Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/wh930625.zip/06-25E.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-06-26 | 20KB

From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:[e-mail]  Fri Jun 25 21:20:47 1993
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 19:14-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail],
Subject: President's Comments at Aids Announcement  6.25.93



                           THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                              June 25, 1993


                       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                IN ANNOUNCEMENT OF KRISTINE M. GEBBIE
                     AS AIDS POLICY COORDINATOR

                            The South Lawn


8:43 A.M. EDT

         THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning.  Thank you very much.
First, let me welcome Speaker of the House and other distinguished
members of the House of Representatives here.  I appreciate their
coming.  I understand they were able to get a little more sleep than
the senators were last night.  I also want to welcome all the rest of
you here.

         Before I make the announcement that we're all here to
witness and to be a part of, I do want to say a word about the vote
that was cast early this morning in the United States Senate to pass
a version of the economic plan which I presented to them which, to be
sure, was changed to some extent from the House plan, but still
reflected, I think, a remarkable degree of courage.  Five hundred
billion dollars in deficit reduction in the Senate plan, over 78
percent of the new revenues from people with incomes above $200,000.
A real commitment to significant budget cuts that were slightly
greater than the ones in the House plan, and now clearly more budget
cuts than tax increases.

         The most important thing is that now both Houses of
Congress, under very difficult circumstances with the same old
rhetoric of the last 12 years flying at them, had the courage to try
to change this country for the better.

         What this means is incalculable.  It means we can now
move on to a Conference Committee with a clear signal to the
financial markets that its interest rates should stay down and people
should be able to refinance their homes and finance their businesses
at lower interest rates, and that for the first time in a very long
time an American President can go to a meeting of the G-7 nations in
a position of economic strength, trying to lead a renewal of growth
and opportunity all over the world.

         So I very much appreciate that.  I want to compliment
Senator Mitchell, Senator Sasser, Senator Moynihan, in particular,
for their leadership and the courage of the senators who voted in the
way they did, so that we can go forward.

         One of the things that was in this budget that has
received almost no notice is a real commitment to intensifying our
efforts to deal with the AIDS crisis, even in the midst of all the
budget cutbacks.  One of those important efforts is the naming of a
new AIDS coordinator with a higher visibility, a more important
policy role and more influence in the national government than has
been the case in the past.

         It is my distinct pleasure today to announce the
appointment of Kristine Gebbie as our nation's first AIDS Policy
Coordinator.  This position has never existed before, but
circumstances now require us to look for unprecedented remedies to an
unprecedented problem.

         Today, as we toil against one of the most dreaded and
mysterious diseases humanity has ever known, we must redouble our
government's efforts to promote research, funding and treatment for
AIDS.  The appointment of Kristine Gebbie is part of our pledge to do
that.  She is a proven health care leader who will bring to the
administration years of experience in the AIDS field.  I'm confident
she'll work hard to ensure that our nation no longer ignores an
epidemic that has already claimed too many of our brothers and
sisters, our parents and children, our friends and colleagues.

         I'm particularly pleased that Kristine Gebbie is so
committed to helping our AIDS effort, for she certainly is no
stranger to the field.  To begin with, she hales from the Pacific
Northwest, one of our country's most progressive regions when it
comes to health care.

         A former nurse, she became the administrator of the
Oregon Health Division, a position she held for 11 years, and later
served as the Secretary of the Washington State Department of Health.
Currently, she serves as a Special Consultant to the Department of
Health and Human Services.  She's also spent a lot of her time and
energy on AIDS prevention.

         Since 1989 she's served as chair of the Centers for
Disease Control Advisory Committee on the Prevention of HIV
Infection.  She served on the Presidential Commission on AIDS.  She
was for three years a member of the National Academy of Sciences AIDS
Oversight Committee, and she was chair of an HIV committee of state
health officials around the United States.

         AIDS is terrifying.  It inflicts tragedy on too many
families.  But ultimately, it is a disease; one we can defeat just as
we have defeated polio, many forms of cancer and other scourges in
the history of our nation.  How can we do it?  With commitment and
courage and constancy, and with vocal and responsible leadership from
our nation's government.  Already this administration has requested a
large increase in funding for AIDS research and prevention, even in
the face of our severe budget cutbacks.  We are now moving toward
full funding of the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency
Act.

         Our budget requested in Fiscal 1994 a 78-percent
increase in funding for Ryan White, an 18-percent increase for AIDS
research, and a 27-percent increase for prevention.

         In addition, the upcoming health care reform plan will
make sure that AIDS sufferers are not victimized by unfair insurance
policies when they seek treatment for their illnesses.  AIDS touches
all of us, and no single group should be discriminated against on the
basis of this disease.

         To make government's role in AIDS more efficient, we're
also taking steps to coordinate AIDS policy.  On June the 10th, I
signed into law the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act
that establishes and AIDS research office to coordinate all the AIDS
research at NIH.  By now appointing an AIDS policy coordinator, we
will ensure that one person in the White House oversees and unifies
government-wide aids efforts.

         Kristine Gebbie will be a full member of the Domestic
Policy Council and will work closely with the Department of Health
and Human Services.  And I'm glad to see Secretary Shalala here
today.  She has my full support in coordinating policy among all the
various Executive Branch departments.

         With the dedication and leadership that she has shown
and that she will bring to this effort, I believe we will be able to
wage the battle against AIDS with complete resolve.  I look forward
to working with her as we tackle the challenges that are posed to us.
I assure you this is another step in the beginning of our effort, not
the end of my personal commitment.  This will guarantee the kind of
focus this effort has long needed.

         Ms. Gebbie.  (Applause.)

         MS. GEBBIE:  Thank you very much, Mr. President.  Thank
you.  It's fun to see a lot of familiar faces here this morning.

         We've all been working the balancing act of this
epidemic for a long time, balancing an investment in research with
our investment in applying that research in a sensible way, and our
investments in caring for people who already have the disease with an
investment in preventing further spread, with an investment in the
health-related aspects of this disease, with all of the other pieces
-- the education, the business, the community levels of response that
have to be a part of it.

         My perspective is that for a long time, most of that
balancing and coordinating has had to happen at the local level, and
people have had to put out far too much energy in every community,
pulling programs together and policies together that could be pulled
together on a single, nationwide basis, leaving folks free at the
local level to really respond to individuals in the way they have to
respond, and to apply what we've learned in a way that works in every
community in this land.  And I'm real thrilled to have a chance to
work on that.

         I need to say a thank-you to the many, many people --
people with the infection and people caring for people with the
infection and people in state and local health departments and
national agencies across this country that I've learned from in the
last more than a decade working on this disease, and I hope I can put
that knowledge into very fast action in this new coordination
position.

         Thank you very much.  (Applause.)

         THE PRESIDENT:  Let me also say before we take a
question or two, to Mr. Speaker and to Congressman Studds and Frank
and McDermott and Pelosi and Morella, and to all the other members of
the Congress who have been willing to support increased efforts for
AIDS in the face of these difficult budgetary times.  I'm grateful
for them, too, because without the congressional support, we would
not be able to make any progress, in my judgment, even with this
heightened administrative effort.

         Q      Mr. President, as you approach your decision on
gays in the military, have you reached a conclusion about the
directive that says that homosexuality is incompatible with military
service?  Have you decided --

         THE PRESIDENT:  I have not received any such directive.
And until I receive a report from the Pentagon, I have no further
comment on this.

         Q      Can I just ask you a broader question, then, about
this?

         THE PRESIDENT:  I'm not going to discuss it until I
receive the report from the Pentagon.  I have nothing else to say
now.

         Q      Mr. President, I have a question for Ms. Gebbie,
please.  During the time that you served in Washington and Oregon on
dealing with the AIDS epidemic, what will you bring to this job that
you learned there?

         MS. GEBBIE:  I think one of the biggest things I learned
is that people have to be able to hear each other, not just talk to
each other, but hear each other, and then put that listening into
effect, developing policies that work.  That's a bit of a global
answer, but it really has to be applied to each piece of this puzzle.
And it's putting a puzzle together that's developing policy around
this disease.

         Q      Mr. President, yesterday when the news broke of the
terrorist attempts at bombing various points in New York City, a lot
of Americans felt an increased sense of vulnerability.  I wonder if
you would share with us your thoughts when you learned about it, and
do you share that increased sense of vulnerability to terrorism in
this country?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Any free society has always some
exposure to terrorism.  I think what the American people should do,
though, is to feel an enormous sense of pride in the aggressive work
done by the New York Police Department and all the federal
authorities involved in New York.  We are working aggressively on
this issue.  We will continue to work on it in a very tough way, and
we will put whatever resources the United States has to put in to
combatting it.

         I think one of the problems that has plagued much of the
world in the 1980s is random acts of terrorism.  And there is always
the possibility with increasing political instability in various
places of increased terrorism.  But I can tell you that I view the
action in New York as reassuring.  And all I can tell is that we're
going to do our best to be as tough, as intolerant, as effective in
dealing with these kinds of problems consistently as the local and
the federal authorities were in New York.

         Q      Mr. President, now that the Senate has voted, can
you tell us where you come down on the differences between the House
and Senate bills in terms of the gasoline versus Btu tax, in terms of
the level of Medicare funding, and the other differences in the
bills.  And can you tell us, did you win a political victory at the
possible expense of your program, in making so many deals that it's
just complicated the process of getting things through conference?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Actually, this administration didn't
make any deals.  The Senate Finance Committee put together a bill
that it could get out of the Senate Finance Committee.  And then the
question was very much whether we would go on to conference.  I think
there was a great sense in the Senate that they had to go forward
with the bill.  There were many senators who told me they liked the
House bill better.  I mean, there were divisions even in the Senate.
There were a couple of senators who indicated they would have voted
for the House bill who did not vote for the Senate bill.  There was
all kinds of difference of opinion.

         I think what happened was there was an institutional
feeling there yesterday, which crystallized in the late afternoon,
that the worst thing they could do is not to go forward, and that the
worst thing they could do is not to break the gridlock, not to find a
way to continue to push for real economic reform.  And all this
happened rather late last evening, and no decisions have been made.
I haven't even had an ample opportunity to analyze whatever
amendments were made yesterday.  But this administration was not
nearly as involved in the details of what came out of the Senate as
was the case in the House.

         I am confidence that the conferees will get together,
will produce a bill that in some ways is superior to both bills and
will have a broader support.  That's what I think will happen.

         Q      Gas tax, sir?

         Q      On the budget, assuming that you want the final
bill to resemble your own plan as much as possible, what is your
response to Senator Moynihan's observation recently when he said that
he felt that one -- directing one-third of all tax increases and
spending cuts to investment would be perhaps too excessive?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we'll see.  A lot of the senators
who came on to the bill late yesterday were holding out because the
investment incentives have been cut back so much by the committee.
That was -- one of the biggest hurdles was trying to convince some of
the senators that we might increase the investment incentives in the
conference.  So I can tell you that will be a point of continuing
tension.  But I expect there will be some real effort to try to get
the investment and growth options back in there.

         Keep in mind, reducing the deficit helps you by bringing
down interest rates.  But still in the end if you want to grow the
economy, somebody has to invest money and create jobs and put people
to work.  If the unemployment rate in this country were 4 percent
instead of 7 percent, we'd have far fewer problems than we do.  And
the stagnation worldwide of economic activity, which has been going
on for sometime now, is holding this country back and requires this
country to make extraordinary efforts if we're going to swim against
the tide and try to grow more than other nations to increase
incentives to invest and create jobs and to grow this economy.

         If you take investment out of part of the country as,
for example, you see in California with the big cutbacks in defense,
there needs to be some offsetting investment.  You can't create jobs
out of thin air.  So I think we want to see in this economic plan two
objectives -- really tough deficit reduction, keeping the interest
rates down, freeing up money for private sector investment, and
increasing incentives by the national government to get more
investment in the economy.  And I hope we see it.

         Q      Mr. President, there seems to be another standoff
in Baghdad between U.N. weapons inspectors and the Iraqi government.
This is the first time this has happened on your watch.  How serious
is this standoff?  And what, if anything, do you plan on doing about
it?

         THE PRESIDENT:  It's quite serious.  And the United
Nations -- you've already heard the U.N. speak to it, and I would
expect that the matter will have to be resolved one way or the other
in the fairly near future.  I do think that -- I don't have much to
add to the pronouncements that have come out of the U.N.  The United
States has to continue to support compliance with the U.N.
resolutions as they apply to Iraq.

         Q      Mr. President, you said that this is the first time
that we're going to the economic summit in a position of economic
strength.  Another way to view that is that you had a tie vote in the
Senate; that you're caught going into conference between the demands
for more social spending, more investment and those who want not
cuts; and that there's no margin for error, which is not a very
strong signal of the ability to resolve this and to get anything that
will pass finally both Houses --

         THE PRESIDENT:  I don't think any of the people who have
looked at this really believe that we won't get a bill out of the
conference that will be marginally changed in ways from both the
House and Senate bills that will make the bill more passible in the
Senate as well as the House.  For example, the House wanted basically
the incentive package that was there, but some less tax and some more
spending cuts.  That came out of the Senate.  The Senate obliged the
less tax and more spending cuts, but did it at the expense of cutting
so much of the investments out, because the energy tax had to be
reduced as much as it did, not for the floor of the Senate, but to
get it out of the Senate Finance Committee.

         Now, what will happen now is you'll see a negotiation
and they'll try to bridge those gaps.  I don't think they are
particularly large.  I think it's quite encouraging.  And if you look
at the level of aggression this country has displayed in trying to do
something about its economic circumstances as compared with what is
going on in these other nations -- the political and the economic
problems -- I think the United States should be very proud.  It is
not easy to change.

         I mean, we've been on an incredible roller coaster ride
for 12 years now, just sort of spending more than we're taking in and
living by political rhetoric and hot air.  And when you try to
change, it's not easy.  You know, it's the same -- my daughter always
says when she is gigging me a little that old line about denial being
more than a river in Egypt.  (Laughter.)  I mean, you know, it's not
easy to change.  (Laughter.)

         Thank you very much.  (Applause.)

                                 END9:05 A.M. EDT