Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/wh930517.zip/05-17A.TXT

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From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:[e-mail]  Sun May 16 23:32:42 1993
Date: Fri, 14 May 1993 18:51-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: President's Press Conference  May 14, 1993

                           THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                               May 14, 1993


                  PRESS CONFERENCE BY THE PRESIDENT

                          The Rose Garden


1:05 P.M. EDT

         THE PRESIDENT:  Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm glad the weather permitted us to do this outside.

         Three months ago, I presented a plan to our country and
to the Congress designed to address what I believe were the
significant challenges of this time.  For more than 40 years, our
country was organized to stand up against communism, to try to help
develop the free world, and for most of that time we took our
economic prosperity for granted.  It is now clear that, at the end of
the Cold War, we must organize ourselves around the obligation we
have to be more competitive in the global economy and to enable our
people to live up to their full potential.

         That means we have to do a lot of things to turn this
economy around, beginning with a serious effort to reduce our
national debt, to invest in jobs and new technologies, to restore
fairness to our tax code, and to make our political system work
again.

         This week I was able to go back again to the American
people to take my case into the country, into Cleveland and Chicago
and New York.  And here in Washington there were new efforts to break
the gridlock and to put the national interests above narrow
interests.  The results were particularly impressive in the work done
by the House Ways and Means Committee, achieving over $250 billion in
deficit reduction through spending cuts with $2 in spending cuts for
each dollar in new investment, in jobs, in education.  The program
provides significantly everything that I presented to the Congress,
even though there were some changes.  In fact, some of the changes I
think made the bill better.

         Let me reiterate them.  Number one, significant deficit
reduction.  Number two, taking on entitlement issues that have for
too long been left on the table.  Number three, real investments for
small businesses and for big businesses -- incentives to get people
to invest money in this economy to create jobs.  And perhaps most
importantly, a break for working-class families -- a huge increase in
the earned income tax credit for people with incomes under $30,000 to
relieve them of the impact of the energy tax and to say for the first
time, people who work 40 hours a week with children in the home would
be lifted above poverty.  And finally, of course, the plan was very
progressive -- seventy-five percent of the revenues coming from the
top six percent of the American taxpayers.

         I also reiterated that I don't want a penny in taxes
without the spending cuts.  And I proposed in New York that we create
a deficit reduction trust fund into which all the taxes and all the
budget cuts could be put and kept for the five-year life of this
budget.  This is a very important thing.  I realize some have said it
is little more than a gimmick, but the truth is there is no legal
protection now for the life of the budget for these funds.  This will
provide it in stone, in law.

         In every element of this, there has been some
willingness on the part of those who have supported our efforts to
take on powerful vested interest in behalf of the national interest,
whether it is in repealing the lobby deduction or in going for a
direct loan program for college loans that will save $4 billion but
which will remove a government-guaranteed income from several
interests who like the system as it is now.

         The Congress also moved this week to reinvigorate our
democratic process by ending the filibuster and passing the motor
voter bill.  These are the kinds of changes that the American people
expect of us.  They do not expect miracles, but they expect solid,
steady progress, and I am determined to stay on this course.

         It has been a good week, and if we're willing to take
more tough decisions, there will be more good weeks  for the American
people ahead.

         Q      Mr. President, you've said that the United States
will not go it alone with military action in Bosnia.  And yet, the
European allies have refused to sign-on to your proposals.  If the
allies refuse to follow suit, where does that leave the United
States?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Let me reiterate what I have said
because I think that the United States has taken the right position
and I think that we've gotten some good results.  I have said, and I
will reiterate, I think that the United States must act with our
allies, especially because Bosnia is in the heart of Europe and the
Europeans are there.  We must work together through the United
Nations.

         Secondly, I do not believe the United States has any
business sending troops there to get involved in a conflict in behalf
of one of the sides.  I believe that we should continue to turn up
the pressure.  And as you know, I have taken the position that the
best way to do that would be to lift the arms embargo with a stand-by
authority of air power in the event that the present situation was
interrupted by the unfair use of artillery by the Bosnian Serbs.
That position is still on the table.  It has not been rejected out of
hand.  Indeed, some of our European allies have agreed with it and
others are not prepared to go that far yet.

         But we have to keep the pressure up.  And I would just
remind you that since we said we would become involved in the Vance-
Owen peace process, two of the three parties have signed on.  We've
gotten enforcement of the no-fly zone through the United Nations.
We've been able to airlift more humanitarian supplies there, and
we've been able to keep up a very, very tough embargo on Serbia which
I think led directly, that and the pressure of further action, to the
statement that Mr. Milosevic made to the effect that he would stop
supporting the Bosnian Serbs.

         Where we go from here is to keep pushing in the right
direction.  As we speak here, the United Nations is considering a
resolution which would enable us to place United Nations forces along
the border between Serbia and Bosnia to try to test and reinforce the
resolve of the Milosevic government to cut off supplies to the
Bosnian Serbs.  If that resolution passes and in its particulars it
makes good sense, that is a very good next step.  We're just going to
keep working and pushing in this direction.  And I think we'll begin
to get more and more results.

         Q      Are you contemplating sending U.S. forces to
Macedonia and perhaps to protect safe havens in Bosnia?

         THE PRESIDENT:  On the question of Macedonia, the
Defense Department has that and many other options under review for
what the United Nations -- what the allies could do to make sure that
we confine this conflict, to keep it from spreading.  I've not
received a recommendation from them and, therefore, I've made no
decision.

         Q      Mr. President, there is a wide spread perception
that you're waffling, that you can't make up your mind.  One day
you're saying, in a few days we'll have a decision, we have a common
approach -- the next day you're saying, we're still looking for a
consensus.  Will American troops be in this border patrol that the
U.N. is voting on and, you know, where are we?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, first of all, I have made up my
mind and I've told you what my position was.  And I've made it as
clear as I can.  But I also believe it is imperative that we work
with our allies on this.  The United States is not in a position to
move unilaterally, nor should we.  So that is the answer to your
question.

         The resolution being considered by the United Nations I
think contemplates that the UNPROFOR forces would be moved and
expanded and moved to the border.  At this time there has been no
suggestion that we would be asked to be part of those forces.

         Q      A domestic question.  Could you tell us how were
you affected by the testimony of Colonel Fred Peck, whose son is a
homosexual, who said that, nonetheless, he could not in good
conscience support lifting the ban?

         THE PRESIDENT:  I thought all the testimony given in
that hearing -- I saw quite a lot of it from more than one panel --
was quite moving and straightforward.  I still think the test ought
to be conduct.

         Q      Do you think that -- does this allow for the
possibility of the "don't ask, don't tell" -- the compromise that
would allow --

         THE PRESIDENT:  You know what my position is.  I have
nothing else to say about it.

         Q      Mr. President, you said last week that if you went
to air power in Bosnia you would have a clear strategy and it would
have a beginning, middle, and end.  What happens, though, sir, if a
plane is shot down, if you lose a pilot or a couple of pilots, or if
the Bosnian Serbs decide to escalate the conflict -- or the Serbians
-- by going into, say, Kosovo?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, the Bush administration before I
became President issued a clear warning to the Serbs that if they try
to occupy Kosovo and repress the Albanians there, that the United
States would be prepared to take some strong action.  And I have
reaffirmed that position.  As a general proposition, you can never
commit American forces to any endeavor on the assumption that there
will be no losses.  That is just simply not possible, and as the
Pentagon will tell you, we lose forces even now in peace time simply
in the rigorous training that our armed forces must undertake.

         Q      In the debate on homosexuals in the military, you
use the word "conduct" as though it were an absolute and easily
definable term.  Do you believe, one, that homosexuals should be
celibate, as Schwarzkopf suggested, or could they engage in
homosexual activity, consenting, on or off base; or two, should the
uniform code be allowed to have any sort of difference between its
treatment of homosexuals and heterosexuals?

         THE PRESIDENT:  I support the present code of conduct,
and I am waiting for the Pentagon to give me its recommendations.

         Q      Your nominee to head the Justice Department's Civil
Rights Division has expressed what many regard as rather striking
views about voting rights and a number of other areas, including
expressing some misgivings about the principle of one man, one vote.
And I wonder if you are familiar with all these views and if you
support them, and if you do not, why you chose her.

         THE PRESIDENT:  I nominated her because there had never
been a full-time practicing civil rights lawyer with a career in
civil rights law heading the Civil Rights Division.  I expect the
policy to be made on civil rights laws by the United States Congress,
and I expect the Justice Department to carry out that policy.
Insofar as there is discretion in the policy, that discretionary
authority should reside either in the President or the Attorney
General in terms of what policies the country will follow.  I still
think she's a very well-qualified civil rights lawyer, and I hope she
will be confirmed.  And I think she has every intention of following
the law of the land as Congress writes it.

         Q      Were you familiar with them when you --

         Q      Mr. President, as you know, there is a lot of
concern in the Democratic Party and in the White House about the
upcoming Senate election in Texas.  And one of your top political
advisors, Paul Begala, is becoming more involved down there.  Do you
see any expanded role for yourself?  Is there anything you can do, or
are you all pretty much resigned to losing this seat?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I'm not -- first of all, I'm not
resigned to losing it.  I think Bob Krueger can still win the race.
But it depends on, as with all cases, it depends on how he frames the
issues, how his opponent frames the issues, and what happens there.
I think he's a good man, and I think he's capable of doing a good
job.  And I think he could still win the race.  But that's up for the
people of Texas.  You know, in the primary one of the big problems
was 25 percent of the Republicans turned out and only 15 percent of
the Democrats did.  I don't know what's going to happen there.  But I
certainly support him, and I hope he will prevail.  I think it would
be good for the people of Texas and the Congress if he did.

         Q      Do you expect to do any more for him and possibly
go down there?

         THE PRESIDENT:  No one's discussed that with me.  You
know, I don't know.  I've always been skeptical about the question of
whether any of us could have any impact on anyone else's race.  I've
never seen it happen up or down in my own state in Arkansas.  There
may be some ways we can help with fundraising and  things of that
kind, but all the time I ran at home I never let anybody come in to
help me, whatever the national politics were.

         Q      Mr. President, what would you say or what do you
say to federal reserve officials who are arguing for a slight rise in
short-term interest rates because they're concerned about resurging
inflation?

         THE PRESIDENT:  I would say that the month before last
we have virtually no inflation, and you can't run the country on a
month-to-month basis.  You've got to look at some longer trends.
There are some clear underlying reasons for this last inflationary
bulge which don't necessarily portend long-term inflation.  I think
it's a cause of concern.  We ought to look at it, but we ought to
wait until we have some more evidence before we raise interest rates
in an economy where industrial capacity is only at 80 percent.

         If you look at all the underlying long-term things,
long-term trends in energy prices, industrial capacity, the kinds of
things that really shape an economy, there is no reason at this time
to believe that there could be any cause for a resurge in inflation.

         Q      Sir, the argument is made at the Federal Reserve
that higher taxes, higher burdens on business through health care
fees or other things like that will indeed raise inflation while the
economy stays weak.

         THE PRESIDENT:  Just a few weeks ago some people were
arguing that all this would be deflationary and would repress the
recovery.  So I guess you can find an expert to argue any opinion,
but there is no evidence of that.  The prevailing opinion at the Fed
and the prevailing opinion in the economic community has been that
the most important thing we can do is to bring down long-term
interest rates by bringing down the deficit.  You can't have it both
ways.  You're either going to bring down the deficit or we're not.
And everything in life requires some rigorous effort if you're going
to have fundamental change.

         Q      I wonder if you ever stop to think that this month
we are celebrating two events, Small Business Week and World Trade
Week.  I wonder do you understand what the importance of the world
trade in this week is in the minority and small business people can
contribute to support their services and product to the world and
mainly to those countries of the former Soviet Union?  How do you
respond?

         THE PRESIDENT:  How do I want small business to
contribute?  Well, first of all, an enormous amount of our economic
growth in the last three years has come out of growth in trade.  And
one of the problems we're having with our own recovery is that
economic growth is virtually nonexistent in Asia and in Europe -- at
least in Japan and in Europe -- not in the rest of Asia.  China is
growing rapidly.

         One of the things that we can do to increase exports is
to organize ourselves better in the small business community.  The
Germans, for example, have enormously greater success than do we in
getting small and medium-sized businesses into export markets.  And
one of the charges of my whole trade team is to organize the United
States so that we can do that.  That's one of the things the Commerce
Secretary is working on.

         Q      Mr. President, you're going to be meeting with the
President of Ireland in a little while.  And as a --

         THE PRESIDENT:  I'm looking forward to it.

         Q         as a candidate, you made several promises in
regard to Ireland.  One of them was to send an envoy -- a special
peace envoy, and another was that you would not restrict Jerry Adams'
admittance into this country.  He's the leader of Sinn Fein, and his
visa was denied last week.  And you promised that as President he
would be admitted.

         THE PRESIDENT:  I think you ought to go back and read my
full statement that I made in New York about the Adams case.  I'll
answer that in a minute.

         But let me -- first on the peace envoy, I talked to the
Prime Minister of Ireland and I will discuss with the President of
Ireland what she thinks the United States can do.  I am more than
willing to do anything that I can that will be a constructive step in
helping to resolve the crisis in Northern Ireland.

         Q         whether an envoy is necessary --

         THE PRESIDENT:  I don't believe the President of the
United States should be unaffected by what the Prime Minister or the
President of Ireland believe about what is best for Ireland.  I don't
believe that.  I think I should ask them what they believe.  I'm not
sure I know better than she does about that.  And I should listen and
should take it into account.  I am prepared to do whatever I can to
contribute to a resolution of this issue.

         On the Jerry Adams question, I said at that time because
he was a member of Parliament, if I were President I would review
that.  I thought that if there no overwhelming evidence that he was
connected to terrorists, if he was an elected -- a duly elected
member of Parliament in a democratic country, we should have real
pause before denying him a visa.  I asked that his case be reviewed
by the State Department and others.  And everybody that reviewed it
recommended that his visa not be granted and pointed out that he was
no longer a member of Parliament.

         Q      Mr. President, in your opening statement, you said
this has been a good week for you.  But the latest CNN/USA Today
Gallop poll, as you probably saw, shows a 10-percent decline in your
job approval rating since the end of April, from 55 to 45 percent.
Why do you think that is happening and is it your fault and what can
be done?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, for one thing, I'm trying to do
hard things.  And I can't do hard things and conduct an ongoing
campaign at the same time.  You know, I'm doing things that are hard,
that are controversial.  And anybody who doesn't want to assume
responsibility can stand on the sidelines and criticize them.  I
never expected that I could actually do anything about the deficit
without having some hits.  I never expected that I could take on some
of these interests that I've taken on without being attacked.  And
whenever you try to change things, there are always people there
ready to point out the pain of change without the promise of it.
That's just all part of it.

         If I worried about the poll ratings I'd never get
anything done here.  My only -- the only thing I'd remind you is for
12 years we've seen politicians and the Congress and the Executive
Branch worry about their poll ratings every month and then at the end
of every four years things are a lot worse.  If things are better at
the end of the period that I was given to serve, then the poll
ratings now won't make any difference.  And if they're not, they
won't make any difference.  So my job is to do my job and let the
chips fall where they may.

         Q      There seems to be a Catch 22 emerging on Bosnia.
One would be the -- you have consistently said that you want to have
a consensus with the U.S. allies.  But until that consensus is
formed, you found it seems very difficult to explain to the American
people precisely how that war should be defined -- is it a civil war,
is it a war of aggression.  And also not necessarily what the next
step should be, but what are the principles, the overriding
principles that should guide you as policy?  What can you tell the
American people right now about that?

         THE PRESIDENT:  First, that is both a civil war and a
war of aggression, because Bosnia was created as a separate legal
entity.  It is both a civil war where elements of people who live
within that territory are fighting against one another.  And there
has been aggression from without, somewhat from the Croatians and
from the Serbs -- principally from the Serbs -- that the inevitable
but unintended impact of the arms embargo has been to put the United
Nations in the position of ratifying an enormous superiority of arms
for the Bosnian Serbs that they got from Serbia, and that our
interest is in seeing -- in my view, at least -- that the United
Nations does not foreordain the outcome of a civil war -- that's why
I've always been in favor of some kind of lifting of the arms embargo
-- that we contain the conflict, and that we do everything we can to
move to an end of it and to move to an end of ethnic cleansing.

         Those are our interests there and those are the ones I'm
trying to pursue.  But we should not introduce American ground forces
into the conflict in behalf of one of the belligerents, and we must
move with our allies.  It is a very difficult issue.  I realize in a
world where we all crave for certainty about everything, it's tough
to deal with, but it's a difficult issue.

         Q      Mr. President, on the subject of the arms embargo,
do you believe that the fighting between the Croats and the Muslims
has validated the European objections to your proposal to lift the
arms embargo, showing just how complicated it is and how easily those
weapons can get into other hands?  And, secondly, do you think that
you should try to level the playing field by using air strikes alone
if your hands are tied on the arms embargo?

         THE PRESIDENT:  I believe that the troubles between the
Croatians and the Muslims complicate things, but at least the
leaders have agreed on an end to the conflict.  On the other issue, I
think that the best use of air power is the one that I have outlined,
and I don't favor another option at this time.

         Q      The Prime Minister of Norway today announced that
Norway is going to resume commercial hunt of the minke whale.  How do
you react to that?  And is the United States going to take any
punitive actions against Norway?

         THE PRESIDENT:  It's the first I've heard of it.  I'll
have to give you a later answer.

         Q      One of the charges leveled by critics of you in
Arkansas and now at the beginning of your term as President is that
you've surrounded yourself with too many young people and put them in
too many senior positions.  How do you respond to that criticism?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Like Lloyd Bentsen and Warren
Christopher?  (Laughter.)  I mean, who are you referring to?  Mr.
McLarty, Mr. Rubin, Ms. Rasco and Mr. Lake, to name four, and I are
all, I think, older than our counterparts were when President Kennedy
was President.  There are a lot of young people who work here, but
most of the people in decision-making positions are not particularly
young.  And I am amazed sometimes -- you think I ought to let some of
them go?

         I realize that there is this image that the
administration is quite young.  I think we have one of the most
seasoned and diverse Cabinets that anybody's put together in a long
time.  And we have a lot of people who aren't so young working in the
White House.  I don't know how to answer your question about it.

         Q      Mr. President, what will you do to ensure that
health care will be accessible geographically to people in inner
cities and rural areas, so that cross-town and cross-county travel
will not become a barrier to health care?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I haven't received the report, as
you know, of the Health Care Task Force yet but let me say that one
of the markers I laid down for them when they began their work was
that we didn't need just simply to provide coverage for Americans,
but there had to be access in rural areas and in inner city areas,
especially.  And they are exploring any number of ways to do that.

         I spent one afternoon here on a hearing on rural health
care, talking about how we could bring health care to people in rural
areas and make it economical and available.  And I have spent an
enormous amount of time in the last 16 months in urban health care
settings trying to discover which model -- I've done that myself --
trying to determine which models can be replicated in other inner
city areas.  From my experience at home I knew more about rural
areas.  But the bottom line is you've got to have more clinics in the
rural areas and in the inner cities that are accessible and where
there is an ethnic diversity, where they are accessible not only
physically, but in terms of language and culture.  And these things
can be done.  And if you do it right, if they're really comprehensive
primary and preventive health care centers, they lower the cost of
health care because they keep more people out of the emergency rooms.

         Q      Mr. President, the Serbian government has indicated
it is going to stop sending arms to the Bosnian Serbs.  If they hold
true to that, does that then preclude the option of rearming the
Bosnian Muslims?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I have two responses.  First, I
hope the United Nations resolution will succeed so that we can put
some U.N. people on the border to determine whether that, in fact, is
occurring.  Secondly, whether that precludes the rearming option
depends really on how many arms have been stashed already in Bosnia,
particularly the heavy weapons -- the heavy artillery.  I think that
is the issue.  And that's a fact question which we'll have to try to
determine.

         Q      Many people wonder, Mr. President, what your policy
in Latin America is going to be.  Your economic team just told us
that you want to spend more money in police here in the United
States.  The past administration spent almost $3 billion in Peru,
Bolivia and Colombia.  What is your vision and how are you going to
change that policy?

         THE PRESIDENT:  I think we should continue to support
those programs.  I can't say that they would be immune from the
budget cutting process that has affected almost all of our domestic
programs here.  We've had such a big deficit we've got to cut
across-the-board.  But I believe that those programs have served a
useful purpose.  I think especially where we have governments with
leaders who are willing to put their lives on the line to stop or
slow down the drug trade, we ought to be supporting them and I expect
to do that.

         Q      You've been talking a lot recently about deficit
reduction, the deficit reduction trust fund.  You're talking now
about having to stretch out your investment programs, postpone some
of the things.  What do you say to people in urban areas, some of the
liberal congressmen on the Hill who say, wait a minute, we're the
ones who elected this guy and now the programs that have been starved
for 12 years that we need aren't going to be able to get money?  What
sort of political position does that put you in with your core
supporters?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I ask them, first of all, to look
at the five-year budget.  The enormous squeeze on domestic spending
including investment spending began 12 years ago.  I can't turn it
around overnight.  I asked them to look at the five-year budget and
look at it in light of the fact that the deficit numbers were revised
upward after the election by $50 billion a year in three of the next
four years.  And I ask them also to consider this:  Until we can
prove that we have the discipline to control our budget, I don't
think we'll have the elbow room necessary to have the kind of
targeted investments we need.

         I think the more we do budget control the more we'll be
free to then be very sharply discriminating in investing in those
things which actually do create jobs.   I don't think we have any
other option at this time.

         Q      Mr. President, in your New York speech this past
week at Cooper Union, you spoke of a crisis of belief and hope.  And
earlier Mrs. Clinton in a speech talked about a crisis of meaning.
How do you see these crises manifesting themselves?  What are the
causes of them?  And how severe do you see this?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I think they manifested themselves
in people's honest feelings that things are not going very well in
this country and that they haven't gone very well in a long time; and
the alienation people feel from the political process, and in the
alienation they often feel from one another in the same neighborhoods
and communities.  There are real objective reasons for a lot of these
problems.  After all, for most people the work week is lengthening
and incomes are declining.  The job growth of the country has been
very weak.  The crime rate is high, and there's a sense of real
alienation there.  And I don't think we can speak to them just with
programs.  I think that -- in our different ways, that's what both
Hillary and I were trying to say.

         And the thing I was trying to say to the American people
at the Cooper Union that I want to reiterate today is that you can
never change if you have no belief in the potential of your country,
your community, or yourself.  And that the easy path is cynicism.
The easy path is to throw rocks.  The better path is doing the hard
work of change.

         The thing I liked about what happened in the Ways and
Means Committee this week is -- not that I agree with every last
change they made in the bill, although some of them actually made the
bill better -- all the fundamental principles were left intact.  But
we actually did something to move the ball forward -- to deal with
the deficit, to deal with the investment needs, to deal with -- to go
back to the other question that Mr. Lauter asked -- to deal with the
need to get more real investment  in the inner cities and the rural
areas of the country.  We are doing things.

         And what I tried to do all throughout the campaign in
talking about hope, in talking about belief, in trying to go back to
the grass roots was to say to people, the process of change may be
uneven and difficult and always controversial, but it has to be
buttressed by an underlying belief that things can be made better.

         When the election returns in November -- that I was not
fully responsible for, there were two other candidates in that race
-- which showed a big increase in voter turnout, especially among
young people, that meant to me that we were beginning to see the
seeds of a change in attitude.  As I said at the Cooper Union, when
President Kennedy occupied that office, nearly three-quarters of the
American people believed that their leaders would tell them the truth
and that their institutions worked and that their problems could be
solved.  So there was a lot more elbow room there.  You know, a year
or two years could go by -- people could be working on something with
maybe only slightly measurable progress, but the country felt it was
moving forward.  That is what we have to restore today -- a sense
that it can be done and it cannot be done by the President alone, but
the President has to keep saying that:  that faith is a big part of
this.

         Q      And the causes of these crises as you perceive
them?

         THE PRESIDENT:  I think the causes of them are the
persistent enduring problems unanswered, unresponded to, and the
absence of a feeling that there is a overall philosophy and a
coherent way of dealing with them.

         Q      Though your tax package has made it through the
House Ways and Means Committee, every Republican voted against it.
If that happens again in the Senate you could be facing yet another
roadblock.  How have you changed your legislative strategy to see
that you win over a few Republican votes this time?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, the budget cannot be filibustered.
So in a literal sense it could -- we could pass it without any
Republican votes.  But the sad -- what I hope is that to show that by
a combination of budget cuts and tax increases and the things that
have been done to make this program even more attractive -- we've got
a lot of business people for this program now, a lot of them -- that
we ought to get some Republican support.  But that's a political
decision that a lot of those folks are going to make.

         I can tell you that one member of the Ways and Means
Committee told me yesterday that a Republican member said to him as
they were dealing with this -- said, boy, there's a lot of wonderful
stuff in his bill.  I didn't know all this stuff was in this bill.
This is wonderful.  I said, well, why don't you vote for it?  He
said, no, we've got to be against taxes.  So I think that's just --
they're going to have to decide what they're going to do about that.

         Q      You talk about competitive -- being competitive in
the world and that, I hope you agree, that involves NAFTA.  What
would be the priorities of a new ambassador to Mexico and what is the
latest in NAFTA?  Do you support tougher sanctions in trade for those
that violate the treaty?

         THE PRESIDENT:  I believe the treaty has to have some
enforcement provisions.  I have not read the last language, but it is
my understanding that what the negotiators is working toward is some
sort of sanctions for repeated and persistent violations of
agreements that the countries involved in NAFTA make.  I don't think
any of us should make agreements and expect there to be no
consequences to their repeated and persistent violation.  But I want
to say again, I believe that increased trade with Mexico and NAFTA
are in the interest of the United States.

         The Salinas government, through the unilateral reduction
of their own tariffs, has helped to take the United States -- and
through policies that promoted economic growth, beginning with
getting control of their deficit -- has taken the United States from
a $6-billion trade deficit with Mexico to a $5-billion trade surplus.
Mexico just surpassed Japan as our second biggest trading customer
for manufactured products.  So I think that it's very much in our
interest to pass NAFTA and I hope I'll be able to persuade the
Congress to do it when we conclude the agreement.

         Q      Would that be a priority of a new ambassador to
Mexico?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Absolutely, sure.

         Go ahead.

         Q      Okay.  I'd like to go back to your Justice
Department for just a second, Mr. President.  Since during the
campaign you said it was a mistake and, in fact, apologized for
playing golf at an all-white country club in Little Rock, shouldn't
it disqualify your nominee for Associate Attorney General, Webb
Hubbell?  Is there an exception because he's a family friend?  And
are the locals --

         THE PRESIDENT:  Absolutely not.

         Q      Are the local civil rights leaders wrong when they
say that his attempts to integrate the club appeared to have been a
last-minute political conversion?

         THE PRESIDENT:  No.  As a matter of fact, if you go back
-- first of all, let me -- the first question is no, he should not be
disqualified.  The second question is, is it a last-minute
conversion?  The African American who joined the club testified that
Webb Hubbell had been trying for years to get him to do it, and he
had not agreed.  That's what the record shows.  Thirdly, my belief is
that the overwhelming majority of African American leaders in my
state would very much like to see him confirmed.  He has always had a
reputation as being a strong advocate of civil rights, whether as
Mayor of Little Rock or Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of my
state.  He is a very eminent citizen with a very good background.
And I think the vast majority of the civil rights leaders of my state
will advocate his appointment based on his record.  And I think on
the facts of this, I just wouldn't -- this last-minute conversion
thing just doesn't hold water.

         Q      What does it say then, sir, that he should be a
member of an all-white country club, as other members of your Cabinet
also are -- or were when it was still all white?

         THE PRESIDENT:  I think he should have either resigned
or integrated it.  And, of course, he was in the middle.  He said, I
tried for years to integrate it and I only -- it took me too long to
succeed.  What I think is really the case is that some of the other
people may have been blocking it.  He was trying for years to do it.
I know that because I used to hit on him about it for years.

         Go ahead, Mara.

         Q      Mr. President, I want to go back to a question that
Helen asked earlier about your indecisiveness over Bosnia.  I'm
wondering how you think that's affected perceptions of you as a
leader?  There is a concern reflected in polls and in some comments
from Democratic members in Congress that you are indecisive and
perhaps not tough enough to tackle all the problems.

         THE PRESIDENT:  I would just like to ask you what their
evidence is?  When Russia came up the United States took the lead and
we got a very satisfactory result.  When I took office I said we were
going to try to do more in Bosnia.  We agreed to go to the Vance-Owen
peace process and two of the three parties signed on.  We got
enforcement of the no-fly zone.  We began to engage in multinational
humanitarian aid.  We got much, much tougher sanctions.  We got the
threat of military force on the table as a possible option.
Milosovic changed his position.  All because this administration did
more than the previous one.

         And every time I have consulted the Congress they say to
me in private, this is a really tough problem.  I don't know what you
should do but you're the only President that ever took us into our
counsel beforehand; instead of telling us what you were going to do,
you actually ask us our opinion.  I do not believe that is a sign of
weakness.  And I realize it may be frustrating for all of you to deal
with the ambiguity of this problem, but it is a difficult one.

         I have a clear policy.  I have gotten more done on this
than my predecessor did.  And maybe one reason he didn't try to do it
is because if you can't force everybody to fall in line overnight for
people who have been fighting each other for centuries you may be
accused of vacillating.  We are not vacillating.  We have a clear,
strong policy.

         In terms of the other issues, who else around this town
in the last dozen years has offered this much budget cutting, this
much tax increases, this much deficit reduction and a clear economic
strategy that asks the wealthy to pay their fair share, gives the
middle class a break and gives massive incentives to get new
investment and new jobs in the small business community and from
large business as well?  I think -- I don't understand what -- on one
day people say he's trying to do too much.  He's pushing too hard.
He wants too much change.  And then on the other day he says, well,
he's really not pushing very hard.  I think we're getting good
results.  We've been here three months.  We've passed a number of
important bills and I feel good about it.

         I think the American people know one thing:  that I'm on
their side, that I'm fighting to change things.  And they're finding
out it's not so easy.  But we are going to get a lot of change out of
this Congress if we can keep our eye on the ball and stop worrying
about whether we characterize each other in some way or another and
keep thinking about what's good for the American people.

         Every day I try to get up and think about not what
somebody characterizes my action as, but whether what I do will or
will not help to improve the lives of most Americans.  That is the
only ultimate test by which any of us should be judged.

         Thank you very much.

                          END1:44 P.M. EDT