I believe that we have both an obligation to 
give the communities and the neighborhoods that haven't been touched by 
the economic recovery the chance to be a part of it, to go into the new 
century with us. And secondly, because I think it is very good economic 
strategy.
    All the discussion leading up to what the Federal Reserve was going 
to do today on interest rates was all premised on the fact that we're 
having a great national debate now, because no one thought 5 years ago,

[[Page 1261]]

6 years ago, that we could possibly have average growth well in excess 
of 3 percent and unemployment under 4.5 percent without having 
inflation. So we don't have any signs of inflation, but shouldn't they 
be worried about it, since nobody really thought we could have it?
    Everyone knows that the technology explosion, especially in 
telecommunications and information technology, has dramatically 
increased productivity in ways that traditional economic models don't 
measure. But no one really believes the whole business cycle and all 
traditional economics has been repealed. So if you're sitting in my 
chair and you're asking yourself not only what would you like to do to 
make sure all these people who aren't participating get a chance to 
participate, you ask yourself a bigger question: Is there any way we 
could keep this economic recovery going, creating even more jobs, 
raising incomes even more, and not have inflation?
    And the answer is, yes, if you can either find more customers for 
American goods and services, or more workers to come in and produce more 
so they're not just being added on for the same level of production.
    Now, what are the possibilities for that? Expanded trade, which is 
why I've worked very hard to build a consensus in my own party for 
trade, plus labor and environmental standards--why I went to Geneva and 
made those speeches, why I went to the University of Chicago and all 
that--for trade.
    Two, getting more discrete populations into the work force. The most 
obvious ones in America are more people from welfare to work. Tonight I 
had Eli Segal at the fundraiser, if you listened in on that. He's now 
got 12,000 companies in this deal where we're trying to hire even hard-
to-place welfare recipients and train them. Why? Because that's adding 
to the productive capacity. You get people who are both workers and 
consumers.
    The other big discrete population are the disabled, which is why 
this thing that apparently we're going to have an overwhelming 
bipartisan majority of Congress do, which is to let disabled people keep 
their Medicaid in the work force, it's potentially a very big, positive 
contribution to long-term growth, because, again, you're creating more 
workers and more consumers.
    Now, the third big opportunity is to find what areas have not been 
fully reached with investment and jobs in growth. And that's what this 
is about. I want to emphasize--so that's the idea. Now, I want to talk 
about three things when we go there. One is I want to emphasize the 
tools that are already out there, to make sure people are making the 
most of them--the empowerment zones; the community development banks, 
including the microenterprise zones and the enterprise communities; the 
tax credits employers get now for hiring people in those areas; and the 
Community Reinvestment Act, which, as you know, had been on the books 
for over 20 years, but over 95 percent of all the lending under the 
Community Reinvestment Act has been done during our administration. We 
really pushed it. So we'll do a little of that, hear things that are 
working now.
    The second thing I want to do is to point out that one of the 
reasons there hasn't been more investment in these areas is that there 
is imperfect knowledge on the part of the American business and 
investment community. They don't know what a good deal it is. The head 
of Aetna insurance company, when we went to Atlanta, when we did our 
pre-trip--on the way back he was ragging me. He said, ``You know, I'm 
the only guy here who's not happy we did this, because,'' he said, ``I'd 
already figured all this out by myself, and now all my competitors are 
going to know.'' He said this is a big deal.
    I'll just give you one example. On average, there is a gap between 
purchasing power and retail sales in the inner cities of 25 percent. In 
Los Angeles, it's 35 percent. In East St. Louis, where we're going, it's 
40 percent. That's just retail sales. No small-scale manufacturing, no 
professional services, none of that other stuff, all the other things 
you could do.
    So I think there's really a lot I can do just with the bully pulpit 
and taking these business leaders around and getting them--you know, 
we're going to have bipartisan political folks there; we've got Jesse 
Jackson and Al From; we're going to have Republican and Democratic 
Congressmen and Governors

[[Page 1262]]

and all. But I think that just getting the business community to focus 
on the fact--because they're all interested in this question. What I 
want to say to them is, look, you don't just have to debate what Alan 
Greenspan is going to do--you can change the underlying reality on the 
ground if you change the economics.
    And the third thing that I want to do is to push the specific new 
markets legislation. Why? Because all these other things we've done--
even though the CRA, the Community Investment Act, is a nationwide law, 
it depends still in part on the vigors of the bankers in specific 
places. And all the other things have discreet impacts. In other words, 
we don't have a community development bank everywhere; we don't have an 
enterprise zone or empowerment community everywhere--I mean, an 
empowerment zone or an enterprise community everywhere.
    This new markets initiative basically is designed to put in place 
for the whole Nation, all distressed areas, the same incentives that we 
give America to invest in developing economies overseas. I think they 
ought to have those incentives, developing economies, at home.
    So, for example, the way this would work is let's suppose someone 
wanted to build $150 million shopping center in East St. Louis and open 
20 stores--I'm just making this up--and they started with $50 million of 
investments; they've got a $50 million investment fund. On that $50 
million they could get tax credits of 25 percent for their investment. 
They would also be able to go to the bank and borrow $100 million and 
have that $100 million subject to the Government guarantee, which would 
dramatically lower the interest rate that they would be charged to 
borrow the money, because if they defaulted on the loan, the Government 
would guarantee it. And those are the kinds of mechanisms we have in 
place now for people who invest in developing markets overseas.
    The reason that's important is, number one, unlike the empowerment 
zones, it would be nationwide. And number two, even if you had perfect 
knowledge on the part of investors, that you don't have now, there would 
be in many of these places somewhat greater risk to the investment than 
in a traditional investment. So by providing these two big incentives 
you lower the relative risk of this investment compared to others and 
make it even more attractive to do.
    But if you think about it, this is sort of my classic Third Way kind 
of approach. In the 1980's, we found out for sure that free enterprise 
alone would not develop these areas into the 1990's. In the 1960's, with 
the whole Great Society approach, it isn't true that it didn't 
accomplish anything. It accomplished a great deal. It fed people; it 
educated people; it started Head Start; it provided health care in rural 
areas; it provided some Government funding jobs. But there was no 
internal structural change that would allow a lot of these places to 
become more self-sufficient on a long-term basis.
    If we could do this and really make a big difference over the next 
few years, then when the next recession comes along in America it won't 
hit these areas as hard, because they will have, just like other places, 
some underlying economic supports, some self-sufficiency. And that means 
fewer people on the streets. It means the crime rate won't go up as 
much. It means you won't lose as many kids. It means a lot of things 
when times are tough.
    But it seems to me that there is an enormous interest in this now, 
in the business community. You can see it in the Wall Street Project 
that Jesse Jackson and Dick Grasso and others have done for the last few 
years. And you can see it in the massive commitment that--and 
NationsBank made to setting up community banks and microenterprise 
lending over the next 10 years. They made a huge commitment on their 
own.
    So there is a lot of this stuff just sort of germinating out there. 
A lot of great things have happened in our empowerment zones. A lot of 
these development banks are beginning to really show some results. But 
there is no either nationwide awareness or nationwide framework which 
could be applied to every place. And that's what the new markets 
initiative is all about.
    It's about just increasing the awareness and the attractiveness of 
these areas to the investment community and then putting in place a 
framework that would make it even

[[Page 1263]]

more attractive to invest now. And if we could get a lot of this done 
while the economy is growing, I think the benefits to America could be 
permanent. I think, in that sense, it's the perfect public/private 
partnership example that I've been trying to develop all along. I'm 
really excited about it. I'm just--it's a real dream of mine to prove 
this can be done.
    Ms. Page. You'll apparently be the first sitting President to ever 
go to an Indian reservation.
    The President.  Is that right?
    Ms. Page.  I think so.
    The President.  It's high time. I'm sorry it has taken me so long, 
because I spent a lot of time with Native American leaders. I went to 
reservations back in '92, and I spent enormous time with the leaders of 
the tribes over the last 6\1/2\ years. So I'm very excited about going.
    Ms. Page. Some people would say you've done a lot--you've focused on 
empowerment zones; you've focused on some of these problems of poverty, 
people who haven't participated in the economic good times--but that we 
haven't heard so much about it lately, '95, '96. Why now? Why is now the 
time to put this kind of spotlight on the places that remind people that 
the economic prosperity hasn't been good for everybody?
    The President.  Two reasons. One is, I think that there is a feeling 
that the prosperity of the country is broadly shared, and that's right. 
We've got the lowest minority unemployment rates we've recorded. In the 
last couple of years, we've finally started to close the inequality gap. 
We've had substantial increases in wages for people in the lower 40 
percent of our earnings. And there's a level of security about the 
direction of our economy that I think frees people in a way to think 
about those things that are still not done, because I think most 
Americans genuinely want to see everybody who is willing to work have a 
chance to participate in this.
    Secondly, I believe that it's an essential component of my effort to 
keep this economy growing without inflation, as I said. In other words, 
I think moving people from welfare to work is a moral imperative; but I 
also think it's very good for the economy. I think giving disabled 
people a chance to take their Medicaid and get in the work force is 
morally right--I also think it's very good for the economy. And I think 
this could be even better for the economy, and it's certainly morally 
right.
    We tried to do this in the past, and we've gotten kind of sporadic 
publicity for it. But we worked consistently at it. It's one of the many 
things that I asked the Vice President to lead. But he has done a superb 
job of this, and he's been systematic and disciplined. And just slowly, 
slowly, slowly over the last 6 years, I think we have completely 
satisfied that a lot of these communities, if they can get enough 
investment, can really take off and do well.
    So I think that the timing is really right now for America to think 
about this as sort of the next economic agenda.

Campaign Financing

    Ms. Page.  I know we have to leave, but speaking of economic good 
times, George Bush has raised $36 million so far in the first half of 
this year. What do you think about that? Do you think this has gotten 
out of--spiraled out of control? Or is this not--what do you think? It 
just seems like a stunning number today.
    The President. It's a big number, but you've got to remember, 
Republicans have more money than Democrats and they always promise upper 
income people bigger tax cuts. And he's the Governor of Texas; his 
brother is the Governor of Florida; and they've been out for 8 years, 
and they want in. So all those reasons mean big numbers.
    But what did he raise in Texas? Eleven million?
    Ms. Page. I don't know.
    The President. When I ran in '92--8 years ago--in a State of 2.5 
million people, with a lower per capita income and not nearly as many 
millionaires, we raised $4 million. That would be the equivalent of $20 
million or more in Texas.
    So he's got a lot going for him. He's a Governor of a State; his 
brother is a Governor of a State; his father was President. They want to 
win; they've got more money than we do anyway. So I think that it's a 
credit to--he's got good people raising that money,

[[Page 1264]]

obviously, but I'm not at all surprised they've raised that kind of 
money.

2000 Election

    Ms. Page. It's early, though, it's very early--which also raises the 
point that conventional wisdom probably told us the Democratic 
nomination would be sewed up at this point, but the Republican wouldn't 
and it's actually the opposite--it appears to be actually perhaps the 
opposite of that. What do you----
    The President.  I don't know, it just depends, you know. It 
depends--the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire will not be as influenced 
by the money, probably, just because there's only so many of them; 
there's only so much you can--but I think the real problem for all these 
guys, and one reason they can compellingly go out and raise this money--
I mean, arguably, if you're talking about the money Bradley raised, he 
was a national figure for longer than any of the other people running in 
the Republican primary, except for Elizabeth Dole--maybe she was. But 
she was in the Cabinet, but Bradley was a nationally known figure for 18 
years in the Senate, from the day he got there, and traveled the country 
extensively all that time building a network, for all 18 years. So I'm 
not particularly surprised that he's raised a good deal of money.
    But I think that--to go back to the main point--one of the reasons 
all these people can compellingly argue that they need to get out and 
raise this money early is that, unfortunately, it not only gets more and 
more expensive to advertise with every election cycle, the States at the 
back end get more and more anxiety-ridden, so they keep moving their 
dates up. So this whole thing gets more and more and more frontloaded.
    And one of the interesting things to me would be--I do not know the 
answer to this. I'll start by saying I do not known the answer to this, 
but when you write the history of this election in the primary process, 
it will be interesting to see whether or not, even though the small 
States have retained their early status, which I happen to think is 
quite a good thing--having been through it, I think it's a good thing, 
because I think it's terrible that when you get all these primaries--
people running for President from tarmac to tarmac, they will run about 
the States; they don't really listen to the people's voices, their 
concerns, and when it's all said and done, they haven't learned as much 
about the country as they should.
    If you have to run in Iowa and New Hampshire, you've got to know 
things. You've got to take time. You've got to listen and so forth. So I 
believe in that. But anyway, it will be interesting to see when the 
history is written whether you and other observers conclude that their 
relative influence has declined anyway, simply because as soon as you 
turn around, everybody else is voting.
    When is this whole thing over now? March? April? Mid-April? Keep in 
mind, on June 2nd in 1992--June 2nd--you had California, New Jersey, and 
Ohio. When are they all voting now? March?
    Ms. Page. Yes.
    The President. So I just don't know. I'm not particularly surprised 
about the amount of money anybody has raised.
    Ms. Page. Are you concerned that it's bad news for Gore?
    The President. Oh, no. I don't think that at all. I don't think that 
at all. I mean, I think the Republicans are going to raise more money 
than us. They outspent $100 million last year. They take care of their 
interest groups. The NRA's going to give them a ton of money. Look what 
they've done on the Patients' Bill of Rights. Everybody in the world 
with an opinion is for the Patients' Bill of Rights, except one, who is 
health insurance. But the health insurance might wind up giving more 
money in the election cycle than all the 200 groups that are for us. And 
so, that's the dynamic of modern politics. And their whole strategy is 
to rake in that dough and to dominate the communications.
    It does not matter in our politics if your opponent outraises you if 
you raise enough. The only issue in modern politics is whether you have 
enough. And keep in mind, in the primary process--unless Governor Bush 
is going to slow the campaign finance law and not take any matching 
funds--in the primary process, the only thing that really matters is 
whether you can raise all the money you need

[[Page 1265]]

before the first primary starts so you can rationally plan how to spend 
it during the remainder of the primary season. Because there's a ceiling 
on how much you can raise in order to get the matching funds in all of 
the campaign finance system.
    So he shouldn't--nobody else should be worried about that. The only 
people who should be worried are people who aren't going to have enough 
to get their message out, and the fact that early money normally means 
you've got big political support. What you're seeing in the Republicans 
now is a little bit what you saw in '92--we'd been out a long time, and 
we wanted to get in. And Governors can raise more money than Senators--
especially Governors of big States.
    I'm not too surprised he's got all that money. But it's not bad news 
for the Vice President, because he's doing very well and he's got all he 
needs and he's going to get his money by the time he needs it. I think 
you will--my gut feeling is that you will not see that have an 
appreciable impact on the outcome of the election.
    Ms. Page. Before he actually grabs our arm and drags us out here, I 
guess we've got to go.
    The President. I'm glad you're covering these things, though. This 
is really important. This new markets thing is big, and the Medicare 
thing is big. It gives us a chance to really do something important. 
Thanks.
    Ms. Page. Thanks a lot.
    The President. Get some sleep. I'm really sorry I kept you waiting.

Senate Seat in Arkansas

    Ms. Page. Oh, it's fine. So, can we get a firm and final no from you 
that you're not going to run for Senate? I know it sounds crazy, but 
that's not exactly a firm and final, absolute no.
    The President. Yes. I have to go out and make a living for my 
family, and that is--and I'm going to spend the first 2 years organizing 
my life, doing my memoirs, and finishing my library. That's what I'm 
going to be doing. I'm not running for the Senate. I was----
    Press Secretary Joe Lockhart. Sounds firm to me.
    The President. I don't even know where that story came from. I think 
the story--the guy that reported the story first said someone said they 
mentioned it to me and I didn't say no. I don't even remember anybody 
mentioning it to me. But it's not--I had a lot of people in Arkansas ask 
me if I'd come home and run for Governor, every time I go home. And I 
tell them that we've got to get a young crop up there and put them in 
there. I'm not in--I'm not going to do that.

Note: The interview began at 11:55 p.m., e.d.t., while en route from 
Chicago, IL, to Washington, DC. In his remarks, the President referred 
to Governors George W. Bush of Texas and Jeb Bush of Florida; Richard L. 
Huber, chairman and chief executive officer, Aetna, Inc.; civil rights 
leader Jesse Jackson; Al From, president, Democratic Leadership Council; 
Richard Grasso, chairman and chief executive officer, New York Stock 
Exchange; former Senator Bill Bradley; and former president of the 
American Red Cross, Elizabeth Dole. This interview was released by the 
Office of the Press Secretary on July 2. A tape was not available for 
verification of the content of this interview.