



			   THE WHITE HOUSE

		    Office of the Press Secretary

_____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                 April 13, 1994 

		       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
	     TO THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NEWSPAPER EDITORS

			    J.W. Marriott
			  Washington, D. C. 
	     
	     

12:31 P.M. EDT


	     THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much, Bill, for the 
introduction.  And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the 
invitation to come by again.  
	     
	     I can't help noting some satisfaction that the president 
of this organization is not only the editor of the Oregonian, which 
endorsed my candidacy in 1992 -- the first time it ever endorsed a 
Democrat for President.  I hope they haven't had second thoughts.  
(Laughter.)  He also spent the first eight years of his life in 
Arkansas, which didn't seem to do him too much harm.  (Laughter.)
	     
	     I am delighted to be here.  I want to make a few remarks 
and then open the floor to questions.  We probably have some things 
in common -- both of us battle, from time to time, with reporters.  
(Laughter.)  And I recently did some light editing on my mother's 
autobiography, so I appreciate the difficulty of editing things.  It 
was a little easier for me -- my mother, when she got very ill, I 
said, what are we going to do if you don't finish your book?  She 
said, you finish it, don't touch anything I said about you --
(laughter); check the facts, don't let me be too hard on the living.  
So it was easier for me than it was for you.  
	     
	     But let me say I've been thinking about it a lot lately 
because it gave me a chance to relive a period in American history 
that spanned my mother's life, as well as my own, starting in the 
Depression.  In many ways, like everybody's family, her life was 
unique.  But it was in many ways like that of so many people who grew 
up in the Depression and World War II, and exemplified and made 
possible the rise of the American middle class.  
	     
	     Most of those people were obsessed with working hard and 
taking care of their families and building a better future for their 
children; and they never doubted they could do it.  There's a reason, 
I think, we ought to think about that today -- and that is that there 
are a lot of people who doubt that we can continue to do it.
	     
	     Our mission at this moment in history, I believe, is to 
ensure the American Dream for the next generation -- to bring the 
American people together; to move our country forward; to make sure 
the middle class grows and survives well into the 21st century.
	     
	     My mother's generation knew what we are learning, and 
that is that the preservation of these kinds of dreams is not as 
simple as just talking about it.  She had to leave home after she was 
widowed to further her education so she could make a good living.  
And my earliest memory as a child is of my grandmother taking me to 
see my mother in New Orleans when she was in school and then seeing 
her cry when I left the train station as a little child.
	     
	     But our generation is full of parental stories about the 
sacrifices that were made for us so that we could do better.  And all 
of us in this room have been exceedingly fortunate in that regard.  
The generation that our parents were a part of built the houses, the 
schools, educated the children that built the explosion of American 
energy and industry after the second world war.
	     
	     Underneath the magnificent material mileposts, which 
left us with only 6 percent of the world's population then and 40 
percent of the world's economic output was a set of values.  They 
believed we had to work hard; that we had a duty to do right by our 
community and our neighbors; that we were obliged to take 
responsibility for ourselves and our families.  Without those values, 
the successes would not have occurred, and nothing else passed on to 
us would amount to much for we would quickly squander whatever 
material benefits we had.
	     
	     Most of my mother's generation, at least that I knew, 
would never have put it this way, but they lived by a creed that I 
was taught by a professor of western civilization at Georgetown, who 
told me that the great secret of Western Civilization in general, and 
the United States of America specifically was, that always at every 
moment in time, a majority of us had believed that the future could 
be better than the present, and that each of us had a personal, moral 
responsibility to make it so.  In pursuit of that dream, the 
Americans in this century have made a solemn bargain with their 
government -- government should work to help those who help 
themselves.
	     
	     Forty-nine years ago today, Harry Truman spent his first 
full day as President of the United States.  No one ever did more to 
honor that solemn bargain.  After World War II, our country chose the 
course of confidence not cynicism, building a stable world economy in 
which we could flourish -- with the Marshall Plan and the General 
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which we have just concluded the 
Uruguay Round.  
	     
	     We lifted a majority of our people into the middle 
class, not by giving them something for nothing, but by giving them 
the opportunity to work hard and succeed.   In just two months, we'll 
celebrate the 50th anniversary of the G.I. Bill of Rights, which 
helped more than 20 million American veterans to get an education, 
and millions more to build businesses and homes.  
	     
	     These great achievements did not belong to any 
particular party.  They were American decisions.  They were not the 
reflection of a country pulled to the right or to the left, but a 
country always pushing forward.  They reflected the vision and the 
values of leaders of both parties.  After Truman, Eisenhower 
continued the tradition by building the interstate highway system and 
by investing in the space program and science and technology and in 
education.  The tradition continued in the next administrations, all 
working toward greater prosperity but rooted in certain values that 
enabled us to go forward.
	     
	     But the seeds of our new difficulties that we face in 
such stark reality today were sown beginning three decades ago, and 
changes in our social fabric, and two decades ago in changes in our 
general economic condition.  We have seen the weakening slowly of the 
institutions and the values which built the middle class and the 
economic underpinnings which made it possible in theory, at least, 
for all Americans to achieve it.
	     
	     Three decades ago, in 1960, births outside of marriage 
were 5.3 percent of total children born.  In 1980, the rate had risen 
to 18.4 percent; in 1990, to 28 percent.  There are many of those who 
say, well, Mr. President, you're overstating the case because the 
birth rate among married couples has dropped so much.  It may be.  
All I know is that those kids are our future, and the trends are 
inescapable and disturbing.  And the rates for teen mothers in 
poverty and for all mothers without a high school education of out-
of-wedlock birth rates are far, far higher than the 28 percent that I 
just said.  
	     
	     The fear of violent crime has made neighbors seem like 
strangers.  And as Senator Pat Moynihan of New York has said, 
Americans have begun to "define deviancy down."  We're simply getting 
used to things that we never would have considered acceptable just a 
few years ago.
	     
	     In the post-war economy, a high school diploma meant 
security.  By the time of the 1990 census, it was clear that a high 
school diploma meant you'd probably be in a job where your income 
would not even keep up with inflation.  Most middle-class families 
have to work longer hours to stay even.  The average working family 
in 1992 was spending more hours on the job than it did in 1969.  And 
in too many neighborhoods, the vacuum that has been created by the 
absence of work and community and family has been filled by crime and 
violence and drugs.  
	     
	     In the 1980s, the world continued to change dramatically 
economically.  And I would argue that, in general, our collective 
response to it was wrong; even though many of our best companies made 
dramatic productivity gains which are benefitting us today.  We 
reduced taxes for some Americans -- mostly the wealthy Americans --
and we increased the deficit.  But increases in Social Security taxes 
and state and local taxes put further strains on middle-class 
incomes.  From 1981 to 1993, our nation's debt quadrupled, while job 
creation and the general living standard of the wage-earning middle 
class stagnated or declined.
	     
	     So we have these problems that, let's face it, brought 
me to the presidency in 1992 -- the abjective conditions that 
Americans were groping to come to grips with.  You can be proud that 
so many newspapers have done so much to not only call attention to 
these problems but to make them really real in the lives of people 
and to cry out for new thinking.  
	     
	     In its remarkable series, "America:  What Went Wrong," 
the Philadelphia Inquirer showed how the national government's 
policies had undermined the middle class already under stress by a 
global economy.  Of all the facts cited by Donald Bartlett and James 
Steele, one stood out to me.  In 1952 it took the average worker a 
day of work to pay the closing costs on a home in the Philadelphia 
suburbs.  In the 1990s. it took 18 weeks.
	     
	     The Chicago Tribune on its front page underscored the 
epidemic of violence killing so many of our children and robbing so 
many others of their childhood.  The Los Angeles Times explored the 
loss of a sense of community that prompted the riots there two years 
ago.  Recently when I was in Detroit for the jobs conference, the 
papers there talked about the changing job market and the state that 
was the automobile capital of the world -- the good and the bad 
dislocations that have occurred and what was working.
	     
	     Recently in the Pulitzer Prizes, which were awarded 
yesterday, I noted that Bill Raspberry got a well-deserved Pulitzer 
for his commentaries on social and political subjects.  And Isabel 
Wilkerson's report on children growing up in the inner city in New 
York -- The New York Times won.  
	     
	     Our administration owes a special debt to Eileen 
Welsome's series in the Albuquerque Tribune exposing secret 
governmental radiation experiments conducted decades ago which have 
consequences today.  And I'm proud of the openness that the Secretary 
of Energy, Hazel O'Leary has brought to the Energy Department in 
dealing with this. 
	     
	     There are lots of other things I could mention -- the 
Akron Beacon Journal's examination of race relations there.  The 
Minneapolis Star Tribune's editorial board hosted me the other day, 
and I had one of the most searching and rewarding discussions of the 
health care conditions in our country that I have had in a long time.
	     
	     Every day, you are challenging us to think and to care 
through your newspapers.  My job is to act.  As I travel the country, 
I see that that is basically what people want us to do.  They want us 
to be careful; they know we live in a cynical age and they're 
skeptical that the government would even mess up a one-car parade.  
But they want us to act.
	     
	     The future of our American leadership depends upon what 
we do at home, but also what we do abroad.  Last year among the most 
important developments were the trade agreements -- the NAFTA 
agreement, the GATT agreement, the historic meeting we had with the 
leaders of the Asian Pacific communities.  But we have a lot of 
problems, too.  By attempting to come to grips with them in a world 
increasingly disorderly, we hope to preserve an environment in which 
America can grow and Americans can flourish.
	     
	     Whether it is in addressing North Korea's nuclear 
program, which protects not only our troops on the Peninsula, but 
ultimately the interests of all Americans; or supporting reforms in 
the Soviet Union, which helps to destroy missiles once aimed at us 
and to create new market opportunities for the future; or by 
harnessing NATO's power and the service of diplomacy in troubled 
Bosnia, which will help to prevent a wider war and contain a flood of 
refugees.  Our efforts to stop the shelling of Sarajevo and the 
attacks on Gorazde, to bring the Serbs back to the negotiating table, 
to build on the agreement made by the Croats and the Bosnian Muslims, 
enhanced both Europe's security and our own.
	     
	     Here at home, for the past 15 months, we have focused on 
starting the engines of upward mobility -- to try to make sure we can 
remember the values of the so-called "forgotten middle class" with an 
economic plan that is fair -- with cuts that are real, investments 
that are smart, a declining deficit and growing jobs.  
	     
	     Last year,  our budget cut 340 programs, including most 
major entitlements.  This year, the budget calls for cutting 379 
programs, including the outright elimination of a hundred of them.  
As we cut unneeded programs, we're investing more in education, in 
medical research, in the technologies of tomorrow that create jobs 
now -- whether in defense conversion or in environmental sciences.
	     
	     We're fighting for a revitalized Clean Water Act -- a 
safe drinking water act, a reformed superfund program.  All of them 
will clean the environment, but they will also create the jobs of 
tomorrow, everybody from engineers to pipefitters.
	     
	     As April 15th approaches, people will see that I did 
tell the truth last year about our economic program -- 1.2 percent of 
Americans will pay more in income taxes, including me and some others 
in this room.  All that money will go to reduce the deficit.  One-
sixth of America's workers will get an income tax cut this year 
because they are working hard and raising children but hovering 
around the poverty line.  And we are attempting to reward work over 
welfare, and to prove that people even in this tough, competitive 
environment can be successful workers and successful parents.  That's 
why the Earned Income Tax Credit was expanded so much.  I believe it 
was the right thing to do.
	     
	     The economic plan creates new opportunities to send 
people to college by lowering the interest rates and broadening the 
eligibility for college loans and then changing the terms of 
repayment so that young people can pay them back as a percentage of 
their earnings regardless of how much they borrow.
	     
	     There is in this economic plan a new business capital 
gains tax rewarding investments to the long-term people who make new 
investments for five years or more will get a 50 percent tax cut in 
the tax rate.  And a 70 percent increase in the small business 
expensing provision -- something that's been almost entirely 
overlooked -- which makes 90 percent of the small businesses in the 
United States of America -- those with taxable incomes of under 
$100,000 -- eligible for an income tax cut.
	     
	     The economy has generated a 20 percent increase in auto 
sales and 2.5 million new jobs -- 90 percent of these new jobs are in 
the private sector.  That's a far higher percentage than the new jobs 
of the '80s.  
	     
	     The combination of declining deficits -- which will 
amount to three years in a row if this budget is adopted -- we'll 
have three years of reclining deficits in a row for the first time 
since Harry Truman was the President of the United States.  And it 
has produced steady growth and low inflation, leading many of our 
most respected economists, from the Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, to 
Alan Sinai, to say that our economy and its fundamentals has the best 
prospects it's had in two to three decades.  Inflation is projected 
to be lower this year than last year.  We've come a long way.
	     
	     But there's a long way to go.  There's still too many 
people out of work; too many people working for low wages; too many 
people who know that they can work harder and harder and harder and 
they still won't have the opportunity of doing better.  And there are 
too many people who are left out altogether, living in environments 
that are, at worst, downright dangerous.
	     
	     Our country is more than an economy; it is a community 
of shared values -- values which have to be strengthened.  This year, 
we are working on things that will both strengthen the economy and 
strengthen our community.  We're working on a welfare system which 
will continue to reward work and family and encourage people and, in 
some cases, require people to move from welfare to work through 
welfare reform.
	     
	     We are working on lobbying and campaign forms which, if 
the Congress will pass them, and I believe they will, will help us to 
change the culture of Washington in a very positive way.  The 
National Service program this year will have 20,000 young people 
earning money for their college educations by solving the problems of 
this country in a grass roots fashion in their communities or in 
others all across America.  And the year after next we'll have 
100,000 young people doing that.
	     
	     The Vice President's reinventing government program has 
been a dramatic example of giving us a government that will work 
better for less by slashing paperwork and regulations; and, again, if 
this budget is adopted -- thanks to the work already done by the 
Congress -- will lead us, in a five-year period, to a reduction of 
the federal government by 252,000 workers; in a six-year period, by 
272,000 period; so that in the end of five years, we will have the 
smallest federal government since the 1960s -- the early '60s.   I'll 
tell you what we're going to do with the money in a minute.
	     
	     But we are moving in the right direction.  The health 
care reform debate is a big part of that.  I know there's a lot of 
good in our health care system -- we don't want to mess with it, we 
want to fix what's wrong.  But nobody who has seriously analyzed it 
can doubt that we have the worst and the most inefficient system of 
financing health care of any of the advanced countries.  No other 
country spends more than 10 percent of its economy on health care --
we spend 14.5 percent of our income.  Part of that's because we're 
more violent; part of it's because we have high rates of AIDS; part 
of it's for good reasons -- we spend more on medical research and 
technology, and we wish to continue to do that.  No one would give up 
that premium.  It's an important part of our world leadership and our 
global economy.  Indeed, we need to find ways to do more in some of 
these areas -- in biotechnology, for example.  
	     
	     But a part of it stems from the fact that we have a 
system which is plainly inefficient; and which, in paperwork burdens 
alone, may cost as much as a dime on the dollar more than any other 
system in the world.  We are also the only advanced country in the 
world that has not figured out how to provide health care to all its 
citizens.  Everybody else has figured out how to do it.  The result 
of that is that almost all of you work for companies that pay too 
much for your health care; because when people who don't have health 
insurance get real sick, they tend to get health care when it's too 
late, too expensive, at the emergency room; and they pass the cost on 
to the rest of you in higher premiums.  If you live in rural areas 
where the costs can't be passed along, the cost is passed along in 
another way -- in lower quality of health care when the hospital 
closes or the clinic close or the last doctor moves away.
	     
	     Eighty one million Americans live in families with 
someone with a preexisting condition, who's been sick before; so that 
they pay too much for insurance, can't get it, or can never change 
jobs.  This is an important part of rebuilding a faith in the middle 
class.  It's no accident that the First Lady and I have received a 
million letters that people -- telling us their personal stories.  
They aren't pikers, they're people who have paid their dues, who work 
hard, who want to make something of themselves in this country.  And 
because of the way we finance health care, they haven't been able to 
do it.
	     
	     The education initiatives of our administration are 
important in this regard.  The Goals 2000 bill I just signed for the 
first time in American history sets national standards of world class 
excellence in education and encourages schools to use grass roots 
reforms to achieve them.  The student loan reforms will open college 
education to more young people than ever before. 
	     
	     And finally this year we're going to try to change the 
unemployment system into a reemployment system.  All of you as 
employers pay unemployment taxes into a system that is fundamentally 
broken.  The average person when laid off was called back after a 
period to his or her old job when the unemployment system was 
created.  And the unemployment system was just sort of a fair way for 
the employer to contribute to the maintenance of that person at a 
lower wage level while on unemployment.  But today most people don't 
get called back to their old jobs.  Instead they have to find new 
ones.  And we should no longer ask people to pay for a system that 
leaves people idle for a period of months after which they're out of 
work with no training, no skill and not a good prospect for the 
future.  So we believe from the day a person is unemployed, he or she 
should be involved in a retraining and a new job placement program 
immediately.  It will cut the period of unemployment; it will 
increase the national income; and it will certainly honor the values 
of the American middle class if we change this system.
	     
	     For all of this, there is still a lot of things -- maybe 
the most important things about America -- that government can't do.  
Nothing has reminded me more of that than the headlines in today's 
Washington Post.  I'm sure you saw the story.  Two 10-year-old boys 
were taken into custody yesterday in an elementary school not far 
from here just across the line in Maryland.  They were charged with 
planning to sell crack cocaine found in one of their school bags.  
Even in this jaded age, most everybody, including the school 
officials at the school, were shocked.
	     
	     We can do a lot of things to put this country back where 
it belongs.  We can and must pass the crime bill to deal with a lot 
of these problems.  It's a good crime bill -- 100,000 more police 
officers; a ban on 28 kinds of assault weapons; the most innovative 
prevention programs we have ever supported at the national level to 
try to keep young kids out of trouble and give them something to say 
yes to as well as things to say no to; tougher punishment in what I 
think are sensible ways.  And how are we going to pay for it -- $22 
billion over five years?  With a $250,000 reduction in the federal 
work force, not with a tax increase.
	     
	     But even if you do that, we cannot live the lives of 
children for them.  So every one of us -- every parent, every 
teacher, every person has to somehow find a way to reach these kids 
before it's too late.  Somehow the young people who make it know that 
they're important; they understand that their lives matter; they 
understand that there can be a future; they think about the future in 
terms of what happens five or 10 years or 20 years from now instead 
of what happens five or 10 minutes from now.  They understand that 
they have to fight to find ways other than violence to solve their 
problems or deal with their frustrations.  They have to come to 
understand that children having children is just wrong, and can't 
lead to anything good for them; that drugs will ruin their lives.  
We've got a lot of kids now who are beginning to creep back into drug 
use just because they think it's hopeless out there.  We have to 
change that, and we have to help them change that.  And a government 
program, alone, cannot do it.  We have to do it with the kinds of 
things you do with these special reportings in your newspaper, and 
galvanizing and organizing people all over this country, community by 
community.
	     
	     Finally, let me just say this.  A couple of nights ago, 
we marked the end of the year honoring the 250th birthday of Thomas 
Jefferson.  For you as journalists, of course, his commitment to 
freedom of expression was his greatest gift to us.  I don't know how 
many journalists I've had quote Jefferson's famous line that if he 
had to choose a government without newspapers, or newspapers without 
a government, he would unhesitatingly choose the latter.  My response 
is always, he said that before he became President.  (Laughter.)
	     
	     But there's a line, or a lesson, that we often overlook.  
Jefferson was also a slaveholder, even though he wrote three or four 
times in various places attempts to limit slavery, or do away with 
it.  If you go to the Jefferson Memorial, you find that wonderful 
quote when he says, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God 
is just and his justice cannot sleep forever."  He knew it was wrong, 
but he couldn't change it.  
	     
	     But Jefferson's great legacy, in some ways, was the 
advocacy of relentless change.  He said that we'd have to change our 
whole way of doing things once every generation or so.  He said the 
Earth belongs to the living.  In other words, the great power of the 
idea that change and progress is possible if rooted in fixed 
principles is really the idea we need to bring to American life 
today.
	     
	     We all share the responsibility in achieving that kind 
of change and progress.  I think we have got to get together.  We've 
got to go on with the work before us.  We cannot afford to be 
diverted or divided in this town.  We cannot afford to ignore the 
urgent tasks at hand.  And we cannot afford to ignore the possibility 
that we can really make a difference; that we can ensure for the next 
generation of children the values and the life that were given to us 
by the generation which preceded us.  And that, I submit to you, is 
the job of the President and the job of the American people in 1994.  
	     
	     Thank you very much.  (Applause.)
	     
			    *  *  *  *  *
	     
	     Q    The President has agreed to take questions, but I 
want you to remember the ground rules for ASNE.  You must be a member 
of this organization.  And you must identify yourself and the 
newspaper with which you represent or the company.  We have three 
mikes on the floor, and I will start over to my right.
	     
	     Q    Mr. President -- could it be that our abused 
children and youth delinquency and crime is merely a symptom?  And if 
it is a symptom of an epidemic of adult delinquency and abuse, when 
can we really get to the problem of addressing the disease instead of 
the symptom?
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I think -- in some ways I think it 
is a symptom.  I think it is the outgrowth -- if you think about what 
makes all societies work -- basically what makes societies work, what 
makes them function, what guarantees a healthy environment -- it is 
basically a devotion to the family unit; a devotion to the idea that 
everybody ought to have some useful work to perform; and an 
understanding that while the rights of individuals are important, the 
interest of the community at large are important, too; and that all 
of us find most personal fulfillment when we live in a community that 
itself is succeeding.  So we have obligations to a larger community.
	     
	     If you go to the places that are in the worst trouble in 
America today, all three of those things are in deep distress -- not 
very much sense of community, not very much work, and families in 
ruins.
	     
	     And what I'm trying to do, sir, is to try to create an 
environment in which we support family, work and community, both with 
incentives for people to do the right thing, like giving a tax break 
to working people so they won't feel that they'd be better off on 
welfare -- they're hovering at the poverty line; to dealing with the 
kinds of things that Secretary Cisneros dealt with when he spent the 
night in the Robert Taylor Homes Project of Chicago the other night 
-- trying to find ways for the people who live in public housing to 
be secure, to build their own communities, take control of their own 
destiny and to be safe from that.  
	     
	     But I agree with you, I think a lot of these problems we 
identify are the consequences of the fundamental stress on those 
three things -- work, family and community.
	     
	     Q    Mr. President -- we know if truth be told that 
presidents tend to think of the press as an interest group on bad 
days -- self-absorbed and self-interested.  But from this side of the 
velvet rope, we like to think of ourselves as guardians of the public 
interest and watchdogs, and it's in that spirit that I ask this 
question.
	     
	     I'd like to  know what more can be done, from your point 
of view, to open up the government to the people?  And specifically, 
what can be done with the new technologies of FOIA, Freedom of 
Information Act, which is now -- government records are now 
electronic, and we need access to those records in order to do our 
jobs to tell the people how you are conducting your affairs.
	     
	     And furthermore, we know problems in the world will not 
go away.  Our soldiers will be involved and our press must go with 
them.  We've seen some deterioration in Pentagon policies over 
access.  In keeping with the needs of military security, what can you 
do to further democracy and to put yourself behind the idea of an 
open government that is responsive to press needs?
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, first of all, I think I mentioned 
one example in my opening remarks.  And that is, I think that the 
Energy Department is doing quite a good job in dealing with the whole 
radiation issue.  We also have under the review all the sort of, the 
secrecy rules of government; and we expect to change them and make 
available a lot more records than have been available in the past.  
	     
	     You made a specific comment about technology, and 
whether technology can be used to facilitate this.  And we do have a 
couple people at the White House -- and unfortunately, I'm not one of 
them -- who know a whole lot about this.  And we've tried to use 
things like E-mail more, and things like that.  But I have -- that's 
one of the things that I've asked our people to study, is how we can 
use this so-called information superhighway to hook the news media of 
the country into the government more for things that are plainly 
available anyway, and whether that could be facilitated.  Just the 
technological transfers, I think, would make a big difference.
	     
	     On the fourth question, I can't give you a satisfactory 
answer because I haven't made up my own mind yet, and I don't think I 
know enough to make a decision; and that is, the relationship of the 
press to our military operations in time of combat.  I'm not 
rebuffing you, I'm just telling you I have not thought it through, 
and I don't know what my options are.
	     
	     But on the other three things, I think we're in accord, 
and I will try to do a little more work on the whole issue of 
technology transfer and interconnection.  And I think we are moving 
forward to open more records.
	     
	     Q    Mr. President -- two years ago this week while you 
were in Peoria, walking the picket lines at Catepillar, Inc., you 
called upon President Bush to bring the conflicting parties to the 
White House, to the Oval Office, to try to resolve the conflict.  You 
said that it was the appropriate thing for the President to do.  The 
conflict remains unresolved and another strike may be imminent.  I 
wonder whether you think presidential intervention is still 
appropriate, and what form that might take?
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we have worked hard through the 
Executive Branch to resolve other labor disputes, as you know, 
including the one involving the airlines recently.  So I am not 
averse to that.  But if you'll remember, at the time I said that 
there was an actual strike in place that was of significant duration 
for a company -- Caterpillar -- that is very important to this whole 
country.  A lot of you may not know this -- Caterpillar has as much 
as 80 percent of the Japanese market for some of its products.  It's 
a very, very important company. 
	     
	     And so, I guess what I have to tell you is if the strike 
occurs and if it is of significant duration, and if there is 
something that I think we can do about it, I would be glad to look 
into that.  But what I have tried to do on all labor disputes is not 
to prematurely intervene -- there is no strike at this moment -- not 
to prematurely intervene, and to take it on a case by case basis 
depending on what the national interest is, and whether or not there 
is a positive role we could play.  In the case of the airlines, there 
was; and one or two other cases -- a railroad issue, and several 
others -- there have been something we could do.  And, if it happens, 
you can be sure that I will look into very closely.
	     
	     Q    Many columnists and editorial writers graded your 
administration after your first year in office.  Turnabout is fair 
play; therefore what grades to you give the press for one -- it's 
performance in covering your administration generally; and, two, it's 
coverage of Whitewater, in particular.  (Laughter.)
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, let me first of all say, the grade 
that they gave me is not as important to me as the grade, sort of 
objective criteria, that many of the journals here went through --
just how much did we get done last year as compared with previous 
first-year presidencies.  And all the objective analysis concluded 
that we had the best first year in a generation, in 30 years or more; 
just in terms of the volume and significance and difficulty of 
legislative achievements and advances.  So I felt quite good about 
that, and that's how I measured my own.
	     
	     Secondly, if I could grade the press, I wouldn't. 
(Laughter.)  Especially not now.  (Laughter.)  But let me just say -- 
let me make three points very quickly about it -- either in general 
or on Whitewater.  If you have any doubts about it, then that's good 
because you ought to be having doubts about things like this.  But I 
want to make three points.  One is, you can't generalize about the 
press today.  You probably never could generalize about the press.  
But, believe me, it is far harder to generalize about it than ever 
before.  There is no way you can do that.
	     
	     Secondly, I think it is -- the press, at least in this 
town, is very different from most of the press outside this town in 
terms of what -- how they work and what's important and all of that.  
But they are under more competitive and other pressures today than 
ever before.  I said last night at the Radio and TV Correspondents 
Dinner that the Founding Fathers had two points of untrammeled 
freedom in our set-up.  One was given to the Supreme Court and the 
lower federal courts -- that is, they had lifetime jobs.  And they 
got that because somebody had to make a final decision.  They have 
limited power, but ultimate freedom.  So they have to be careful not 
to abuse their freedom.  The other was the press, because nobody 
could think of any practical way to limit the press.  And, in fact, 
the limits have become less, not more, with the weakening of the 
libel laws over time. 
	     
	     And I just think that always, any kind of unrestricted 
freedom imposes great responsibility on people.  And what happens 
here is, when you've got -- for example, you've got all these 
different new outlets; you've got all these channels; you've got all 
this time to fill; you have all this competition now from the 
tabloids; you have the highly-motivated political outlets posing as 
news media, but not really, trying to affect what the news media do.  
It is more difficult to be responsible now than ever before.  It is a 
bigger challenge than ever before.
	     
	     The third thing I would say is, while I am in no 
position to comment on this, you ought to read what Garrison Keillor 
said last night at the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner.  
It was a stunning speech.  I have never heard anyone speak that way 
to a group of media people.  He obviously was from the heart and he 
said some very thoughtful things.  And I -- if you really care about 
the issue, I would urge you to read what he said.  I could not add 
anything to what he said last night.
	     
	     Q    That's an A-plus answer.  (Laughter.)
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Thanks. 
	     
	     Q    Mr. President, the people in my readership area 
seem to believe that health care is in need of reform, but nobody can 
seem to agree on just how to reform it.  I'd like to -- a veteran 
wrote in to us, and I'd like to ask this question on behalf of that 
veteran.  He said if you ever want to see an example of why 
government should not run the health care system, look at the way the 
Veterans Administration runs its hospitals.  Could you respond to 
that veteran?
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  That's why we don't recommend a 
government run the health care system.  But there are -- I have two 
responses to that.  First of all, our plan does not provide for 
government-run health care.  In fact, that's very rare in the world.  
The British system is the only one where the government actually 
delivers the health care, just about.  There are some other systems, 
like the Canadian system, where the government finances it all.  We 
have government-financed health care through the Medicare program.  
Most people think it's pretty good who are on it.  But it's all --you 
know, if you are on Medicare, you get to choose your own doctor; it's 
all private care -- all private.
	     
	     The veterans hospital system worked quite well, sir, for 
a while, but it doesn't work now because the government can't run it 
without its being able to compete.  I mean, what basically what 
happened is, there are fewer and fewer veterans who choose to use the 
veterans hospital network.  They have other options for pay -- 
they're eligible for Medicare; they have private insurance or 
whatever.  The veterans hospital can't take that kind of pay, so it 
becomes more underfunded while the population it's treating goes 
down; and those difficulties feed on itself.
	     
	     I think we've got a -- basically, we have proposed to 
give the veterans hospital network the chance to compete and do well, 
but when those Veterans Hospitals are in trouble, that's why they're 
in trouble.  What I propose to do instead is to have guaranteed 
private insurance; and all I want the government to do is to require 
guaranteed private insurance for the employed uninsured; give 
organized approval to give discounts to small businesses so they 
won't go broke providing the insurance; and then organized buyers co-
ops, so small business, farmers and self-employed people, can buy 
insurance on the same terms that big business employees and 
government employees can.  And I don't want the federal government to 
do that, I just want it set up so that can be done at the state 
level. 
	     
	      But I certainly don't think we ought to have a 
government-run health care system.  I think the government could 
create an environment in which everybody can get health insurance; we 
can bring cost in line with inflation -- the right economic 
incentives for managed care are there; and the little folks have the 
same chance as the big folks to get affordable care.  That's all I 
want to do.
	     
	     Q    Good afternoon, Mr. President.  Not long ago, I was 
watching television with my daughter and you were explaining some of 
the events that had gone on 15 years ago, or so, in Arkansas.  And 
you said something about you remembered that there were -- you'd lent 
$20,000 to your mother and so on.  Essentially, new things were 
coming out and changing.  And my daughter turned to me and said, 
"Dad, you know the problem?  He sounds just like me when I'm trying 
to explain why I don't have my homework."  And I'm wondering, sir, 
other than perhaps suggesting to my daughter that she has a future in 
politics, what should I tell her?
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, let me tell you, let me give you 
an example.  I'll just say one thing.  Garrison Keillor said last 
night, he said, you know, all I know about Whitewater is what I read 
in the papers, so I don't understand it.  (Laughter.)  But he said -- 
he said I -- and let me -- he made two statements; I'm just repeating 
what he said.  He said, I really wasn't going to talk about 
Whitewater tonight, but I was afraid if I didn't say anything, you'd 
think I know something about it.  (Laughter.)  Then he said, I 
suppose I ought to tell you that I've never been to Arkansas.  But, 
he said, I'm reluctant to tell you that, because then you will attack 
me for not telling you that 30 days ago.  (Laughter.)
	     
	     All I can tell you, sir, is I have done my best to 
answer the questions asked of me.  Maybe you have total and complete 
recollection of every question that might be -- not is -- might be 
asked of you at any moment of things that happened to you 12, 13, 14 
years ago.  Maybe you could give your tax records up for 17 years 
and, at the moment, answer any question.  Or maybe, instead, you want 
to go back to the hallmark question -- you think I should have shut 
the whole federal government down and done nothing but study these 
things for the last two months.
	     
	     I would remind you that I was asked early on by the 
press and the Republicans to have a special counsel look into this on 
the grounds that then everyone could forget about it, and let the 
special counsel do his job, and I could go on and be President.  I 
could give all the records up, and then when he had a question in his 
document search, he could ask me, we could work it out, and the issue 
could be resolved.  So I said, sure, even though the criteria for 
appointing a special counsel weren't met -- no one had accused me of 
any wrongdoing; certainly nothing connected with my presidency or my 
campaign for the presidency -- I said, let's do it so I can go back 
to work.  And that is what I have tried to do.  
	     
	     Since then, the same people who asked for the special 
counsel so that these issues could be resolved in an appropriate and 
disciplined way and I could go back to work, have decided they were 
kidding.  And they wanted to continue for us to deal with this.  
Well, I'm sorry, I'm doing the best I can while I do the job I was 
hired by the American people to do. 
	     
	     I have been as candid and as forthright as possible.  
Sam Dash, the Watergate special prosecutor, said this is a very 
different administration than previous ones.  These people have 
resisted no subpoenas.  They have claimed no executive privilege.  
They have cooperated.  They have turned all the documents over.  I 
have done everything I know to do.
	     
	     But can I answer every question that anybody might ever 
ask me about something that happened 10, 15, 17 years ago on the spur 
of the moment and have total recall of all of that while trying to be 
President?  No, sir, I cannot.  But the special counsel has a process 
for dealing with that which would permit us to focus on the truly 
relevant questions and deal with it.  And I have cooperated very 
well.  I will continue to do that.
	     
	     I will also do my best to give information to the press.  
But I would just like to point out that the people who asked for the 
special counsel asked for it and said, the president ought to do this 
so we can clear the air and he can go on and be president.  Now the 
suggestion is, the implication of your remark, sir, is that instead 
of that, I should stop being president and do my homework on this 
issue.
	     
	     Q    All I was asking is what I should tell my daughter 
for her response, and I think the response was wonderful.  And I 
thank you very much for it.
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  (Applause.)
	     
	     Q    We have time for one more question right here.
	     
	     Q    Mr. President, I'm Tom Dearmore (phonetic), retired 
from the San Francisco Examiner and a native of your home state.
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Mountain Home (phonetic), Arkansas.
	     
	     Q       who used to long ago stir up lots of trouble in 
Arkansas.
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  You're still legendary down there, Mr. 
Dearmore (phonetic).  (Laughter.)
	     
	     Q    My father helped run your campaign for Congress 20 
years ago --
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  He sure did.  And I'm grateful to him. 
	     
	     Q       in northern county.  But I'm leaping a long way 
from the Ozarks having leapt to Washington and San Francisco since 
then.  I'm going to ask a question related to foreign affairs which 
is also a highly controversial matter domestically.  And, as you 
probably know, the United Nations Commission right now is trying to 
formulate a 20-year plan for the spending of money the U.N. receives 
for population control.  And as presently written, the plan calls for 
the use of abortion funds it receives only in cases of rape or 
incest.  
	     
	     The Associated Press reported last week that our State 
Department had protested that and wants it liberalized so that it can 
be used more or less across the board for population control.  And I 
wonder if your administration really favors the unrestricted use by 
foreign countries of U.S. money that goes abroad for population 
control, for the unrestricted use for abortion, as in the case of 
some countries that perform these, of course, far into the third 
trimester?  Do you favor any limitation at all on the use of American 
taxpayers' money for abortion --
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Yes, I do.  I do, and let me say first 
of all, I have asked -- I did about two days ago -- I saw a story on 
this, and I received a couple of letters about it.  And I have asked 
to see the language that we are advocating and the language that it's 
in the present draft so that I can personally review it.  
	     
	     My position on this, I think, is pretty clear.  I think 
at a minimum that we should not fund abortions when the child is 
capable of living outside the mother's womb.  That's what we permit 
to be criminalized in America today under Roe against Wade.  And, 
secondly, we should not, in any way, shape or form fund abortions if 
they are enforced on citizens by the government -- if they're against 
people's will.  
	     
	     There may be other restrictions I would favor, but I can 
just tell you that on the front end, I think that those are the two 
places where I would not support our funding going in.  And so I 
think that we ought to be very careful in how we do this.
	     
	     On the other hand, I don't necessarily think that we 
ought to write the Hyde Amendment into international law, because 
there are a lot of countries who have a very different view of this 
and whose religious traditions treat it differently.
	     
	     So I think that there is some room between the original 
draft and where -- it appears, from the news reports, some folks in 
the State Department may be going to write a policy that most 
Americans can support.  But I'm glad you brought it up.  
	     
	     I, myself, did not know about this until just a few days 
ago; and I have asked for a report, and I've asked to see the 
documents myself so I can get involved in it and at least try to have 
some influence on what happens.  Of course, it's an international 
conference; we don't know exactly how it will come out in the end, 
and there will be countries and cultures that have widely clashing 
views on this.
	     
	     But, anyway, I've answered you what I think.
	     
	     Q    Thank you.
	     
	     Q    Mr. President, thank you very much.  (Applause.)  
We're looking forward to a more informal gathering with you Friday 
night. 
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  I'm looking forward to it, too.  Thank 
you.  (Applause.)  

				 END1:27 P.M. EDT

