HIV AIDS Resource Guide/HIV-AIDS Resource Guide.iso/STAT/NEWS/WHCOOR.ASC

Text File | 1994-01-14 | 19KB | 379 lines

/* The following is a transcript of the White House Press
Briefing at which Kristine Gebbie was named the White Houses'
Aids Policy Coordinator. */

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


     o