Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/wh930510.zip/5-10C.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-06-22 | 19KB

From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:[e-mail]  Mon May 10 17:24:47 1993
Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 17:07-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Cleveland City Club  Q&A  5.10.93

                         THE WHITE HOUSE

                  Office of the Press Secretary
                        (Cleveland, Ohio)

______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                           May 10, 1993


                     REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                DURING QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION
                   WITH THE CLEVELAND CITY CLUB

                    The Statler Tower Building
                         Cleveland, Ohio

1:50 P.M. EDT


         Q      Mr. President, based on the congressional
hearings so far, how do you expect to resolve the issue of gays
in the military this July?

         THE PRESIDENT:  I can only tell you what I think
should be done and what my guess is will be done.  And I'm glad
you asked this question.

         Let me say one thing by way of background.  The
difference between my position and that of many people in the
military, including most folks in the military, is over a very
narrow category of people, actually.  That is, in the last few
months, the Armed Services have, on their own initiative after
meeting with me, stopped asking people when they join up whether
they are homosexual or not.  That is not being asked anymore.
For many years that question was not asked; it only started being
asked in the relatively recent past.  That will solve most of the
problems.

         I do not propose any changes in the code of military
conduct.  None.  Zero.  I do not believe that anything should be
done in terms of behavior that would undermine unit cohesion or
morale.  Nothing.

         Here is what this whole debate is about.  It is
about whether someone should be able to acknowledge, if asked --
or otherwise, homosexuality -- and do nothing else -- do nothing
to violate the code of military conduct and not be kicked out of
the service.  And my position is yes.  Others say no.  Others say
if you let someone acknowledge it, it amounts to legitimizing a
lifestyle or putting it on a par with -- I don't see it as that.
I just believe that there ought to be a presumption that people
ought to be able to serve their country unless they do something
wrong.  But you need to know -- that is -- it is not such a big
difference.  That is what we're arguing about.  We're arguing not
about any kind of conduct, but about whether people can
acknowledge that.  Like that young man who was the sixth Army
soldier of the year and who's now about to be mustered out
because he acknowledged being homosexual.

         It is not about asking the American people to
approve a lifestyle, to embrace it, to elevate it -- anything
else.  The question is if you accept as a fact, as we now know
and as the Pentagon has said, there have been many, many
thousands of homosexuals serve our country and serve it well with
distinction -- should we stop asking?  They say yes and I say
yes.  So we solved most of the issues.  (Applause.)  They say yes
and I say yes.  (Applause.)

         Should we change the code of conduct?  They say no,
and I say no.  Not at all.  Not on the base, not any way.  No
changes in the code of conduct. So the issue is over this what
will happen to this -- in this narrow category of cases, and that
is what is still to be resolved.  I hope my position will
prevail.  Frankly, I think most people believe as a practical
matter -- most people who have studied it -- that the position I
have taken can be worked out and is fairest to the good men and
women who serve in the service who have done well.  But they are
-- I think they're frankly worried about having that position
look like they are embracing a lifestyle or legitimizing a
lifestyle they don't agree with.  And I keep saying -- that's not
what I think we're about.  What I think we're about is
acknowledging people's right to do right and to be judged by what
they do.  And that's sort of my position.  (Applause.)

         Q      Mr. President, as a resident of Ohio, what
action can I take, what can I do to express my outrage at Senator
Dole and his cohorts who block a legitimate vote like the
stimulus package?  (Applause.)

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, what I think we need -- let me
make a constructive suggestion.  (Laughter.)  I appreciate your
sentiments, obviously, but let me make a constructive suggestion.
What I think we need to do is to go on now and pass this budget
and then just see where we are.

         Let me back up and say what I think happened in that
deal.  (Laughter.)  I believe that I won the debate with the
American people that we needed more investments to create some
jobs now, because this economy is not producing a lot of jobs.
On the other hand, the Republicans said, well, that's fine, but
we ought to pay for it.

         Well, I had announced this stimulus program as a
part of this five-year deficit reduction program, so it had
already been incorporated by the financial markets and everybody
else who evaluated this.  It was paid for in the sense that it
was part of the program.  But to pass it in time to get the
summer jobs and some other things out, we had to, in effect, take
it out of sequence, if you see what I mean -- to put it up now so
we can get the money out to create the jobs in 1993 before
Congress could have actually acted on the budget of which it was
but a small part.

         So what I think -- to be constructive, what I think
you should do is to do whatever you can to encourage the big
budget to pass -- long-term deficit reduction and investment
increases.  Then let's watch this unemployment rate.  And once we
have proved that we have the discipline in Washington to cut
spending and reduce the deficit, if we don't generate new jobs,
if the economy doesn't pick up in terms of employment, then I
think we can come back and look at that.

         Now, that doesn't solve a couple of the severe
problems, like the summer jobs -- we're still trying to assess
where we are on that.  But the larger question of creating jobs
is something that I think that we need to recognize is primarily
going to be dealt with by the big budget, the big issue.  But if
we need to come back, then I'll need you and all your folks,
because we need to get ahead of the curve on this one.  Because
we were not trying to increase the deficit; this was part of a
big, five-year plan where we had to take it out of sequence
because of the summer jobs issue and because we wanted a lot of
these jobs created in 1993.  Thank you for asking.  (Applause.)

         Q      What is your prognosis for the success of your
proposed aid for college students who do public service?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Oh, I think it's got very great
prospects of success.  We've had wonderful bipartisan support for
several Republican congressmen in the House of Representatives
already asked to be cosponsors.  We have at least two supporters,
Republican supporters in the Senate.  And as far as I know,
virtually every Democrat is for it.

         We've worked very hard to try to work out all of the
objections, and I think it will be very helpful.  We're going to
move as quickly as possible.  The national service part, I think
will fly through.  The question of cutting down on the cost of
the loan program will be more difficult, because many of the
bankers and others who like the system as it is will oppose it.
But it's unconscionable for us to lose $3 billion a year on loan
defaults, and $1 billion on transaction fees which could be put
into direct loans which could then be collected.  So there will
be a lot of dispute about the loan issue.  But I think the
national service part of it will go through.  It wouldn't hurt
for you to express your support, though, to your member of
Congress.  Thank you.  (Applause.)

         Q      Mr. President, what legislations do you hope to
pass in order to help protect the environment while cutting the
national deficit?

         THE PRESIDENT:  There are several things that we
want to do.  As you know, the Vice President and I have both
worked very hard on this issue since we took office.  I want to
sign the biodiversity treaty, and I expect to do it, committing
the United States to help preserve wildlife species.  We want to
be part of an international effort to preserve wildlife and plant
life in the United States and in the rainforest, especially
around the world.  We want to reduce the emissions of greenhouse
gases in this country to 1990 levels over this coming decade,
which I think we can do.

         And we want to invest some of the money that is
coming from defense cutbacks into environmental technologies and
environmental cleanup here at home, so that those technologies
can produce American jobs, many of which can also lead in
exporting.

         The biggest new commercial market in the world in
the next 10 years will be the market for various environmental
technologies and services.  It is a huge gold mine out there
waiting to be tapped.  When the countries met in Rio last year,
regrettably the Germans and the Japanese were much ahead of the
United States in total in environmental technology companies and
services.  But we have a lot of very successful ones here in the
United States, and I hope we can galvanize more of them.
If we do this right, cleaning up the environment won't cost us
jobs, it'll save us jobs.  It'll have a big positive impact.
(Applause.)

         He asked a good question.  Give him a hand.  Isn't
he good?  Thank you.

         Q      Mr. President, perhaps this is a bit premature.
But does your health care program incorporate a focus on wellness
as well as merely curing illnesses?  And what I mean by wellnes
is universal immunization, health examinations and so forth.  Or,
perhaps Mrs. Clinton might answer that a little bit better.
(Laughter.)

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, let me say that it will, and
that if it were just up to the two of us, it would focus on
wellness much more.  You may know that, for example, there are a
lot of countries -- in France, for example, where even working-
class families get a family allowance when a woman is pregnant.
You can only draw the family allowance if the mother can prove
that she has followed a certain regime of maternal health,
designed to produce a healthy baby.

         I saw the other day in the paper that some
Republican congressman had suggested that we ought to do the same
thing with immunizations for people on public assistance having
to immunize their kids.  I thought that was a good idea.  I think
that we should have a big wellness prevention component of this.
That is -- that's another point I wish I had made in my remarks.
But we are exploring what our options are there.

         There will be every effort made to have a strong
education and prevention and wellness component of this health
care effort.  And I might add that if we can have more clinics in
chronically underserved areas and more health educators there, I
think we can do that.  That's one way you can save a ton of money
in the system, and I think you must know that or you would not
have asked the question.

         Thank you.  (Applause.)

         Q      Mr. President, your administration has proposed
two new taxes.  First, a value-added tax in which goods would be
taxed at each stage of production.  Secondly, an energy BTU tax
in which coal, gas, oil and other forms of energy would be taxed
at each stage of use.  Are not these taxes inflationary in that
they compound at each stage?  And, secondly, they push up the
consumer price index to which wages, prices, and Social Security
and other entitlements are indexed to the consumer price index.

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, first, let me say I have
proposed a BTU tax, and I'd like to come back to that.  I have
not proposed a VAT tax.  I have not.  (Applause.)  There have
been a lot of rumors about it.

         You should know -- it's interesting that you should
know with whom a VAT tax is popular.  Hillary's health care group
-- the First Lady's health care group -- was asked to consider a
VAT tax by an unusual coalition of big business and labor
interests.  Why?  Because other countries have a VAT tax -- most
other countries have a VAT tax of some kind and we don't, and a
value-added tax is one of the few ways that you can -- somebody
who advocated it now wants to get off of it -- (laughter and
applause) -- anyway, a value-added tax is one of the few ways
that you can avoid taxing your own exports and tax someone else's
imports.  That is, it is placed on things sold in your country.
So when our competitors in Europe, for example, have a value-
added tax, when they produce things for sale in the United States
it's not subject to the tax.  When we sell our stuff over there,
it's already carried the full burden of our taxes and it gets hit
with the VAT.

         So there are a lot of business and labor interests
who believe that, conceptually, even if we lower some other tax,
we should embrace the VAT tax because it helps us in
international trade.  I had never thought of it as an answer to
the health care problem, because I thought it would aggravate the
maldistribution of paying for the problem.  It would allocate the
burden of paying for the problem in ways that I didn't think were
particularly fair.  But that's what it is.

         Now, on the BTU tax, let me say that America taxes
energy less than any other country.  There were a lot of
suggestions for how we might raise funds to reduce the deficit.
The energy tax clearly is the thing which, for all kinds of
reasons, had the biggest impact on the financial markets.

         I was reluctant -- there were people who said,
"Well, you ought to have a carbon tax; that's the most
polluting."  I thought that was unfair to the coal-producing
states. Then there were people who said, "Well, we have real low
gas taxes."  We do, but states also set gas taxes.  "We have real
low gas taxes.  You ought to have a gas tax."  I thought that was
unfair to the rural areas, particularly west of the Mississippi
where they have much higher per-vehicle usage.

         The reason we decided to go with the BTU tax is that
you can put it uniformly on all sources of energy so that it
doesn't fall with incredible disproportion on any given sector.
Now, the problem is that for the sectors that are especially
energy-intensive, it hurts them more than a gas tax.  And it
hurts people who don't pay anything for their energy now. So
farmers, for example, that had a fuel tax exemption are dealing
with this burden.  And you know, we've tried to come to grips
with that.  I don't think there is a perfect solution.  But I
like the BTU tax, because it promotes energy conservation, it's
good for the environment, and it's fairer, I think, to every
region than any other energy alternative that we could devise.

         And then we tried to have -- let me follow up on
that -- we tried to increase the earned income tax credit -- that
is, the proposal -- so that for people with earnings of $29,000 a
year or less, $30,000 a year or less with families, the impact of
the BTU tax would be offset by the increase they'd get in the tax
cut under the earned income tax credit.

         Q      Good afternoon, Mr. President.

         THE PRESIDENT:  Good afternoon.

         Q      What I'd like to know is, first of all, your
economic plan is twofold.  It is to cut spending and secondly to
encourage more government spending in the private sector.  Well,
obviously there's a lot of support for the first part -- cutting
spending.  What I'd like to know is, there seems to be a lack of
enthusiasm for the second part.  One is:  How do you plan to get
that through?  Basically, how do you plan to garner more support
for it?  And, once you get your economic package through, how
much input are just ordinary people going to have to this? And
when will we feel it at our level?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, depending on whether you
borrowed any money since November, you've already felt it.  From
the minute Secretary-designate of the Treasury said after the
election -- Lloyd Bentsen said we were going to attack the
deficit and how we were going to do it and what was going to be
in it, we began to have pretty steep drops in interest rates.  So
if you have any -- if you're paying any kind of interest
payments, you've already felt it.

         The question that -- the reason I was for the job
stimulus program -- to go back to the jobs program that the
gentleman asked me in the back -- is that I wanted to be able to
lower the unemployment rate by another half a percentage point
this year through an investment program, because all over the
world -- I will say again -- all over the world -- Europe's got a
higher unemployment rate than we do.  Japan has a much lower
unemployment rate than we do because it's got a more closed
economy, but they also are not creating jobs, and many of their
firms are laying off for the first time in modern history.  So I
wanted to do that.

         So you will -- let me just tick them off -- you
should be able -- if we pass the budget, I think we will secure a
healthier financial environment for the next year, and I think
that will help everyone.  If we can pass health care, I think, by
next year people will begin to feel the impact of greater health
security.  If we can pass it -- it's a big job and it's going to
take a lot of work.

         The student loan program, if it passes, it will
affect people immediately.  People will be eligible who are now
in college for it, as well as those who would wish to go.  The
same thing with the apprenticeship program.  The welfare reform
program should begin to have effect next year.  Those are just
some of the things that I think will actually touch people's
lives and make a big difference.

         I think the trick on -- to go back to the question
the other gentleman asked -- to getting people to support the
targeted spending for education, training and technology is to
make sure that you lock the spending cuts in first before you do
the taxes, and that overall, that the spending increases are
small compared to the spending cuts, which they are, in our plan.
So I think to me, that's the trick and that's what I'm trying to
achieve, and I hope you'll be with me when we do it.  Thank you.

         Thank you very much.  (Applause.)


                               END1:50 P.M. EDT