Article 4400 of alt.politics.clinton:
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Subject: CLINTON TEXT: TOWN HALL MTG WSB-TV (ATLANTA)
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Date: Monday, 17 Aug 1992 17:13:18 CDT
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                REMARKS BY GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON
                    WSB-TV Town Hall Meeting
                           Atlanta, GA
                          June 21, 1992

HI, I'M SUE WHITNEY WITH THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF GEORGIA,
AND WE'RE VERY CONCERNED WITH THE GROWING DISPARITY BETWEEN THE
VERY RICH AND THE VERY POOR, THE DWINDLING MIDDLE CLASS, THE FACT
THAT THE COMING ON LINE JOBS ARE LOW LEVEL INCOME JOBS AND WHAT
IS YOUR SOLUTION?

If there were a reason, we'd be doing it.  But there is a
solution to it.  The fundamental problem is that government has
failed most people.  Government by both parties in Washington has
failed most people.  For a dozen years now we've been governed by
a theory that said if you just gave a little bit more inequality,
more money to people at the top and the richest corporations,
that they would invest and create jobs.  It hasn't worked.  It
just didn't work.  And what we need is a program that program
that puts our people first again.  Other countries, Germany and
Japan and many other nations that are growing faster than we are,
put their people first.  What does that mean?  That means you
have to invest more in jobs.  Private investment which creates
jobs in the private sector, that's the overwhelming thing.  We
need more incentives for that.  Public investment, we need to
spend more of your tax money investing in roads, and streets, and
bridges, and high speed rail, and new aircraft and an economy for
the twenty-first century.

It means education and training.  We ought to give this country a
world class education system.  Everybody knows we're not doing it
now.

And it means affordable health care for all Americans.  Unless we
control the cost of health care, we can't bring the government
deficit under control, and we can't bring productivity back to
our manufacturing sector.  So jobs, education, and health care.
Those are the key.

YOU'RE UNVEILING AN ECONOMIC PLAN, ACTUALLY YOU'VE GIVEN IT OUT
TODAY.  GIVE US AT LEAST ONE HIGHLIGHT OF IT.

The economic plan that I released today is an outgrowth of what I
learned in the primaries, building on the earlier plan that I
released in New Hampshire.  It would have the biggest plug of
investment since World War II.  An investment tax credit and
other incentives for industry to put new plant and equipment and
jobs in America -- no more incentives to move our jobs overseas.
Fifty billion dollars a year in jobs, education, and training and
other investments for working families in America today to help
people raise their children and educate them better, to help the
work force be better educated and trained, to control health care
costs, and to build an economy for the 21st century.  It's a very
exciting plan.  I hope all of you will get copies of it, and read
it, and let me know what you think.

I'M (NAME UNCLEAR), A RETIRED SCHOOL TEACHER FROM THE DEKALB
COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM.  I WOULD LIKE TO ASK GOVERNOR CLINTON, WHY
DO YOU FAVOR THE DEATH PENALTY?

I favor the death penalty in certain circumstances because I
think it is an appropriate penalty for the severity of the crime
involved, and because I think it can be a deterrent under certain
circumstances.  In my state, since I've been governor, we've had
four executions, three of them were people who killed more than
one person deliberately, and two of the four killed police
officers in the line of duty.  Under those circumstances, I think
it's appropriate.

HI GOVERNOR.  I WANT TO KNOW, IF YOU'RE ELECTED PRESIDENT, HOW
YOU WILL ENSURE THAT THE 43 MILLION AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES
CAN ATTAIN HEALTH CARE COVERAGE?  THOUGH WE ARE OTHERWISE
HEALTHY, THOSE OF US WHO CAN'T WALK CAN'T QUALIFY FOR HEALTH CARE
COVERAGE.

That's an important question.  And let me give you two answers.
I think there are two different problems.  First, for basic
health coverage, under the health care plan that I will urge the
Congress to adopt, we will require insurance companies to go to
broad based community ratings and put all citizens in a given
geographic area in a certain rating pool so disabled people won't
be disadvantaged.  No one will be able to be turned down and no
one will ever be able to lose their health care if they change
jobs.  So there will be a requirement for basic, overall
coverage.  And we'll do it and actually lower the unit cost of
health care in the country.  America has the most expensive
health insurance system in the world because we haven't required
the insurance companies to do what they do in other countries.

The second thing we need to do is to establish a long term care
system to allow disabled people to buy in based on their ability
to pay so if they need a little help at home, for example, they
can get that based on their ability to pay.  You would have to
pay something for that if you needed it, but you wouldn't ever
have to spend yourself in the poorhouse in going to a nursing
home just to get some health care.  That's what happens all too
often today.

GOVERNOR CLINTON, WITH ALL THE NEGATIVE PUBLICITY BETWEEN THE
COMMUNITY AND THE POLICE LATELY, HOW DO YOU PLAN TO ASSIST THE
LAW ENFORCEMENT COMMUNITY TO MAKE THEIR JOBS MORE EFFECTIVE?

Jerry, I think that if we assist the law enforcement community in
helping them be more effective, their public esteem will rise
too.  I'm glad you're concerned about it.  Before I was Governor,
I was Attorney General.  I've been working with law enforcement
officers for nearly fifteen years now.  And I have some ideas I
think will help.  Let me just give you one or two.

First of all, you've got to realize what kind of pressures these
law enforcement folks are under.  Thirty years ago, there were
three policemen for every serious crime reported; today there are
three crimes for every policeman.  One of the things we need is
just more police.  And we need them to work in certain set
communities again, especially in these big cities.  They need to
be in the same neighborhoods day in and day out, making friends
with their neighbors, working with them, helping to solve crimes.
So I have offered two proposals to get more police back in the
communities.  One of them I got from your senator, Sam Nunn.  And
that is to let military people who are going to be mustered out
because of defense cuts get emergency certification to be trained
as law enforcement officials, put out to work in law enforcement,
and able to earn against their military retirement while they're
doing it.  The other is to let young who borrow money from the
government to go to college retrained as law enforcement
officials, and then work off their college loans by working in
law enforcement.  That will raise the overall social esteem of
law enforcement, I think.  It will also help police agencies do a
better job.  I feel very strongly that these two things should be
done.

THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION SEEMS TO HAVE HAD A VERY INDIFFERENT
APPROACH TO SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF THE SPREAD OF HIV IN THE
UNITED STATES. WHAT WILL YOU DO, IF YOU'RE ELECTED PRESIDENT,
ABOUT THIS PANDEMIC THAT IS OCCURRING.

Well, first let me tell you that one of the things I've learned a
lot more about since I've been running for president is AIDS.
Over a quarter of a million HIV positive people in New York, over
a million in the United States, over a 140,000 people have died.
This is a problem for every American, spreading into different
populations now.  It's no longer just a sexually transmitted
disease among gay and lesbian people.  It is going into the
heterosexual population and I tell you that when confront the
dimensions of it, it's staggering.  All the costs savings we hope
to make in health care could be exploded unless we get ahead of
the curve on AIDS.  I think there ought to be one person put in
charge of it, a czar to lead a war on AIDS, cut through all the
Federal bureaucracy.  I think we ought to spend more on education
and treatment and training.  And I think we ought to go into
these schools with aggressive programs to tell these kids how to
stay alive.  I know that's controversial, but if we don't do it
we're going to have an unmanageable problem in the years ahead.

There has been an AIDS commission, you may know about it.  Magic
Johnson was appointed to it.  They've issued two fine reports
with a whole lot of recommendations.  Nobody's doing anything
about them.  So I want to put somebody in charge, take the
commission, take their recommendations and implement them, and
get ahead of the curve on this one.  We've got to drive down the
numbers of people being infected every year.

AS ONE WHO HAS BEEN UNEMPLOYED FOR OVER TEN MONTHS, I'D LIKE TO
KNOW TWO THINGS.  ONE, WHERE DOES UNEMPLOYMENT RANK ON YOUR
AGENDA?  AND WHAT DO YOU SPECIFICALLY PLAN TO DO TO LOWER THE
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE?

It ranks at the top.  If every American who wanted a job and was
willing to work had one.  And if Americans who worked harder got
more money instead of less, we wouldn't have half of the problems
we have today.  As governor, I have spent most of my time working
on getting and keeping decent jobs.  In my state, we had a
manufacturing job growth rate of ten times the national average,
partly because we worked at it really hard.  This country has no
national economic strategy.  Obviously the President doesn't find
jobs for individuals, but the President creates an economic
climate.

One of the reasons I got into this race is I was so angry that
year in and year out, America was the only major nation without
an economic plan.  What's the key to it.  Number one, you've got
to invest.  My plan calls for big incentives for business and
wealthy individuals to invest in this economy but no more
incentives to invest overseas.  Number two, I want to spend more
of your tax money that you give us investing in your future to
generate more jobs.  We can generate a lot of jobs directly and
indirectly by spending more on the things that other countries
spend more on--on rebuilding our road systems, our water systems,
our sewer systems, our rail systems.  I want to do that.

The third thing I want to do is to make sure that you have a
competitive government-business-education partnership.  That we
are educating and training people for the jobs of tomorrow and
that I'm not letting America be taken advantage of in research
and development and new technologies and in the trade war.  I
will meet the competition and America will win again if I get
elected President.

MR. GOVERNOR, FIVE YEARS AGO WHEN ROSS PEROT GAVE A ROUSING
SPEECH IN FRONT OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNOR'S ASSOCIATION YOU URGED
HIM TO RUN FOR THE PRESIDENCY.  SO GIVEN THAT HE IS RUNNING WELL
ON THE POLLS AND BOTH OF YOU WANT TO CHANGE THE COURSE FOR THIS
COUNTRY,  WOULD YOU CONSIDER BEING HIS RUNNING MATE AND DOING A
GREAT SERVICE FOR THIS COUNTRY?

No.  No, because I think I would be a better President than he
would.  I've worked on these problems for more than ten years.
Unlike Mr. Perot, I've not been part of the Washington
establishment, making deals, getting tax breaks, lobbying
Congress.  I've been out here trying to create jobs in a global
economy and educate people and move people from welfare to work
and do all these things that other politicians just talk about,
and I'm the only person running who's got a plan to do something
about the fix we're in.  So, I won the Democratic primaries.  I'm
the nominee of the Democratic Party.  It was an unusual thing.  I
didn't know if I could win because I told people all the way
through the election, this was not a Republican or Democratic
issue, that both parties had let us down in Washington.  But I
really believe that I should stay in this race because I can do a
better job of bringing America back and bringing America
together.

WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT ROSS PEROT FIVE YEARS AGO AND RUNNING FOR
PRESIDENT?

I don't know.  That's what he said I said.  He says a lot of
things I agree with.  But it's one thing to say something and
another thing to do something about it.  We can all identify with
the problems.  I woke up every day mad for years.  That's why I
got into this race.  I kept thinking, somebody will run and say,
both parties have let us down, we've got to change the direction
of the country, we've got invest again, we've got to compete
again.  And when nobody was really addressing that, that's why I
got in this race in the first place.  So I can't criticize him
when he's upset about what's going on.  But I know that I have
done more in the last ten years than anybody else who's run to
try to fix it and that's what I want to do as President.

GOVERNOR CLINTON, THE FEDERAL DEFICIT HAS SPIRALED UNDER A
DEMOCRAT CONGRESS.  HOW WILL A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS AND A DEMOCRAT
PRESIDENT CURB AND REDUCE THE FEDERAL DEFICIT ESPECIALLY
CONSIDERING YOUR PLANS TO INCREASE SOCIAL PROGRAMS AND NOT REDUCE
ENTITLEMENTS?

Well, that's a very clever way that you said it.  But there were
Republican presidents in there who never once presented a
balanced budget.  Our deficit never exceeded $70 billion a year
until Ronald Reagan urged us to cut taxes and raise spending at
the same time.  Mr. Bush has never presented a balanced budget.
If the budgets of the last two Presidents had been adopted just
as they were recommended, our deficits would be even bigger than
they are today.

Under my plan we would cut the federal deficit by more than fifty
percent in the next four years.  How would we do it:  First, we
would take the defense cuts that are coming anyway and invest
more in the American economy to generate growth.  Second, we
would take on health care cost control--something neither the
President nor the Congress has been willing to do.  That's the
main focus of entitlements explosion in the deficit-- health care
cost explosion.

Third, we would ask the wealthy whose taxes were cut while their
incomes went up in the 1980's to pay their fair share.  Fourth, I
would adopt a vigorous spending cut program.  We would phase out
100,000 federal employees by attrition.  We would reform a lot of
the procurement practices in the Pentagon and other departments
of the federal government where we've got, among other things,
1.2 million canisters of nasal spray now, and I could give you a
lot of other examples, there are billions of dollars there.  I
would reduce the administrative costs of the federal government
by 3 percent a year.  I would cut the White House staff 25
percent and send a bill to the Congress to do the same thing with
their staffs.  We would shrink the unnecessary government, raise
taxes from those who owe their fair share, and invest more in the
country to get more growth.  That's how we control the deficit.
And my plan cuts it by well over 50 percent in just four years.

IF YOU WERE ELECTED PRESIDENT OF WHAT IS KNOWN AS THE WORLD'S
ONLY SUPER POWER, AND YET THERE'S SUCH A SENSE OF HELPLESSNESS,
OF RAGE, THAT EXISTS WITHIN OUR OWN COUNTRY.  WHAT WOULD YOU DO
AS PRESIDENT, GOV. CLINTON, TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF THE RAGE THAT
EXITS WITHIN US AND AMONG US.

I would try to tell the American people as President that we have
to live together again and we have to bring out the best in each
other again.  Our diversity is incredible--our racial, our
ethnic, our income diversity--and we're as divided now as we have
been in a long time.   I would say, we don't have a person to
waste, everybody counts in this country.  We've all got to be on
the same side.  I want to bring America back.  But before we can
bring America back we have to bring America together.  And I
would talk about it over and over and over again.  I would
appoint people who believed in human rights and equal opportunity
and the capacity of every man and woman and boy and girl in this
country to live up to their God given ability.  I would appoint
people who believe that we can win again and I would try to lift
the spirits of this country and bring them together.  I want
people to get up every day and think we're making progress again.
There is so much rage in this country because two things have
happened that are bad.  We have lost the idea of progress.  Most
people are working harder for less and they think that tomorrow
won't be better than today.  And we've lost the idea of
community.  We feel like we're coming apart when we ought to be
coming together.  I'd want to bring both those things back to
America.

(Brief exchange between commentator and questioner about Sister
Souljah remarks) WHAT COULD YOU DO MORE THAN RHETORIC TO REALLY
INSPIRE US AS A NATION TO BE (INAUDIBLE)...

You've got to give everybody something to do and you've got to
make them believe they can make a difference.  Look, when I said
what I did about those remarks that's the context in which I said
it.  It said, look, we've got to bring people together.  Look how
alienated some of our people are.  Look how angry they are.  And
then I mentioned those remarks. To say that I didn't agree with
them, but we had to do something about the rage and the anger.  I
think you've got to first of all, tell people they all matter and
you're going to give them all the chance to get an education and
have a job.  Secondly, you've got to challenge people to change,
and you've got to challenge people to help one another again.
Those corporate executives, I agree with you, a lot of them are
doing a good job and they are dying to get involved in solving
our problems. I'm going to give them a way to do that.  I'm going
to give them all a chance to participate in rebuilding America.
The President can't do it alone.  You've got to have a way to
galvanize, and organize, and mobilize other people.  That's what
this plan is all about.

Government works just fine if you're in the top one percent or if
you're in a big special interest group.  If you're an ordinary
person, whether you're a middle class person or a poor person, if
you're working for a living you're probably worse off now than
you were last year.  That's what's the matter.  We've got to make
the system work again.  I'll turn the system around, but the
people have to make it work too.

GOVERNOR CLINTON, MR. BUSH AND HIS ADMINISTRATION SEEMS TO BE
VERY PERSISTENT ON BALANCING HIS BUDGET ON THE BACK OF THE SENIOR
CITIZENS.  WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR SOCIAL SECURITY FOR SENIOR
CITIZENS?

I'm going to protect Social Security.  I think it's a solemn
trust.  I think the people who paid into it deserve to draw out
of it.  Today the fund is very secure, in fact, it produces $70
billion in taxes more than we actually pay out in Social
Security.  If you elect me your President you won't have to worry
about your Social Security.  We will protect it, protect the
integrity of the fund.  It's one of the few things government's
done that's worked the way it was supposed to.

GOVERNOR CLINTON, IF YOU HAD BEEN PRESIDENT DURING THE RECENT
ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE, HOW WOULD YOU HAVE HANDLED THE
PERCEIVED
LACK OF COOPERATIVE EFFORT THAT PRESIDENT BUSH EXHIBITED--WHAT
WOULD YOU HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?

I would have agreed with the Germans and the Japanese and the
other countries to sign the global warming treaty which would
have called on us to limit our ability to warm the environment--
our green house gas emissions. I think that was a good treaty and
I think we made a big mistake to gut it.  I would have signed the
agreement to protect the world's plant and animal species under
the circumstances that would have protected our bio-technology
industries in America which are very important.

In other words, I would have made America a leader in working
with these other industrial countries.  We are still under the
impression that if you help the environment it hurts the economy.
These other countries know that if you help the environment in
the right way it helps the economy.  Today in the United States,
foreign companies have 70% of the market for environmental
technologies to clean up our environment.  Down at Rio we were
being eaten alive be the foreign competition in environmental
technologies.  We need to change our policies and say we are
going to make protecting the environment good economics.  That
will be my policy as President.

OVER THE PAST THREE YEARS I HAVE SEEN TUITION INCREASE OVER
THIRTY-FIVE PER CENT. I CHOSE TO GO TO A HISTORICALLY BLACK
STATE-SUPPORTED UNIVERSITY. I AM JUST WONDERING ALONG WITH THAT
THIRTY-FIVE PER CENT INCREASE, I HAVE SEEN A DECREASE IN FACULTY
AS WELL AS A SLIGHT REDUCTION IN CLASS AVAILABILITY. I WAS
WONDERING AS PRESIDENT WHAT YOU COULD DO TO GIVE PERSONS SUCH AS
MYSELF THE AVAILABILITY TO GO TO THE SCHOOL OF THEIR CHOICE?

Thank you Dennis.  One of the most important parts of this plan
of mine that puts America first is a revolutionary new program
that which would combine the best of two of the best things
America ever did--the GI and the Peace Corps.  Under this
program, we would replace the present student loan program with a
National Trust Fund.  And anybody in America like you, without
regard to income, could borrow the money to go to college.  When
you are finished you have got to pay it back.  You have two
choices, you could pay back as a small percentage of your income
over time at tax time so you couldn't beat the bill. Or what I
would hope you would do is you could pay your college loan back
by going back to your home town or your home state and working
for two years in a domestic peace corps to rebuild America--be a
police officer, be a teacher, work in a drug program to keep kids
of drugs, help solve the problems of America--pay your student
loan off.  It would be the best we ever spent.  And it is funded
in this program of mine. I hope you will support because it can
make it possible for millions of people like you to get a good
education and make America stronger.

IN LIGHT OF THE RECENT ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE IN RIO, WHAT
WOULD YOU DO TO RESTORE THE UNITED STATES' PUBLIC CREDIBILITY
WITH THE NATIONS CONCERNED WITH THE ENVIRONMENT?

Well, as I said a moment a go I think we should fight against
global warming.  Senator Al Gore of your neighboring state of
Tennessee has written a wonderful book about what is happening to
the environment.  In which he says that the warming of the planet
is a huge threat to America's future and the world's future.
Here at home what I try to do is to adopt first a new energy
policy.  Get us off our reliance on foreign oil which is very
hard on the environment.  And use more natural gas, use more
renewable resources like solar energy, and achieve international
standards of energy conservation and efficiency.  We could save
tens of billions of dollars for our economy just by improving our
energy efficiency.  In my budget we are going to cut our energy
bills almost a billion dollars a year in the federal government
alone just by energy efficiency.  So we'll have a new energy
policy, and again I say, we would say here's the big idea:  we're
going to make good environmental policy good for the economy.
We're going to create jobs.  If you look at the defense cuts, it
really breaks my heart to see all these defense workers put out
on the street.  They won the Cold War, now they're out in the
cold.  What should we have done with them?  When we reduce
defense, we should invest all that money.  Every bit of it in new
environmental technologies or other things that would be
important to the economy in the 21st Century.  We could make the
environment a big job generator for America, and that's what we
out to do.

GOV. CLINTON, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW, INSTEAD OF USING OUT
TAXPAYERS MONEY TO FUND THE PRISON SYSTEM, WHY DON'T WE USE THAT
MONEY TO BETTER EDUCATE OUR YOUNG PEOPLE TO PREVENT THEM FROM
GOING TO PRISON IN THE FIRST PLACE?

We should.  We should.  Let me give you a couple of examples of
things I think we ought to do that would reduce the crime rate by
keeping more young people in the mainstream.  We ought to have
the opportunity for every child from a low income family to be in
a preschool program.  Where their parents can also learn to be
their children's first teacher.  We ought to have smaller classes
in the early grades.  We ought to have opportunities for young
people when they reach adolescence to work in the summer to get
to know successful adults.  And when they get in trouble the
first time, instead of sending them off to prison, they ought to
be in community based boot camps, where they can get military
discipline, education, and treatment for drug abuse or alcohol
abuse if they need it.  And the opportunity to get to know caring
adults.  You know, most kids who get in trouble did not have a
consistent, stable relationship with an adult who was both
successful in the community, and caring.  I want to fund the kind
of experimental community programs that I think we could take all
across this country and really make a difference.  You know,
President Carter is here working in Atlanta to try to do some of
these things, and I think that focusing on keeping our young
people in school and out of jail is about the most important
thing we can do to reduce the prison population.

AT WHOSE COST?

Well, we're spending the money now.  I mean if you look the
Georgia budget, the Arkansas budget, the New York budget, the
California budget, we're spending a fortune on prisons now.  What
I am trying to do at home, and what I want us to do nationwide,
is to begin to set aside more money to divert people from prison
in the first instance, keep them in school, and give them a
chance to do community service work.  We'd put some money in it
from the national government, some money would have to come at
the state and local level.

GOV. CLINTON, WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO STAND HERE TODAY, AND PROMISE
THE MIDDLE CLASS THAT YOU WILL NOT RAISE TAXES IF YOU WERE
ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?

I will not raise taxes on the middle class, in fact, I have a
proposal to provide some modest relief.  Look, in the 80's, and
in the last 12 years, you know what's happened if you're a
financial analyst.  Taxes on middle class people have gone up,
while their incomes went down.  Taxes have gone down on people
with incomes of roughly $200,000 a year and above, their taxes
have gone down, while their income has gone up.  So, under my
plan, what we do is to give middle class families a choice:  they
can take a rate reduction for four years, or they can take a
credit instead of a deduction for their children.  If they have
more children, they can take a children's tax credit, so we can
invest more money in our children by giving the money back to the
parents to invest in their children.  I don't plan to raise taxes
on middle class families.  I want to lower their income taxes,
and give them some money to raise their kids on.  I feel very
strongly about this.  This is an important part of investing in
America.  We've had for ten years now, really for more than ten
year, middle class people are working harder for less money.
More than two-thirds of the American people are worse off today
in real dollar terms than they were ten years ago.

YOU'VE DONE SOME ADJUSTING OF YOUR MIDDLE CLASS TAX BREAK PLAN.
WHY DID YOU FIRST SAY THERE WOULD BE, WHAT $500 OR SO TAX BREAK.
NOW YOU'RE TINKERING WITH IT A LITTLE BIT IN THIS NEW PLAN OF
YOURS. WHY?

Well, because I thinks it's important to make a real effort to
reduce the deficit, and to increase investment.  The main thing
middle class people need is a growing economy with good jobs.
You can't get that without investment, and you can't get that
without reducing the deficit.  On the other hand, most middle
class people really are paying taxes that are too high.  So, what
I tried to do is to take two ideas that I had, and combine them
into one, so that we cut the cost of the overall tax break, let
every person in the middle class income range, that is under
$80,000, will either get some rate reduction, or would get a tax
credit, instead of a tax deduction for their children.  I want to
focus on bonding and building families.  And this new tax change
does that.  It rewards families.  I might say that most of our
competitors in Europe, for example, have this kind of children's
allowance.  They recognize that the rearing of children is still
the most important work of any society.  So, that's what this
does.

I'M A TEACHER, AND I WORK WITH HEARING-IMPAIRED STUDENTS, AND
PRESENTLY I'M WORKING IN A SPECIAL ED PROGRAM THAT ALLOWS ME TO
WORK WITH A SMALLER STUDENT-TEACHER RATIO.  THIS DOES ALLOW ME TO
DO A LOT MORE WITH MY STUDENTS, AND GIVE THEM A LOT MORE
ATTENTION.  IS THERE ANY HOPE THAT IN THE FUTURE THAT YOU COULD
LOWER THE STUDENT-TEACHER RATIO IN REGULAR CLASSROOMS AS A MEANS
OF HELPING WITH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM?

Thank you for that question.  I hope we can, but as you know,
most of the money for public schools comes from the state and the
local level.  In our state, we've lowered the student-teacher
ratio to 20 children per class from kindergarten through third
grade.  And a recent study coming out of Tennessee said if we
could go down to 15 students we would dramatically increase the
learning of children who are educationally disadvantaged.  What I
have proposed to do is to increase funding through the Chapter 1
program to schools in a way that would be targeted toward smaller
classes in the early grades, at least.  With all the other
budgetary problems the federal government has, I think we'll be
lucky to do that, but I do believe we can do that.  We can give
the schools some incentives in return for additional money to
lower the class sizes in the early grades.  And you're absolutely
right.  There is no question that it would increase student
learning dramatically.  All the teachers with whom I've talked
over the years tell me that over and over and over again.  Thank
you for your question.

GOVERNOR CLINTON, OUR PRESIDENT IS ADVOCATING FEDERAL FUNDS FOR
PRIVATE SCHOOLS.  WHAT WILL YOU DO AS PRESIDENT TO SEE TO IT THAT
PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE NOT ROBBED OF QUALITY EDUCATION, PARTICULARLY
URBAN SCHOOLS?

Well, I oppose the diversion of public funds to private schools.
I am the parent -- this is Father's Day, you know -- I am the
parent of a daughter who is a seventh-grade student in the Little
Rock, Arkansas public schools.  It's a majority minority school
district, but it's a good one, and I think she's getting a good
education there.  I believe in school choice if by that, we mean
giving parents and children more choices over the public schools
their children attend.  But I don't believe in private vouchers,
and letting people take already limited public funds into the
private school system.  We already spend less of our income on
public schools in America than many, many of our competitors do
in Japan and Germany, and other places, and I don't favor
reducing that further.  So I will oppose the private voucher
plan.

WHAT WILL YOU AND YOUR ADMINISTRATION DO TO CLEAN UP THE GENERAL
CLASSROOM, TO REINSTATE DISCIPLINE, AND TO RETURN EXPRESS
AUTHORITY TO OUR TEACHERS, AND TO GUARANTEE OUR TEACHERS THE
FREEDOM TO TEACH WITHOUT FEAR OF LAWSUITS, AND REMOVE DISRUPTIVE
AND OFTEN VIOLENT CHILDREN FROM THE CLASSROOMS OF OUR OWN, ON-
TASK CHILDREN?

As you can imagine, most of that has to be done school district
by school district and school by school.  But I tell you what I
will do, through the United States Department of Education and
through my office.  I will support giving principals and teachers
more authority, school by school, to run their schools, to
establish goals, to achieve them, and to make the decisions they
need to make.  For young people who are disruptive, I will
support the establishment of alternative school environments,
where they might learn better, and where they won't be able to
undermine the learning of other students.  And I will support the
national education goals which I worked hard to write in 1989
which, among other things, say that by the year 2000 we should do
our dead-level best to train every educator in America so that
all of our schools can be safe and disciplined and drug-free.
It's a question of leadership and community support, but the
President can speak out and can support proven strategies to get
that done, and I assure you I will.  Without discipline, learning
cannot occur.

I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF YOU HAVE A PLAN FOR THE PRISON SYSTEM OF
OVERCROWDING PROBLEMS IN OUR PRISON SYSTEM?

I think the answer to the overcrowding in our prison system is
obviously either to build more prisons, or reduce the population
going in.  The only responsible and safe way to reduce the
population going in is to take non-violent offenders and let them
work in community boot camps.  And my budget, this plan I've been
talking about tonight, includes some seed money to help cities
and states establish these boot camps in the communities, so you
get people who aren't violent to do community service work and do
their education, and training, and treatment, and disciplinary
training, and at the same time you free up beds in the
penitentiary for the truly dangerous people that ought to be
behind bars.  There is also the possibility of more federal
prison-building which may take some of the pressure off of you,
but the main thing we've got to do is to provide alternatives for
the non-violent people so that the beds you have can be used to
keep the people who ought to be behind bars there without letting
them out too early.

I THINK THAT THE GREATEST LOSS IN THE LAST DECADE HAS BEEN OUR
SENSE OF COMMUNITY, WHO WE ARE AND ...(tape skips)... CLEARER
THAN IN THE HEALTH FIELD.  IN GEORGIA RIGHT NOW, ONE IN THREE-
QUARTER MILLION PEOPLE HAVE NO ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE SERVICES.
AT THE SAME TIME, WE ARE SPENDING MORE MONEY THAN ANY OTHER
NATION IN THE WORLD.  ALSO AT THE SAME TIME, ONE IN FOUR OF OUR
PRIMARY CARE INTERNAL MEDICINE DOCTORS HAVE LEFT THE CARE FIELD
TO GO DO SOMETHING ELSE BECAUSE THEY CAN'T MAKE IT WORK.  THE
PROBLEM ISN'T HOW MUCH WE'RE SPENDING; THE PROBLEM IS HOW WE'RE
SPENDING.  I'M INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU ANTICIPATE DOING IN TERMS
OF SYSTEMATIC REFORM SO THAT WE CAN GET A SYSTEM THAT'S
RESPONSIVE TO THE NEEDS OF OUR PEOPLE AND AT THE SAME TIME
DELIVERS CARE TO THE PEOPLE THAT SO DESPERATELY NEED IT.

First, doctor, let me say how much I respect you as a doctor for
saying that we're spending enough money, we're just spending it
wrong.  And if you look at where we're spending money, as
compared with other nations, we spend a lot more on insurance, we
spend a lot more on health care bureaucracy, we spend a lot more
on government regulations, we spend more on pharmaceuticals, we
spend more on extreme care and less on primary and preventive
care.  So under my plan, we would go after these areas of
excessive cost.  We would simplify the billing system, provide a
basic package of affordable health care to all Americans, either
through the government or through their employers, we would
require tough insurance reforms, to try to cut down on that cost,
and then, in addition to that, we would set aside some of this
government money we spend to increase the availability of primary
and preventive health care services in clinics and cities and
rural areas throughout the country because, as you know from what
you said, if we could increase the number of people who go to the
doctor, and go to these clinics in a timely fashion, we would
actually cut the cost of health care.  If we could make sure that
every pregnant woman in America went to the doctor six times
before giving birth, that would reduce low birthweights.  That
would give us $3000 births instead of $50,000 or $250,000 births.


DO YOU HAVE ANY ANTICIPATION OF SYSTEMATIC REFORM IN THE SENSE
THAT, RIGHT NOW, MEDICARE, PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE, AND MEDICAID
INCREASINGLY ARE THE PROBLEMS, NOT THE SOLUTIONS?

Yes --

AND MOST OF THE PROPOSALS WHICH I HEAR SEEM TO WANT TO PUT MORE
MONEY INTO THESE SYSTEMS RATHER THAN COME UP WITH CREATIVE NEW
WAYS OF PUTTING OUR MORE THAN ADEQUATE RESOURCES INTO MORE
EFFECTIVE WAYS OF TAKING CARE OF --

I think you have to redo the whole system, have a uniform paying
schedule.  You can have the government and private insurance
companies all in it, but you have to have a uniform paying
schedule, and I think you've got to encourage people to join
health care networks so that they can make annual payments and
have their needs taken care of in a totally different and
systematic fashion.  I don't think that just pumping more money
into Medicare and Medicaid or the private system's going to do
it.  The number one thing you could do for some businesses in
America is just bring the cost of health care in line with
inflation.

LET'S MAKE SURE, BECAUSE THIS IS, OF COURSE, ONE OF THE CRUCIAL
ISSUES ON THE CAMPAIGN, THAT OUR VIEWERS UNDERSTAND YOUR PLAN FOR
HEALTH INSURANCE.  YOU DON'T, OF COURSE, SUPPORT A NATIONAL
HEALTH CARE PLAN.  YOU DON'T WANT A GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED PLAN.

I don't think the government has to finance it all, no.  I think
you can leave the insurance companies in it.  But you have to do
what they've done in Hawaii.  In Hawaii, I might add, their
insurance premiums are 50% below the national average.  Because
they require the insurance companies to undertake big reforms, go
to broad-based community rating, to offer a comprehensive package
of benefits.  They got more people to doctors and clinics
earlier.  For primary and preventive care they have the most
extensive system  of seeing the doctor in an early and timely
fashion of any state in the country, and it's really made a
difference.

THEY ALSO LACK OUR PROBLEM HERE IN ATLANTA OF THE TREMENDOUS
DIVERSITY OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS THAT WE HAVE.  WE'VE
GOT 250,000 PEOPLE HERE WITHIN THE PERIMETER OF ATLANTA WHO LACK
ANY ACCESS TO PRIMARY CARE SERVICE.  IT'S NOT A MONEY PROBLEM,
IT'S A NETWORK AND INFRASTRUCTURE PROBLEM.

But I think you're going to have to -- I agree with that --
you're going to have to build a health care network for them,
you're going to have to build a network of clinics for them, and
you're going to have to have real incentives for primary care
physicians to get back into it.  You know, in Canada, over half
the doctors are primary care physicians.  In America, it's under
15%, now isn't it, doctor? (YES) And we're going to have to have,
we're going to have to do whatever it takes to build that
infrastructure, because that's where we're rationing health care
today.

YOU'D SPEND GOVERNMENT MONEY FOR THAT PLAN?

Absolutely.

HOW MUCH IS IT GOING TO COST US?

Well, I think for a few billion dollars, you could build the
clinic network you need.

WHERE'S IT COME FROM, THAT MONEY?

It's going to come from what we normally spend on Medicare and
Medicaid premiums to keep stoking the system we've got now, which
is broken.  The American people have to believe that we can do
more with the money we have.  We're spending 30% more than any
country on earth, and I don't know a single doctor who doesn't
believe that we could make universal health care available with
the money we've got.  The average doctor spends what, 30% of
income on paperwork?  (MAYBE 40.)  30 to 40 percent.  Your
competitors in Germany and Japan, they spend ten percent.  So,
when people talk about doctor fees, an enormous percentage of
that is administrative costs.  We have, you could not design a
system more inefficient than ours.  And we're going to change it.

THERE'S A CONCERN CONCERNING THE SPIRALLING COST OF HEALTH
INSURANCE.  WE STILL HAVE AN OUT-OF-POCKET COST TO PAY.  I'D LIKE
TO KNOW WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO TO ASSIST US WITH THIS SPIRALLING
COST, AND WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP?

I'm glad you asked what you could do to help.  What you can do to
help is to insist that in this election year we vote for a
president committed to real health care reform, to providing
affordable health care to all Americans.  Under my plan,
employees like you would still be required to contribute
something to the cost of your health care, but we would bring
health costs in line with inflation and you'd never have to worry
about losing your health benefits or losing them if you changed
jobs.  What we have to do is to stop the spiralling cost of
health care.  To do that, we also have to provide some basic
health care to people who don't have it, because one of the
reasons your premiums go up every year is that people who don't
have health insurance still get health care, when it's too late,
and it's too expensive, and they show up at the emergency room.
So if you vote for me, what I will do is give you insurance
reform, reform of the bureaucracy of the health care, reform of
the way the government regulates and funds health care.  We will
bring these costs in line with inflation, and then, year in and
year out, you can look forward to being able to afford the health
care that you have to pay for.  You won't have it going up at 2
and 3 times the rate your salary goes up.  That's what's
happening to Americans today.

DOES THIS INCLUDE HELPING THE SENIOR CITIZENS, YOUR PLAN?

Yes, it does.  Over the next several years, what we will do is to
set up a system so that the elderly and the disabled can
purchase, according to their ability to pay, some long-term
health care before they have to go into a nursing home after they
spend themselves into poverty.  That's what normally happens
today.  We want a long-term health care component in this health
system.

AS SPENDING DECREASES FOR THE DEFENSE INDUSTRY, THERE'S GOING TO
BE A MOVEMENT FROM THE DEFENSE INDUSTRY TO OTHER INDUSTRIES.
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO AID THESE PEOPLE IN THEIR MOVEMENT?

I think we should spend all the money, all the money by which we
reduce defense in targeting research and development into new
technologies, or in actually investing in the economy of the
twenty-first century, the kinds of projects that government
normally funds:  new smart highways, new short-haul aircraft
systems, a national network of fiber optics, and I think we
should give preference to those communities which have lost these
defense-related jobs.  You've asked a good question, you know.
Our high-tech employment base is, by and large, in defense-
related industries, and as we cut these things, we're going to
lose an awful lot of our competitive position in the world, and a
lot of our good jobs, unless we, with iron discipline, reinvest
that money in the economy of the future, and in the technologies
which will generate more jobs at home than we're going to lose by
cutting defense.

I COMMEND YOU ON THE PROGRAM YOU'VE PRESENTED TO US.  WHAT I
HAVEN'T HEARD FROM YOU IS HOW WE'RE GOING TO MAKE SOME CHOICES.
I'VE HEARD YOU SAY THAT WE'RE GOING TO STOP BUILDING JAILS, WE'RE
GOING TO CONTINUE TO FUND SOCIAL SECURITY, HAVE A HEALTH CARE
REFORM PLAN.  WE CAN'T DO EVERYTHING.  HOW ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE
THOSE DIFFICULT DECISIONS THAT A PRESIDENT NEEDS TO MAKE?

Well, this plan has a lot of tough choices in it.  Believe me,
nobody's going to be happy who's making money off the present
health care system.  If you take on the health insurance
companies, you drastically slash hospital administrative
employment and doctor's administrative employment.  We're going
to choose direct health care access over health care bureaucracy.
Those are going to be very tough things.  If they were easy,
they'd have already been done.  We're making some tough choices
about which defense cuts to make in the wake of the end of the
Cold War, and which investments to make in the new technologies.
For example, you could say, "Well, Bill, you ought to apply more
of this money to reducing the deficit."  We're going to cut the
deficit by more than 50% but we've got to invest more.  That's
not an easy choice.  There are a lot of tough choices inherent in
this plan.  And we do actually restrain some of the entitlement
growth.  We make people  -- upper-income people -- pay more for
Medicare, we subject more Social Security income to taxes.  There
are some tough choices in this plan.

End of Transcript