Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/wh930622.zip/06-22B.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-06-23 | 14KB

From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:[e-mail]  Tue Jun 22 02:01:45 1993
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 01:45-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Presidential Interview by Larry King 6.21.93

 E X E C U T I V E   O F F I C E   O F   T H E   P R E S I D E N T


                             THE WHITE HOUSE

                      Office of the Press Secretary

_____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                   June 21, 1993

                       INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT
                 BY LARRY KING OF "THE LARRY KING SHOW"

                             The Oval Office

        Q       Welcome back to another hour of the Larry King Show.
Great pleasure to have with us -- the last time we had him on a radio
show he was in a car in Detroit during the campaign, getting to the
airport.  In fact, he gave us a visual description of the highway.

        Do you remember that?

        THE PRESIDENT:  I do remember it.

        Q       President Clinton, a couple of things.  First, Senator
Phil Gramm last week on my television show said -- the Republican from
Texas -- anytime, anywhere, anyplace he'll come to the White House,
he'll meet with you, he'll sit down to work out a deal on the economy
from the Republican Party standpoint.  He said, you invite him, he's
there.

        What about it?

        THE PRESIDENT:  I'm always happy to talk to Senator Gramm, but
the issue is, what are they for?  I mean, we had -- there at least was a
Republican budget offered in the House of Representatives, and more
Republicans voted against it than Democrats voted against my budget.
There was a bipartisan budget offered in the Senate Finance Committee
which, by common consent, probably couldn't get 20 votes on the floor of
the Senate.

        So what I want to know is, what are they for?  I have met with
the Republican senators completely.  I meet with the leadership of the
Republicans along with the Democrats all the time.  I am always anxious
to discuss this.  But we need to know what the specifics are.  I mean --
(gap in tape) -- $250 billion in tax cuts in it -- that affects
agriculture, veterans, defense, foreign aid, the federal employee pay,
federal employee retirement, cuts huge amounts out of all these things.
They've been trying to convince the American people that there are no
spending cuts.  Senator Gramm tried to do it in his own state of Texas
in the recent election season.

        So, if we're going to have anything to talk about, we've all got
to at least say what the facts are.  All I'm saying is I'd be happy to
have any suggestions he has, but we've got to know where we're going on
this.

        Q       You're saying it would be pointless to sit down unless
they come in with a pre-agenda?

        THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we've got to know -- the Senate Finance
Committee met last week on the economic plan and dealt with a lot of
Republican amendments after they went all over the country saying the
issue was spending.  The Republicans tried to lower taxes in a lot of
different ways, mostly on upper-income folks.  And everything they
offered would have increased the deficit because they did not introduce
one single spending cut amendment, because those are the tough and
controversial things because they know how much we've already cut
spending in this budget.

        So, all I'm saying is, you know, I'll talk to Phil Gramm, I'll
talk to anybody.  He may want to talk to me this week, because I'm
trying to save the space station and the supercollider in his state --
two things I believe in.  After having shaved down the space station by
$4 billion and shaved the cost of the supercollider some, I believe
they're important for America as investments in science and technology.
But there are a lot of people who are against these projects who are
going to try to take his rhetoric and the rhetoric of the recent Texas
election and use it against him because of the things they said.

        So, Senator Gramm may need me this week because I agree with him
on this issue, and I hope we can save them for America's sake.  But the
political rhetoric of some of the Republicans in pretending that there
are no spending cuts has made it tougher.

        Q       So in other words, what everybody wants is, they don't
want to pay new taxes, they don't want to cut any services, we just want
a free ride.

        THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we want -- yes, and we want to do it in a
way that looks politically palatable.  So they talk about, well, let's
put a cap on all this spending or limits on all that and not come up
with the specifics.  My budget has 200 specific spending cuts over the
previous Bush budget.  A hundred of them are more than $100 million a
piece.  And I really have tried to take this thing on.  For years we
listened to all this rhetoric about how we could cut taxes and increase
spending, and somehow everything would be all right.  And we took the
debt from $1 trillion to $4 trillion.  We had astronomical long-term
interest rates.  Ever since we've been trying to bring the interest
rates down by bringing the deficit down, you see mortgage rates at a 20-
year low; housing starts at a seven-year high; construction employment
is increased at the highest rate in nine years; we've got 755,000 new
jobs coming into the economy.  Most of them are coming in because people
are refinancing their debt and freeing up money to invest in the
economy.  So we're moving this in the right direction.  But, of course,
it's not popular to do these difficult things.

        Q       You're going to have to go to Japan in a couple weeks.
That's a major economic conference.  Let's assume the Senate passes
this, then they go into House committee; and that, of course, won't be
settled by the time you go there.  And you go to a country where their
leadership is going to change.  How much of a ball of wax is that?

        THE PRESIDENT:  Well, it's going to be a challenge to get a lot
done at this summit.  But I'm convinced we can.  We have two or three
issues that we really need to deal with.  We're trying to come to grips
with the need for a new trade agreement for the world, which I think is
very important, will create more jobs in America.  We'd have more jobs
today if Europe and Japan weren't in the bad economics conditions
they're in.  Their growth rates are substantially lower than ours.  If
they were in better shape they'd be buying more of our products and we'd
have more jobs.

        The second thing we're going to try to deal with is what we can
do each in our own countries to promote global economic growth.  The
Europeans and Japanese have been telling America for years, "Get your
deficit down."  So we're doing that.  Now they've got to lower their
interest rates in Europe so they can grow and they've got to invest some
more money in Japan so they can grow and buy more of our products.  And
if we do it together, we can bring this world out of the recession it's
in and that means more jobs for America.

        Q       But what part does Japan plan if they're lame duck?

        THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I think that depends upon what all the
political sides in the country will say about the negotiations that
we're on.  I mean, it's pretty clear to me that no matter who winds up
being Prime Minister of Japan, and what faction they come out of -- that
person comes out of -- that they're going to have to continue to open
their economy to our products; and they're going to have to continue to
stimulate their economy, because they don't have a budget deficit;
they've got a surplus.

        What's happening in Japan now I think has more than anything
else to do with the legacy of the various political scandals and the
political corruption.  I think their economic policy is going to have to
take the direction that we support almost no matter who gets elected
Prime Minister.  They can't withdraw from the world or shut us out now.
They've got too much at stake in expanding into China and other
countries and doing business in a very complicated world that simply
won't allow Japan to be the only rich country in the world with $110
billion a year trade surplus.

        Q       So you're -- (gap in feed).

        THE PRESIDENT:  (gap in feed) -- to challenge to get done the
things I wanted to get done in Japan at the conference.  It will be more
challenging, but I still think that we may be able to do that simply
because of the limits on their economic options.

        Q       During the campaign you told me that you -- in fact,
almost the day it happened when President Bush signed it in San Antonio,
you said to me the next day that you supported this fair trade concept
with Mexico and Canada on balance.  You had some questions.  Do you
still have some questions?

        THE PRESIDENT:  Yes, but I'm still for it.  As a matter of fact,
I feel more strongly today, if possible, that it is the right direction
for us to take.  The trade agreement, I thought, had some weaknesses.
It was negotiated with a greater concern for our financial institutions
and our intellectual property concerns -- that is, patent and copyright
concerns -- than for new jobs and environmental cleanup -- things that I
thought were real important.

        So we're trying to fix that.  We're trying to make sure that
this trade agreement with Mexico and Canada has very strong provisions
to guarantee appropriate investments in environmental cleanups so we
don't have more pollution in America, or we don't have people going down
to Mexico just so they won't have to have any anti-pollution expenses.
And so we have some labor protections.

        But I think we're getting there.  And I believe that the right
kind of trade agreement can create jobs in America; I don't agree that
it'll cost jobs.  If you look just in the last couple of days, there was
a notice from General Motors that they're closing an operation in
Mexico, bringing it back to the United States, going to create 1,000
jobs in Michigan and higher labor costs because of the productivity and
the nearness to the labor parts market, to the auto parts market.  And I
think you're going to see a lot of that.

        If anybody wants to shut a plant down and go to Mexico just
because they have cheap wages, they can do that today.  Nothing is going
to change in the NAFTA agreement.  But if you have more growth on both
sides, then you'll have less illegal immigration from Mexico, more
people will be able to get jobs at home and stay with their families,
their incomes will rise and they'll buy more American products.

        Last month, Mexico replaced Japan as the second biggest
purchaser of American manufacturing products.  We have a $6-billion
trade surplus with them.  That means we create jobs out of our trade
with them.  So I think it's a good deal for America, and I hope we can
pass it.

        Q       One other quick thing.  L.A. Times Mirror poll out today
says 51 percent of the public thinks the press has been unfair to you,
more unfair to you than your predecessors.  Any comment?

        THE PRESIDENT:  You know, I always trust the people in the end.
They pretty well get it right.  (Laughter.)

        Q       You think that's right -- about right?  (Laughter.)

        THE PRESIDENT:  I think the most important thing now is what I
said at my press conference last week.  The American people know if
there's something going on and some tension that is not --doesn't have
much to do with their interests.  And I think that's what they have
perceived here.  And so what I have done, clearly, in the last couple of
weeks, is to reach out a hand of understanding to the capital press
corps here, and to ask them to -- not to stop criticizing me, because
that's their job when they think I'm wrong, or they think there's a
story to be pursued -- but to approach this whole work that we have to
do together with an atmosphere of respect and greater trust.  And I
pledge to try to do the same thing.

        I think the American people want to see the flaws in my
proposal; want to see the contradictions if they are there; want to see
me subject to honest scrutiny.  But they don't like the feeling of
feeding frenzy.  They don't want that.  And so, you know, I've done what
I could and I hope we'll have the kind of response that the American
people plainly want.

        Q       Chelsea going to Japan?

        THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I hope so.  I think it would be
educational for her, although some people have said that, you know, we
ought to consider what kind of Asian press coverage she'll get and
whether that would prohibit her from learning anything or doing anything
there.  But there is a lot of precedent for a previous president's
families going on trade missions.  And I'd like to see her do it.  I
think she'd learn a lot from it if, in fact, she'll be able to function
when she's there.  So we're going to try to figure that out in the next
few days.

        Q       Thanks, Mr. President.

        THE PRESIDENT:  Thanks, Larry.


END