[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 48 (Monday, December 6, 1999)]
[Pages 2466-2469]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Prior to Departure for San Francisco, California, and an 
Exchange With Reporters

November 30, 1999

Parental Leave

    The President. Hello. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentleman. 
The people here with me at the podium are, obviously, Secretary Herman, 
but also Katie and Eric Banks and their son, Collin, of Fairfax, 
Virginia; Jonathan and Teresa Graham, and their two children, from 
Baltimore; Darsie Cahall and James Baker, and their three children, from 
Takoma Park, Maryland.
    I'll say a little more about them in a moment. You can see this is a 
family event. [Laughter] We've orchestrated the children.
    Before I leave for the World Trade Organization meeting on the West 
Coast, I want to talk a little about how we're using the strength of our 
economy to help strengthen working families.
    Yesterday I signed a budget that maintains the fiscal responsibility 
that has given us what will be in February the longest economic 
expansion in our history and at the same time lives up to the values of 
the American people. We have no higher value than family, but too many 
of our families are having trouble balancing the demands of home and 
work. Today I'm using my Executive order--authority--to give these 
parents new tools to succeed at home and on the job.
    The surging technology and soaring prosperity we currently enjoy are 
the result of a lot of hard work and very long hours by the American 
people. In fact, today many working parents are forced to make the 
unacceptable choice between being good workers and good parents. Too 
often, in our round-the-world, round-the-clock economy, there just don't 
seem to be enough hours in the day for parents to do what they need to 
do. That's why we've worked hard to help parents balance work and 
family.
    Last May I asked Secretary Herman to develop new ways to address 
this problem. Today I'm announcing a proposed Labor Department rule that 
lets States use their unemployment insurance to offer paid leave to new 
parents. This initiative is totally voluntary for States. It helps them 
empower more working parents, like the ones standing with me today. With 
this act, the United States joins the rest of the world's advanced 
economies, all of whom already have some form of paid leave for parents.
    When little Collin was born, his mother, Katie, was working as a 
waitress; his dad was working as a head electrical technician for a 
small company. Unfortunately, he was born ill and had to be in intensive 
care for several weeks. Katie took unpaid leave and eventually quit her 
job to be with her son. Collin's dad, Eric, wanted to take leave but 
couldn't afford to do so. Once Collin was well enough, Katie looked for 
and, fortunately, landed another job. But both Katie and her husband 
would have and should have been able to take paid leave to care for 
their son. That's what this parental leave initiative is all about.
    I believe giving States the flexibility to experiment with paid 
employment leave is one of the best things we can do to strengthen our 
families and help new mothers and fathers meet their responsibilities 
both at home and at work.
    State flexibility and the voluntary nature of this effort are key to 
its success. In our strong economy, we hope States will take advantage 
of this new option, and we believe those that do will balance this new 
benefit with the imperative of maintaining a fiscally sound unemployment 
insurance program.

[[Page 2467]]

    This effort builds on our commitment to giving working families more 
tools to help them adapt to the new economy, from expanding the earned-
income tax credit to our welfare-to-work efforts, from increasing 
funding for child care to HOPE scholarships.
    In the budget bill I signed yesterday, we fought for and won a 
doubling of resources for after-school programs to give young people a 
safe place to study between the end of their school day and the end of 
their parents' work day.
    I'm especially proud that the first bill I signed as President, in 
1993, was the family and medical leave law. Since then, millions of 
Americans--we believe well over 20 million--have used it to take up to 
12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a newborn or sick relative without 
losing their jobs. The importance of this benefit has been confirmed by 
the testimony of experts and parents at the first-ever White House 
Conference on Early Childhood Development, in 1997, and from groups like 
the American Academy of Pediatrics. They all reinforce what we already 
know from common sense, giving parents and primary care givers time to 
bond with children leads to healthy development including boosting 
critical language and literacy skills.
    But the current law meets just a fraction of the need. And the 
number one reason families give for not taking advantage of family and 
medical leave is that they simply can't afford to take time off without 
a paycheck. The actions we take today will go a long way toward 
alleviating that burden if the States take up the challenge. I believe 
it will strengthen parents' bonds with both their children and their 
jobs.
    As I've said, on the eve of this new century, we ought to set a goal 
that all parents can take time they need for their families, without 
losing the income they need to support them. The new State authority 
will move us in the right direction and gives another tool in our 
national efforts to both strengthen our families and reward the dignity 
of work.
    Thank you very much.

Seattle Round

    Q. Mr. President, what do you hope to achieve in Seattle at the WTO?
    The President. Well, I hope we'll get a new round launched that will 
slash tariffs and other trade barriers in agriculture and other areas. I 
hope that we will agree to keep E-commerce free of unusual burdens and 
that we will lead to more transparent and open rules among nations so 
that they believe the trading system is fair.
    I also strongly, strongly believe that we should open the process up 
to all those people who are now demonstrating on the outside. They ought 
to be a part of it. And I think we should strengthen the role and the 
interests of labor and the environment in our trade negotiations.
    This is not going to be easy to do, partly because some nations, 
particularly a lot of developing nations, see our concern for the 
environment and labor standards as a way to sort of keep them down. But 
that is not true. What we want to do is to make sure that when we open 
the trading system, that ordinary Americans benefit.
    In our country, about 30 percent of our growth has come from 
expanded trade. We have kept inflation down because we've kept our 
markets open and other people have been able to sell good quality 
products at lower prices in our markets. So we've had this huge growth 
with low inflation. I just want to make sure that ordinary people 
everywhere are benefited by the trading system and that the economy is 
not damaged by trading rules that could put short-term economic 
considerations over long-term environmental considerations.
    So I'm very sympathetic with a lot of the causes being raised by all 
the people that are there demonstrating. And since this has now become a 
global society with global communications, as well as a global economy, 
I think it was unrealistic to assume that for the next 50 years, trade 
could be like it's been for the last 50, primarily the province of 
business executives and political leaders. I think more people are going 
to demand to be heard, and I think that's a good thing.

Deaths Due to Medical Mistakes

    Q. Mr. President, yesterday a report documented the problem of 
medical mistakes, and said that 44,000 Americans, at least, are killed 
every year because of these medical

[[Page 2468]]

mistakes. What's your reaction to that, and is there anything that your 
administration is planning to do about it?
    The President. Well, you may remember that we had a task force a 
couple of years ago, headed by Secretary Herman and Secretary Shalala, 
which issued, in fact, two reports: One of them recommended the 
Patients' Bill of Rights; the other set up a quality commission to deal 
with problems like this.
    If you looked at it, to me, one of the most interesting things was 
that a lot of these hospitals, which are very overcrowded and have 
people coming in all the time and have doctors seeing all kinds of 
patients in rapid successions, have people lose their lives because of 
improper prescriptions of medicine, not knowing about a patient's 
allergy or not knowing about what other medication they're taking. 
That's a--and I think that we have an opportunity here to work with the 
public-private partnership which the task force set up to use modern 
technology, information technology, and to also do some basic old-
fashioned changes in procedures that will save a lot of these lives.
    I'm convinced we can do that. I talked yesterday, on the Patients' 
Bill of Rights, to one of the leading managed care providers in the 
country and suggested that they ought to be helping, too, and they 
agreed with that. We've all got to get together. No one has an interest 
in seeing these kinds of mistakes made. And we know that otherwise 
competent people are making a lot of these mistakes. So we've got to 
work through how we can use technology and how we can maybe even slow 
some of the actions to make sure that mistakes like this aren't made.
    But I think we need--this is a very welcome report; we need to study 
it very carefully. And in order to get something done on it, it's going 
to take a partnership of everybody involved in health care.

Russia

    Q. Mr. President, there's been yet another case of espionage from 
Russia. Are you concerned that there's some sort of epidemic of spying 
going on? And what does this say about U.S.-Russian relations?
    The President. From where? From Russia? Well, I think what we should 
do is investigate this like we do all others. But I don't think we 
should stop our efforts to try to drastically cut nuclear weapons or end 
corruption in Russia or do all the other things we're supporting. I 
think this shows the importance of our work that the Congress ratified 
to continue to reduce the nuclear weapons in Russia and the nuclear 
threat associated with the decommissioning of nuclear weapons.
    And I think that what we have to do is continue--we have to deal 
with espionage firmly, but we need to try to reduce the consequences of 
error and mistakes and wrongdoing.
    Q. What do you hear about Yeltsin's health?
    The President. I think it's a case of pneumonia. That's what they 
said. I checked on it yesterday, and they believe that he'll be all 
right.

Mass Graves in Mexico

    Q. Mr. President, the Mexican Attorney General is reportedly saying 
that 22 Americans are among those found in the mass graves. Have you 
received any official word?
    The President. No. I asked about it just before I came out here, 
actually, and I haven't. It's a horrible example, apparently, of the 
excesses of the drug dealing cartels in Mexico, and I think it 
reinforces the imperative of our not only trying to protect our border 
but to work with the Mexican authorities to try to combat these.
    You know, we had a lot of success a few years ago in taking down a 
number of the Colombian drug cartels, and one of the adverse 
consequences of that was a lot of the operations were moved north into 
Mexico. And there are organized criminal operations there, and they are 
particularly vicious. You may remember that in that same area a couple 
of years ago, an honest and brave Mexican prosecutor was shot over a 
hundred times in front of his wife and child. So it's a very violent, 
dangerous thing, and we have to be on top of it.
    Thank you.

[[Page 2469]]

Panama Canal

    Q. Mr. President, why aren't you going to Panama? I mean, it's a 
major event in history.
    The President. Well, first of all, I have taken, and may have to 
take--I've already taken, I think, a dozen foreign trips this year. It 
is a major event. I think my interest in Latin America is well-known, 
but I may have to take yet another trip before the end of the year, and 
about that time, which is why I asked President Carter and Secretary 
Albright to head our delegation.
    I think that President Carter deserves enormous credit for his 
leadership in getting the Panama Canal Treaty through. It was, at the 
time, as you remember, very controversial, immensely unpopular. A lot of 
Members in the Senate were--had their seats put in peril over it. And I 
think it----
    Q. So you're not against the turnover?
    The President. Oh, no. I supported it at the time, and I still 
support it. I think it's the right thing to do. I think that the new 
Government of Panama is committed to maintaining the canal in an 
appropriate way and keeping it open and working with us to do so, and 
having good relations.
    So no one in Panama or anywhere in Latin America should draw any 
adverse conclusion. We have a lot of things going on in the world now. 
I've been out of the country a lot. I need to get ready for the new 
Congress and the new budget, and I may have to take another foreign trip 
at about the same time, which is why I have not committed to make the 
trip. But I think----
    Q. What, which one?
    The President. I can't talk about it. [Laughter] But I think--I do 
think that Jimmy Carter deserves to lead our delegation down there. He 
did a historic and great thing in advocating the Panama Canal Treaty. 
But the people of Panama should know that this President and our 
Government strongly support both the treaty and the event, which will 
occur in a few days.
    Q. You're not worried about the Chinese controlling the canal?
    The President. I think the Chinese will, in fact, be bending over 
backwards to make sure that they run it in a competent and able and fair 
manner. This is like them, is like China coming into the WTO. I think 
they'll want to demonstrate to a distant part of the world that they can 
be a responsible partner, and I would be very surprised if any adverse 
consequences flowed from the Chinese running the canal.

President's Possible Visit to Ireland

    Q. When are you going to Ireland?
    The President. I don't know. You know, I'd like to go once a month.

Note: The President spoke at 9:20 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to President Boris Yeltsin of Russia.