[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 8 (Monday, March 1, 1993)]
[Pages 254-274]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Remarks at the Children's Town Meeting
February 20, 1993
Peter Jennings. Mr. President, one of my first impressions here is
that this is an awful lot bigger than what you were used to living in
Arkansas.
The President. It's bigger than almost anybody in America lives in,
but it's a beautiful house. You know it was started in 1792. President
Washington authorized it to be built, and then before it was finished,
actually, President Adams and his wife moved in here. So it's been here
a long time.
Mr. Jennings. Right behind us here, of course, we can't go in this
morning, but it's really one of the most beautiful rooms, the Blue Room,
looking out onto the Jefferson Memorial.
The President. It's very beautiful. And upstairs, just above it,
there's another big oval room which President Franklin Roosevelt used as
his office during World War II. And now we use it for formal receiving
of foreign dignitaries. And it also looks directly out on the Jefferson
Memorial. And there's a porch there that President Harry Truman put on,
so I can go out at night now and look at the lights shining down on
Thomas Jefferson's head. It's a wonderful sight.
Mr. Jennings. You know the White House staff is very discreet. When
I asked them if you sneaked around, sticking your heads in various rooms
at night, they said, ``Ask him.'' Do you wander around at night?
The President. I do a little, not so much down here but up on the
second and third floor. And I spent a lot of time working, in this last
month, over around the Oval Office, so I'm in the Cabinet Room a lot and
in the Roosevelt Room, which is the President's big staff room. And I'm
just trying to learn what all the pictures are and where all the things
are and learn the history of the place. I'm very interested in it.
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Mr. Jennings. I just have one question before we go and actually
meet the children. There's the President's seal up there, the President
of the United States, just above the door of the Blue Room. And it
reminds me of Teddy White, the political writer, who said there is a
moment when the man stops being the man and becomes the President. Was
there such a moment for you, do you remember?
The President. I think there was a moment when I realized I was
going to be President, and it was different after that. And it was not
at the election. It was a couple of weeks after the election when I was
planning the Inaugural and they asked me what I wanted to do. And we
decided that I would start at Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello and
then go to the Lincoln Memorial, and then the next morning I would go to
the graves of President Kennedy and his brother, Senator Robert Kennedy.
And I realized, in describing that that's what I would do, that I was
becoming a part of our history.
Mr. Jennings. Well, you indeed--and these young boys and girls,
between about 8 and 15, from Washington and other parts around the
country, are very interested in you and history.
Good morning, everybody. You welcome the President? Nice to have
him, isn't it? Well, I think they have a lot of questions. Who wants to
ask the first question?
School Integration in Little Rock
Q. I would like to ask you a question that goes back to about 30, 40
years ago, back in Little Rock, Arkansas. If you were in the same
position that you are now, and during the time of the occurrence of the
Little Rock Nine, how would you take forth the matters about them going
into the school? Would you go with the community, or would you go with
your heart?
The President. I would have gone with my heart and with the law of
the United States, which was that the children had a right to go to the
school without regard to their race. I would have done what President
Eisenhower did. I would have sent troops there and done whatever it took
to give the children the right to go to school.
One of the people who was part of the Little Rock Nine, Earnest
Green, is now a business executive here in Washington and a good friend
of mine. And I'm glad he had a chance to do that.
Mr. Jennings. Mr. President, excuse me, I don't think everybody
knows who the Little Rock Nine were.
The President. Oh, what he's asking about--about 40 years ago, a lot
of the schools, public schools, in our country were still segregated by
race. Virtually all the schools in the southern part of the United
States were segregated by race. Young black and white children went to
different schools. Forty years ago, the courts ruled that we could no
longer segregate schools by race. In my hometown of Little Rock, in the
capital city, the Governor and the local school board tried to keep them
separate. President Eisenhower then ordered troops there to open the
schools so that the schools could be integrated. He was asking me if I
would do the same thing, and I said I would.
Good for you. Great question.
Mr. Jennings. There's a stool behind you, Mr. President, if you feel
like sitting on it. Who else had got a--we kind of broke it down into
fun questions and serious questions. Who had a fun question they wanted
to start with?
Chelsea Clinton
Q. Do you help Chelsea with her homework?
The President. I do. I do math with her quite often. I took a lot of
algebra and advanced mathematics in high school, and then I didn't take
any more after I went to college. So when Chelsea got into algebra, she
started asking me to help. And so I've used it sort of to learn algebra
again. It's been a lot of fun for me. I enjoy it a lot. We do it quite
often at night or early in the morning.
Mr. Jennings. Now, Mr. President, people all over the country who I
know want to ask you questions, we have an 800 number which we'll put on
the screen. It's been up for a while, and people have been trying to
call in. So take a look, 1-800-648-8094. And I know we have a call from
Kim in Minnesota. Go ahead, Kim.
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Women in Political Office
Q. My question is, why can't women be President? Why is it just men?
The President. Women can be President, Kim. No woman has been
elected President yet, but we now have a significant number of women in
the United States Senate. We've had a good number of women Governors. We
have a large number of women in the House of Representatives. And I
think that there will be a woman elected President in the not-too-
distant future.
I think that the American people used to be prejudiced against women
in public life, and women didn't even have the right to vote guaranteed
until, well, less than a hundred years ago. But it's been done now in
every other political office in the country. And I think you'll see a
woman President before long. Maybe it will be you, if you work hard and
do what you can to get involved in public affairs.
Mr. Jennings. I wonder if we can test the confidence level on that
statement in here. How many of you girls, or young women, think a woman
will be President in your lifetime? Oh, confidence level is very high.
Who's got the next question? How about you, Shannon?
Los Angeles Civil Disturbances
Q. Since the L.A. riots, we have a lot of empty buildings, and a lot
of people in our neighborhood want to open businesses. I want to know
how can we have low-interest loans to help minorities build shops and
buildings?
Mr. Jennings. Mr. President, before you answer that question of
Shannon's--I forgot for a second--would you like to see a little bit of
where she comes from?
The President. Sure, I would.
Mr. Jennings. Shannon has come here to us from Los Angeles today.
How many kids have come from different parts of the country? Just give
the President some indications. We have a large contingent from other
parts of the country. And Shannon comes from Los Angeles, and here's a
little bit about the way she lives. You can look at the monitors.
[At this point, a short film was shown in which Shannon explained what
it was like to live in Los Angeles after the civil disturbances.]
Mr. Jennings. Sir, her question about low-interest loans for
minorities makes a lot of sense.
The President. Good for you; it does. Let me tell you the two or
three things we're working on here. First of all, I'm trying to set up,
in all the big cities throughout the country, a financial institution
that will make low-interest loans to people who live in those
communities. There is such a bank in Chicago that's done a very good job
of rebuilding some of the poor communities through setting up
businesses.
The second thing that I want to do is to get the Congress to pass a
bill which will give people special incentives to invest funds in
communities like south central Los Angeles, that you put money in places
where there's a lot of unemployment, a lot of empty buildings, you get a
special tax break for doing it.
And the third thing I have asked Congress to do is to pass a bill to
benefit small-business people so that as long as they keep investing
money to create jobs, they'll have their taxes lowered for doing that.
And I think these things are very important, and I'm glad you asked.
Let me just mention one other thing. One of the provisions of the
economic plan I sent to Congress would also permit us to create about
700,000 summer jobs this summer for young people, which would get them
active. And then they could be used to clean up the area and to help
people make the parks more attractive and to do things to make those
areas better and make people want to invest in them more. We've got a
lot of work to do, and I'm glad you asked the question.
Health Care Reform
Mr. Jennings. We have a question down here in the front row.
Q. I would like to ask, if we start health care programs, when we
start them, who is going to pay for them? Who is going to fund them?
The President. First of all, we're already paying a lot of money on
health care. Your country, believe it or not, has the most expensive
health care system in the world. We
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spend much more for health care than any other country, but a lot of
Americans don't have health insurance. You know that, don't you? A lot
of Americans don't have health care.
So what I think will happen is that we will have a health care
system which will be paid for partly by the Government and partly by
people who are employers and partly by the people who work for them. And
we'll pay for it in three ways. But what we've got to do is to find a
way to provide basic health care to all Americans, including people who
have serious health problems--I know there are some people in this
audience today who have members of your family with serious health
problems--and to keep the cost down, more like what it costs in other
countries. Because otherwise, we're going to be hurt very bad
economically.
One of the reasons we're having trouble generating a lot of new jobs
in this country is that our businesses are spending so much more money
for health care than any other businesses anywhere in the world, that
they have less money to invest to put people to work. So my job is to do
two things that are hard to do: get health care for everybody, and then
to bring the costs down.
The Presidency
Mr. Jennings. We have a phone call from Connecticut. Go ahead,
Connecticut.
Q. I was wondering what made you have the burden to become the
President?
The President. You mean, why did I want to become President?
Q. Yes.
The President. That's a good question, Andrea. I decided to run for
President in 1991 because I was concerned that there were too many
people in America who were out of work; there were too many people who
were losing their jobs; there were too many people who had problems with
health care; there was too much of an indication that we weren't
building a future so that young people like you would be able to grow up
and have a better life than your parents did. And I was afraid that the
American dream was in danger. I thought I had some good ideas about how
to turn it around and how to make life better for the American people,
and that's why I ran. I asked the American people to listen to my ideas,
and they were good enough to vote for me and give me a chance to serve.
The White House
Mr. Jennings. Now, I know a lot of you have questions about exactly
how the President spends his day. Who's got a question about what the
President does in the White House?
Q. I just wanted to know--I mean, you were just coming down the hall
in the Oval Office showing us how nice, you know, everything around here
is, just look around the room and--I don't know, personally if I lived
here I would feel constrained to actually live, you know? I mean, it's
just so nice, everything is so perfect, I would not--I mean, I don't
know. So how do you feel about----
The President. I feel a little that way, too, sometimes. But let me
say that upstairs, on the second floor, there are some nice formal
guestrooms but there also is--Chelsea has a bedroom and a little room
where she can study and do her work. And Hillary and I have a bedroom
and a little family room, and they're not quite so formal. So the rooms
that we have are much more like regular rooms in a house, and you don't
have to worry so much about breaking an expensive piece of china or
something like that.
Mr. Jennings. But it wasn't always so formal here, was it, Mr.
President? The East Room, they used to hang laundry in the East Room.
The President. Oh, absolutely. It wasn't always so formal at all.
It's probably as formal now as it's ever been, but there are some more
informal rooms. And then there's a third floor, a floor two floors up
from here, which has some other rooms and a little hallway where we have
our rocking chairs and our family books and all kind of stuff like that,
which is really much more homey. So we spend a lot of our time in places
where we don't have to go on tiptoes all around.
Mr. Jennings. We said we were going to test you on some of the
questions here. Do you know the children of which President roller-
skated in here, in the East Room? Who remembers that?
Q. Roosevelt.
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Mr. Jennings. Which Roosevelt?
Q. Teddy.
Mr. Jennings. Exactly. President Theodore Roosevelt's children used
to roller-skate here in the East Room. And of course, maybe you'd like
to point out to the kids the famous painting.
The President. Yes. That's a picture of who? Who is that?
The Children. George Washington.
The President. That's right. That's President Washington, painted by
Gilbert Stuart. And it is an absolutely invaluable piece of art. Gilbert
Stuart was a very famous artist. I think it was offered to the United
States first for about $500. He painted it in 1797. That was a lot of
money back then. It's worth millions of dollars today. It's a priceless
picture.
Mr. Jennings. And who saved it?
The President. Excuse me?
Mr. Jennings. Who saved it?
The President. Who saved it?
Mr. Jennings. Dolley Madison, right?
The President. Yes, Dolley Madison saved it.
Mr. Jennings. When there was----
The President. ----from the fire.
Mr. Jennings. She wouldn't leave the White House until the----
The President. Yes, during the War of 1812 the British marched on
Washington and tried to burn the city, and the White House caught fire.
There's still some char marks actually out on the front of the White
House. And Dolley Madison would not leave the White House until the
precious treasures were preserved, including that.
There's also a picture back there of President Theodore Roosevelt,
painted when he was a year younger than I am now. Theodore Roosevelt was
the youngest person ever to become President. He was elected President
at the age--well, he became President when President McKinley died; he
was 42. And President Kennedy was elected when he was 43, and I was
elected when I had just turned 46. So I'm the third youngest person to
be President.
Mr. Jennings. But not--[inaudible]. You probably need a bit of rest
for the moment, though, sir, as you're the third youngest, so we'll go
away for a commercial and be right back.
The President. I feel like the oldest some days. [Laughter]
[At this point, the television stations took a commercial break.]
The President's Pastimes
Mr. Jennings. Welcome back to the East Room of the White House.
Let's go straight to you, Jared, you have a question.
Q. What do you do for fun around here? [Laughter]
The President. I like to play golf. I've only gotten to do it one
time since I've been President, but I like to do that. And I like to
play cards and games with Hillary and Chelsea. We play pinochle; we play
a game that Chelsea taught me called Hungarian rummy. I like to play
Trivial Pursuit. That's pretty much what I do.
Q. Are you a good Trivial Pursuit player?
The President. Sometimes. I'm better on some subjects than others,
but I like it a lot.
Somalia
Mr. Jennings. Way over there in the corner.
Q. About Somalia and the United States, are we going to help the
United States or Somalia first? Because Somalia has been in trouble for
years, but we haven't done anything. We've done something, but not that
much. So are you going to start helping Somalia first or getting the
United States their jobs back first?
The President. Well, my most important job is to try to help people
in the United States get their jobs back, because I was elected first
and most importantly to help the people here with jobs and education and
health care.
But I think the United States has a responsibility in Somalia. And I
supported it when we sent our troops over there to try to stop the
fighting and to try to bring some safety and food and medicine and
education back to the children there. And I think that what we will be
doing in Somalia is trying to work with other countries to always keep
enough soldiers there to try to keep the peace, but there won't be so
many Americans there. And then we can support others and try to
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make sure that we restore peace on a long-term basis and try to make
sure that the people always had enough food and medicine and shelter to
do well. I think we do have a responsibility there, but as President my
first responsibility is to all of you.
The Presidency
Mr. Jennings. Behind you here, Mr. President. Jeannie has a
question. Jeannie Lee.
Q. Hi. How do you feel, like, now that you're the President of the
United States?
The President. It's an incredible honor. And every day I still get
up and I feel a lot of gratitude just for having the chance to serve. I
also feel a big sense of responsibility. I don't want to let you down,
all of you and all the people all over the country, the people who voted
for me and those who didn't. I hope I can do a good job to help solve
our problems and move us forward.
Mr. Jennings. Jeannie, what do you think is probably the best thing
about being President? If you were him, what would you guess?
Q. I think I would have a lot of responsibility, too, because I've
got to take care of the whole United States and I've got to help others.
And you've got to help the people of the United States fight their
enemies and crime and riots and gangs.
The President's Education
Mr. Jennings. Right behind you, Willie.
Q. When you were in, like, our grade, what was your hardest subject
in school?
The President. When I was in your--when I was your age? How old are
you?
Q. Nine.
The President. Nine. You're in the fourth grade? I made my lowest
grades in conduct--[laughter]--because I talked too much in school and
the teachers were always telling me to stop talking. I did best in math.
I did well in reading. I had some trouble spelling, interestingly
enough, when I was young, because I'd get excited and I would go too
fast. And sometimes I wouldn't spell so well.
Q. What are you going to do about the environment?
Violence in Schools
Mr. Jennings. Well, let me hold the President on the environment for
just a second, if that's okay with you, because I think touching on
education is really interesting.
Mr. President, I'd like you to meet Michael Cruz here. We met
Michael out in the country, and we did a little film about him which I'd
like you to see, because I know he has a question. And it's something I
know that he cares a lot about and he'd like to ask you about. So let's,
first of all, look at where Michael goes to school.
[At this point, a short film was shown in which Michael explained how
the violence in his school is affecting his education.]
Mr. Jennings. Well, Michael goes to the Roberto Clemente High School
in Chicago, Illinois. Have you got a question for the President,
Michael?
Q. How are you going to make my school safer to get a better
education?
The President. I have an answer to that, but let me ask you first so
I won't prejudice your answer: If you were in my position, what would
you do to make the school safer?
Q. I would try to get as much teachers and, mainly, security guards
in there to keep the violence, because now there's not so many security
guards and there's too many students. I would just try to control the
school first. And then once they control the school, then I'll throw the
education on their lap.
The President. Let me tell you what we're going to try to do. First
of all, as part of the economic program I sent to Congress there is a
safe schools initiative which, if it passes, would enable us to help
schools with more security guards and with more, like metal detectors
and things like that, to try to make sure kids don't come to school with
weapons.
Secondly, I have offered a program that would permit us to put
another 100,000 police officers on the street in America in the next
couple of years, including people who could be stationed in around
schools. The third thing I think we ought to do is to pass a bill which
says that nobody can buy a handgun unless there's a waiting period,
during which time you can check their criminal history and see if
they've been in any trouble
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before, because you don't have to sell them guns if they have been in
trouble before. But if you don't check, you don't know. I think that's a
good place to start.
But let me also say, you're from Chicago, right? I was in a junior
high school in Chicago not very long ago called the Beasley Academic
Center. It's a public school in Chicago. Do you know where it is? It's
in a neighborhood with a very high crime rate. And they have police
outside the school. Now, I know it's not a high school, it's a junior
high school. There are police outside the school, but not in the school,
because the teacher has to deal with--she's got 75 fathers a week coming
to the school, 150 mothers a week coming to the school, and the kids
have a whole strict code of conduct. They ask to go there, but there's
no academic requirement. You know, if everybody asks to go and if there
are too many who ask, then they do it by lottery. But the kids that go
there really help to keep the peace in their own school, supporting the
principal. And with the parents involved, I think that's real important,
too.
I can provide extra help for law enforcement, but we've got to get
more grassroots community people involved. I loved seeing you in that
class. And I just hope that a year or two from now, all those other
desks will be full, too. And don't you give up on your education,
because--don't let anybody else, no matter what their problems are, take
your future away from you. Only you can do that.
Mr. Jennings. You know, there's something else about Michael, which
I'm not sure I'm right about. Michael, did I hear that some of the kids
in your school teased you badly about coming to see the President?
Q. Yes.
The President. Why? Why did they do that?
Q. Because people don't believe that. People don't want to believe
it.
The President. They don't believe that I care anything about them?
Q. Yes, in a way, you can say like that.
Mr. Jennings. Do you think the President's answer to you is--did it
give you some satisfaction?
Q. Yes, it gave me a lot.
The President. Look, you know, when I was your age it was a lot
easier to be young than it is now. We worried about liquor and
cigarettes. Nobody worried about drugs and guns. And I know it's hard to
be young now. But I also know that if you get a good education, nobody
can take that away from you. You can still have a good life. And there
are people there who care about your education. And I'm going to do what
I can to support them.
Home Schooling
Q. I'm home schooled; I don't go to school. And I was wondering what
you thought about home schooling and what you were going to do about it,
or if there was anything you were going to do?
Mr. Jennings. Can you explain what home schooling is?
Q. Yes, my parents teach me at home, so I don't go to school. They
don't really believe some of the stuff that's being taught and done in
the schools.
The President. I can tell you what I have done about it. Let me tell
all of you this, just by way of background. The public schools of our
country are largely run at the local level by school boards and school
administrators. And the money for them and the rules by which they are
run are largely set at the State level, by the State governments
throughout the country. So you're from Virginia, right?
Q. Yes.
The President. So the State government in Richmond largely makes the
rules for the public schools. I was a Governor before I became
President. And while I was Governor, I supported and passed a law
through our legislature which made home schooling legal and which
supported home schooling and parents and children making the decision to
be educated at home, as long as the children were willing to take
examinations every year and prove that they were learning what they
should be learning for people their age. And that's the way I feel. I
think that your parents and you, as a family, should have the right to
do this as long as you're learning. And if you can demonstrate that
you're learning, I think you should have the right to do it.
Mr. Jennings. Can I interrupt, sir, because I don't think people
really understand
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why many parents want to teach or insist on teaching their children at
home. A lot of it has to do with sex education, doesn't it?
The President. It's different for different people. I think there--
and Katie, you can interrupt me or say what you think--but I have talked
to a lot of parents and children who have been in the home schooling
movement, and normally they fall into two groups. There is one group,
perhaps the smaller one, who believe that they just give their kids a
better education, that their kids learn more and more quickly. Then
there's a second set of concerns which revolve around values. A lot of
parents are really upset by what Michael just said, that kids go to
school, they have to worry about being exposed to violence, to premature
sex, to drugs, to things that they may not agree with. So there are what
you might call the values objections, to things that children are
exposed to, and then the academic objections.
Is that a fair statement?
Q. Yes.
Mr. Jennings. Who has got--somebody's got some questions about the
White House. I want to make sure that I don't lose who has got questions
about the White House.
White House Meals
Q. Does Hillary ever cook for you?
The President. Does Hillary ever cook for me? Sometimes.
Mr. Jennings. Do you ever cook?
The President. Believe it or not, sometimes we cook for each other.
But we've been so busy lately we haven't had a chance to do it since
we've been here. But Hillary's actually a pretty good cook. And I like
to cook, but what I like to do is to make things like omelets. I love to
make omelets. And sometimes on Sunday nights, Hillary and Chelsea and I
will go into the kitchen, and I'll make everybody omelets and we'll sit
around and talk.
So both of us like to cook, but we've been--you know, I asked
Hillary to take charge of the health care problem and try to come up
with a solution to it. And I've been working real hard on the economic
problems, so neither of us has had much time to cook. And they have
wonderful cooks here. As a matter of fact, Chelsea can tell you there is
a whole little kitchen where they don't do anything but make pastry and
sweet things and desserts.
Mr. Jennings. They'd all hate that here, sir.
The President. Oh. [Laughter] So I've been mostly relying on those
folks. But, yes, she does cook for me sometimes.
Mr. Jennings. What about Ellie, way at the back.
Q. My question is sort of serious.
Mr. Jennings. Well, if it's serious, let's hold it for one second,
and we'll go to a commercial and come right back.
The President. Okay.
Mr. Jennings. Okay? My apologies.
[At this point, the television stations took a commercial break.]
Mr. Jennings. But you have to work on Omar here, because he told me
he's a Republican. [Laughter]
When we were away for a commercial, some of these kids said you look
a lot better in person than you do on television.
The President. Well, that's good news.
Mr. Jennings. You want to deal with that?
The President. Well, sometimes I have these big bags under my eyes
when I don't get any sleep the night before if I work late, or when my
allergies are bad. So I'm glad you think I look better. I feel better
today.
Mr. Jennings. Carlos, what did you want to know? You want to know
where Socks was?
Q. Yes.
The President. Socks is just around the corner and downstairs. He's
here all the time.
DC School Closings
Q. Well, I also want to know something else. What are you going to
do about what the school board is doing about closing 10 schools in
every ward?
The President. Here?
Q. In DC.
The President. That's a different question because the Washington,
DC, government does get some money directly from the Congress and the
President. I can't answer that question today because I don't know
whether they're closing down the schools because they don't have enough
money to run them or because they have too many schools for
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the kids that are there now. That is, a lot of school districts in
America are losing school populations.
But I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll look into it. And I've got your
address, and I'll write you a letter about it. Okay?
Q. There's a little more I need to tell you. Can you at least talk
to them to not close the good ones? Because they might close my school,
and my school is the only elementary school that's bilingual in all DC.
The President. You don't want them to do that, do you? Because we
have a lot of bilingual kids in DC, don't we, now? Thank you. I'll look
into that, and I'll get back in touch with you.
Proposed Handgun Legislation
Mr. Jennings. Okay. We have a phone call, Mr. President, and I think
from Texas. Go ahead, Allison.
Q. What is the Brady bill?
Mr. Jennings. What is the Brady bill?
The President. Oh, what is the Brady bill? The Brady bill is the
bill I was just actually talking about. It's a bill that would require
people who want to buy handguns to wait for a few days while the people
who sell the handguns check to see if they have committed a crime or if
they have a mental health history or some other problem which would make
it dangerous for them to get the handgun. And the Brady bill would
require people to wait just a few days until that check is done.
I strongly support the Brady bill. Some people are against it. But I
think it's a good idea just to wait a couple of days. I don't think it's
much of an inconvenience for people who want to buy guns to ask them to
wait so we can check their criminal history.
Gays in the Military
Mr. Jennings. I almost forgot you, Ellie. I'm sorry.
Q. The opposition to your recent attempt to lift the ban on the
homosexuals in the military shows that as a society we're still very
biased towards homosexuals. What are you going to do to help America as
a nation accept them?
The President. Well, I think what's important about that issue to me
is not that Americans agree with the lifestyle but that they accept the
fact that there are citizens in the United States who are homosexual,
who work hard, who don't break laws, who pay their taxes, don't bother
other people, who ought to have a chance to serve. And I just say that
at every chance I get. And I have also been involved in giving some
people the chance to serve who are homosexual, and I think that's
important. I think that there are a lot of people whose religious
beliefs dictate that the homosexual lifestyle is wrong. I don't ask them
to give up their religious beliefs but simply to accept other people as
people and give them a chance to be citizens as long as they're not
doing anything wrong. That's my position on it.
Special Education
Mr. Jennings. Anastasia, you've had your hand up a lot. Maybe, Mr.
President, you'd like to come and sit down for a second.
The President. Hi, Anastasia.
Mr. Jennings. Excuse me for one second for reaching over you. Come
and sit here. Sara, you come and sit here if you would and let the
President sit down.
The President. Okay.
Q. I have a twin sister and we go to the same school. But she can't
speak. So because she can't speak, they've put her in a special class.
But she uses computers to speak. And I would like her to be in a regular
class just like me.
The President. Wow. And you think your sister could do just as well
as you in a regular class?
Q. Yes.
The President. As long as she can use her computer. And her computer
is on a little top just like this, isn't it?
Q. Yes. Well, you can put it on here and you can put it on regular
tables also if--because you can carry it around. It's a little computer.
The President. And she talks to you by using it?
Q. Yes.
The President. Why do you think they put her in the special
education class?
Q. I think it's because she couldn't talk. And they thought--the
principal thinks that she can't do it because she can't use her hands
and she can't speak.
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The President. But you think that she could learn just as quickly if
she were in a regular class?
Q. Yes.
The President. Have your parents asked the principal to put her in a
regular class?
Q. Yes.
The President. And they said no?
Q. The principal said no.
The President. Well, you know, as President I can't do anything
about that except to speak about it. But I'll tell you this, I have a
friend named Hamp Rasco whose mother works for me here. And he's now 18
years old. He has cerebral palsy. And he doesn't speak quite as well as
you, but he can probably speak a little more than your sister. And I
watched him go all the way through high school and graduate from high
school and get his graduation degree. And he lives out on his own now.
And I'm going to do what I can to help people let all Americans go as
far as they can. And I think young people who are working hard to prove
they can do this kind of work ought to be given a chance to do it. And I
think your sister should be given a chance to show whether she can work
in the class or not.
That's what you think then? You just want her to have a chance to
prove whether she can do it or not, right?
Q. Yes.
The President. And if she tried and she couldn't do it, then would
you support her being in another class?
Q. Yes.
The President. So you just want your sister to have a chance.
Q. Yes.
The President. Good for you. Maybe she'll get it because we were
here talking about this.
Mr. Jennings. I have a feeling. Thanks very much.
Q. You're welcome.
The President. Give her a hand. Wasn't that great? Thanks for
sticking up for your sister. That's wonderful.
The Environment
Mr. Jennings. We have a phone call from Ian. Go ahead.
Q. President Clinton, how will you stop pollution in the United
States?
Mr. Jennings. Just like that. [Laughter]
The President. Well, it's not quite that simple because you know we
make pollution every day, Ian. When we drive our cars, we make
pollution; when we run our factories, we make pollution. But there are
two or three things we can do. Let me just mention them.
Number one, we have a Clean Air Act in the United States, designed
to reduce the amount of pollution that goes into the air in the first
place. I want to enforce that. Number two, I want to support clean
water. We put a lot of stuff in our water. I want to reduce that. Number
three, I want to try to do things that will help preserve the quality of
the environment in the first place, like planting more trees and
reforesting the land and building up the soil of the United States. I
think we want to clean up the things that are being polluted, but we
want to stop things from being polluted as much as possible. And then,
finally, I'm trying to promote more energy conservation and cleaner
energy. Like natural gas, for example, is the cleanest form of energy
that we can burn. So I'm trying to promote the use of natural gas. Those
are the things that I think we should do in the beginning.
Mr. Jennings. I don't think anybody in the East Room, Mr. President,
feels as strongly about that as Pernell does. And I know he has a
question to ask you, but before you ask your question, let's show the
President a little bit about where you live.
[At this point, a short film was shown in which Pernell explained how
environmental pollution has affected the health of his family.]
Mr. Jennings. Pernell comes from Garyville, Louisiana, and it's
about a hundred miles' trip between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, right,
Pernell?
Q. Yes.
Mr. Jennings. Where there are about a hundred petrochemical plants.
Q. Yes, Garyville, the small town that I live in, is right between
the chemical corridor, which is the area between Baton Rouge and New
Orleans. And Mr. President,
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I'd like to ask if restrictions can be put on the amount of carelessly
handled hazardous waste and air pollution, such as smoke, and if the
health care system can get into this somewhat and help the cancer
victims, which this cancer may have resulted from this environmental
contamination.
The President. Why don't you tell these folks how many relatives in
your family have had cancer.
Q. Well, I'm not exactly sure, but I know my 10-year-old brother
died of something that even the experts--experts across the country came
over to Children's Hospital in New Orleans to look at this. They could
not--they were just stumped. My brother, Charlie, was either the 10th or
the 11th person in recorded history ever to catch this. Through all the
other patients that caught this, the experts could never figure it out.
And they checked into just about every condition that could have caused
it, with the exception of the environment.
The President. Let me say that this young man lives in Louisiana,
which is just to the south of my home State of Arkansas, so I know quite
a bit about where you live and I've been in that alley between Baton
Rouge and New Orleans many, many times. The cancer rate there is way
above the national average.
I think there are two things we should be doing. One is, we should
be doing a lot more medical research to try to find out what causes
these cancers. And the second thing we ought to be doing is to invest
more money there to do environmental cleanup.
In the election campaign that I went through to be elected
President, I said many times that I thought we ought to take some of the
money that we're reducing the defense budget by and putting it into
cleaning up the environment here at home. Because I think there are now
all kinds of health hazards that we never knew about before that we're
now learning about in some of the things we've done. And we need to do a
lot of environmental cleanup in that part of Louisiana where you live
and throughout the country. And I'm going to do my best to do it.
Mr. Jennings. It's interesting, sir, that a lot of people were
playing the budget game earlier, helping how to spend your money for
you. And an awful lot of kids, both last night and tonight, all of them
putting their money into cleaning up the environment.
The President. How many of you think we should spend more money on
the environment, cleaning it up?
Q. We've only got one planet. If we don't preserve it, you know,
there's no other place we can go to. And everyone from my area and the
surrounding areas, most of them voted for you, you know. We all believe
very strongly that you, as an individual, do have the know-how and the
courage to go about and tackle this problem and many others, and we do
have faith in you.
The President. We'll do it for your brother, okay?
Q. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Jennings. We'll be back in just a moment.
[At this point, the television stations took a commercial break.]
Economic Legislation
Mr. Jennings. Well, I haven't had a chance to ask you kids this
question yet, but how--you've all heard President Clinton--put down your
hands for just a second--you all have heard President Clinton say many
things he'd like to do. Now, he's a very powerful individual, as I think
we all agree, but he can't do it all by himself. You have to get bill
through Congress.
The President. That's right.
Mr. Jennings. Your budget bill's up there now. You're going to have
a real tough time----
The President. A real tough time.
Mr. Jennings. Right. How many of you would like to know how to get a
bill through Congress? Do you think that would be useful in order to
find out how you get it done?
The President. I'd like to know that. [Laughter]
Mr. Jennings. Well, we've enlisted the help of Steven Urkel, who's a
great, great pal, I guess, of all yours, to tell us how you actually get
a bill through the Congress. Let's watch.
[At this point, a short film was shown on the legislative process.]
Mr. Jennings. Isn't that great?
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The President. That was great.
Mr. Jennings. I have a present for you, Mr. President, the Urkel
clean air act of 1993, like all Government bills today, on recycled
paper.
The President. That's good. That's right. We use a lot of recycled
paper.
Mr. Jennings. So you have a chance now to sign that bill or you can
veto that bill, right?
The President. That's right. I have to act within 10 days of getting
it, and I can sign it or veto it. I think I'd better sign, don't you?
Mr. Jennings. I think you'd better. Do you think he should sign it?
Okay.
Let's go back to questions. Venus, you have a question.
Homelessness
Q. As a new President, how are you going to end homelessness, or
what are you going to do to end homelessness in the world?
The President. Do you want to say anything about Venus before I
answer the question?
Mr. Jennings. Yes, I do. I do. It's a tough question for Venus, and
we told the President before that Venus had come to us from the west
coast, and I think it would help if the rest of you kids here and the
audience at home saw a little bit about the circumstances in which she
lives.
[At this point, a short film was shown in which Venus explained the
difficulties of living in a homeless shelter.]
The President. Good for you.
Mr. Jennings. What's your question then, Venus? Again, would you
repeat it.
Q. As the new President, what are you going to try to do or how are
you going to do--what are you going to do to end homelessness in our
world?
The President. May I ask you a question? How did you become
homeless?
Q. I came from New York around 5 months ago, and we didn't have an
exact place to go to. So we went to social services and from there on,
it was homeless until we can get an apartment.
The President. I think there are two or three things we should do.
And I asked her this question because over one-third of the homeless
people in America now are families with children. And a lot of them are
people who moved from one town to another, and they have no savings;
they have no money in the bank.
I met a homeless couple in my hometown about a year ago. It was kind
of like you. They had come down from Chicago. And they actually had
jobs, but they hadn't drawn a paycheck yet and they had no place to
live.
So here are the things that we're going to try to do. First of all,
we're going to try to build more housing for low-income working people.
We haven't had much of a housing program for a long time. Secondly, I'm
going to have an inventory done--an inventory means a list done--of all
the housing in America which exists today that belongs to the Government
which is boarded up or closed down, and see whether or not we can't give
a lot of that housing back to churches or community groups or other
groups and let people work on repairing it. And if they do work on
repairing it, they should be able to live in it. I met a woman and her
children in Philadelphia who were doing a lot of their own work on a
home, an old home that had been boarded up. And they were going to get
to move in it and live there because of the work they had done to do it.
The third thing we have to do is to create more jobs because a lot
of the homeless people wouldn't be homeless if they had jobs.
Mr. Jennings. One of the things about all your answers, Mr.
President--and I don't want to take time away from them--is that they
all seem to be long-term. And Venus has a short-term problem, and
Pernell has a short-term problem, and Shannon has a short-term problem.
The President. Well, I think to be fair, though, if you look at
Venus' problem, it wouldn't necessarily be a long-term problem if we
increase the capacities of cities throughout this country to move people
directly into more stable environments. I know in San Francisco there
was a real detailed homeless program that I saw there that the
administration wanted to put in that they just didn't have the money to
put in because there was no partnership with the National Government.
And my feeling on the homeless issue is that a lot of Americans who have
money
[[Page 266]]
and homes really want us to do something about it and would really
support our doing more about it. I don't think Americans like the fact
that children like you, your mother are in homeless shelters just
because you happen to move from one town to the other.
Now, on your problem----
Mr. Jennings. Pernell.
The Environment
The President. On Pernell's problem, it's a little different because
you have to do a lot of medical research to find out exactly what's
causing this. But I think you will see this year, greater efforts in
environmental cleanup all over the country if our program passes this
year. It's not too late.
But as Pernell probably knows, since you studied your brother's
problem, a lot of times these cancers develop over 2 or 5 or 10 and
sometimes even over 20 years. So they are long-term problems. And we did
a lot of things to our environment in the past because we didn't know
what it was doing. And I think now we just have to turn it around; we
just have to start cleaning up more. And I think most Americans want to
do that.
Mr. Jennings. We have an awful lot of questions, obviously. We're
going to go away for just a minute.
[At this point, the television stations took a commercial break.]
Chelsea Clinton and Socks the Cat
Mr. Jennings. Well, Mr. President, I must tell you, as impressed as
we all are to have you here, and as good as they think you've been so
far, there's somebody else they'd like to meet more, and you know that.
So we do have a bit of a surprise for you. Chelsea, would you come and
join us for a second?
These are the two people that you've all been asking about. Do you
want to sit on the stool?
Chelsea Clinton. Sure.
Mr. Jennings. Two people that the boys and girls have all been
asking about this morning, Chelsea and Socks. You all had questions
about Socks. Who wants to go?
Q. Why did you call your cat ``Socks''?
The President. Who knows--guess? Why did we call him ``Socks''? Hold
him up, Chelsea. Why did we call him ``Socks''? Because he has white
paws. He's a black cat with white paws, that's right. Good for you.
Mr. Jennings. And he's very restless, right?
Chelsea Clinton. Yes, I had to wake him up.
Mr. Jennings. Does he really have the run of the White House?
Chelsea Clinton. Yes, basically, he can go wherever he wants.
Mr. Jennings. Who else has a question? Jamie in St. Louis has a
question for Chelsea. Go ahead, Jamie.
Q. I wanted to know, does Chelsea have to take Secret Service guards
to school with her?
Chelsea Clinton. Yes, I do.
Mr. Jennings. What's that like?
Chelsea Clinton. It's okay. They stay out of the way. They do. They
have an office up on the third floor of my school, and they sit there
most of the day. Or when I'm in gym, they come outside and just sit on
the bleachers or just watch my soccer practice.
Q. What kind of cat food do you feed Socks?
Chelsea Clinton. What kind of cat food? Dry cat food. I don't know
the brand.
Mr. Jennings. Nor should you, probably. [Laughter]
Q. How old is Socks?
Chelsea Clinton. Socks is almost 3 years old. He'll be 3 years old
in July.
Q. Does Socks--who trains him? Is he trained?
Chelsea Clinton. Yes.
Q. Like, do you guys play? Also, do you ever have to talk to her
about playing with her when she's supposed to do her homework?
The President. Never. She's very good about that. She does her
homework pretty well.
Mr. Jennings. Christine in Fulton, Mississippi, has a question for
you.
Q. Mr. President, how do you and Mrs. Clinton punish Chelsea when
she doesn't listen?
Chelsea Clinton. I didn't hear that.
Mr. Jennings. How do they punish you?
The President. How do I punish you when you don't listen?
Chelsea Clinton. I always listen.
[[Page 267]]
The President. Chelsea's a pretty good girl. We don't have much of
that. Sometimes we have to--the number one thing we have to do is to
make her go to bed earlier. She has a fault that her father has, which
is that she would stay up too late at night if I let her do that. So the
number one thing we have to do is to make her go to bed earlier.
Mr. Jennings. And one more question for Chelsea.
Q. Is Chelsea single? [Laughter]
The President. She better be. [Laughter]
Chelsea Clinton. Do you want to keep Socks?
The President. No, you take him.
Mr. Jennings. You're really nice to come by, Chelsea. Thanks very
much.
Chelsea Clinton. Thank you very much.
Mr. Jennings. Isn't that nice to have her come by?
All right, now let's get back to you, sir. You got off the hook
there for a few minutes.
The President. I loved it.
Health Care Reform
Q. I have a question about health insurance.
Mr. Jennings. Would you speak a little closer to your microphone,
Kevin?
Q. I have a big brother named Jason, and he's 17 now and will be
graduating high school soon. Will you have a health insurance program in
place so that people like my brother and my twin sister can buy health
insurance? If so, how will it work? Will we be able to afford it?
The President. Good for you. Is there anything you want to say
about Kevin, Peter, before----
Mr. Jennings. Not just yet.
The President. Okay. The answer to your question is we're going to
present a program to the Congress. And if they adopt it, then every
Americaa will be able to get health insurance, either from the
Government or from their place of employment. And they will be able to
afford it because, for people with lower incomes, the premiums will be
less. But everybody, pretty much, will have to pay something for it. And
I think that's important. But we want to make it possible for people all
over the country to have some health insurance. There are over 35
million people in America today that don't have any health insurance and
many others who can't change their jobs because if they change jobs they
would lose it.
Mr. Jennings. On Monday night, when you were speaking--or Wednesday
night when you were speaking to the Congress, you ad-libbed; you took
off talking about health care as if you think there's no more
complicated problem in the country.
The President. It's the most complicated problem I've ever dealt
with, but also the most important. I mean, American families, millions
of them, are so insecure about their health care. And yet I say again,
we're spending 30 percent more than any other country on Earth, and we
have less to show for it. We can do better. We have to.
Homelessness
Mr. Jennings. Bernice. You had your hand up there, like, for a week.
[Laughter]
The President. She wore her arm out, she's been up there so long.
Q. This is a question that refers to what Venus said. You said that
instead of--the best way to end homelessness is to--you said to build
houses. Well, you don't really need to build any houses, referring to DC
and over the U.S., because there are more than 3,000 houses and
apartments that are boarded up with no use. Do you plan to fix any of
them up?
The President. Yes. I'm sorry, that's the second point I made: that
in the places where we have a lot of boarded-up and vacant buildings, I
think what we should do is to try to provide some funds to local
communities to fix those up first because that's cheaper and quicker.
But we just don't invest as much money as we did 12 years ago.
Twelve years ago we were investing more money on building homes for the
homeless than we are now. And as I said, I think most Americans are
really concerned that so many people--there are people who sleep on the
sidewalk within two blocks of the White House every night. And I'd like
to see us do something about it, and I think most Americans would. And I
agree with you, we should start with the structures that are already
there.
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Antidrug Program
Q. Governor Clinton, I was just wondering--I come from a drug rehab
over in Fort Pierce, Florida, and I was wondering how--why is it that we
always spend all this money on the supply of drugs coming in, like
trying to cut it down, you know? Like down in Miami, there's a $50
million operation down there that doesn't even work, trying to--like
planes that fly in where the cocaine----
The President. Trying to stop the planes from flying in.
Q. Right. What are you going to do about the, like, the demand? How
are you going to cut that down? You know, you can never cut down the
supply, but you can always cut down the demand. How are you going to do
that?
The President. You know that from your own personal experience,
don't you?
Mr. Jennings. She does, yes.
The President. I appreciate--you're a brave girl, and I'm glad
you're here. And the reason I said that is because my brother is also a
recovering drug user. And I believe that's right. And I have a brother-
in-law who is a defense lawyer in the drug court in Miami that keeps
people out of jail if they'll go into rehab. And I think--I can tell you
what we're going to try to do. We're going to try to shift some of the
money that used to be spent on excessive expenditures in some kinds of
enforcement and do more to do rehab and education and treatment for
people because I believe that rehabilitation works.
I think that if we have drug treatment on demand, that is without
delay for people who want it, we could cut down on the costs of the
courts, we could cut down on a lot of our criminal problems, and we
could rescue a lot of young people's lives. We don't invest enough money
in that now. So we're trying to change the priorities a little bit to
put some more money into rehab.
Health Insurance and Job Retraining
Mr. Jennings. In just a moment, Mr. President, I'd like you to meet
Shana because we've done a little bit of filming out where she lives.
But before that, I'd like to tell our stations all over the country that
President Clinton has agreed to stay on for half an hour more and answer
more questions, so we're going to go a half an hour longer. We thank you
for that, sir.
Now, let's take a look at how Shana lives. Because I think you
probably have as representative a problem in your family as almost
anybody here today. Let's look.
[At this point, a short film was shown in which Shana explained that her
parents both have cancer, her mother has been laid off, and her father
is worried that he will be, too.]
Mr. Jennings. So Shana, what's your question?
Q. As you know, my mom was laid off, and my dad presently works for
the same aerospace company. And they've both been treated for cancer,
but now they're in remission, thank God. And I was just wondering,
because due to her history with the cancer, she's having a hard time
with finding a job. And I was wondering what your administration can do
in regard to paying health coverage with their preexisting illnesses.
Mr. Jennings. One of the things you're doing--excuse me, sir, before
you answer--is, you're cutting back on, you want to cut back on jobs in
the defense industry, right--or, you'll have to cut back. Which is it?
The President. Can I ask you a question first? Does your mother--is
she covered by your father's insurance policy at Rockwell?
Q. No, her own, I think. I'm pretty sure. I'm not sure.
The President. They paid individually, they were covered
individually? Let me talk about the health insurance, and then I'd like
to talk about your parents' jobs.
One of the changes we want to make in the health insurance system of
America is to say that all Americans will be insured in huge, big pools
of people, so that there are a large number of people insured. And if
one or two of them get cancer, like your mother, that their cost of care
will then be spread over a very large number of other people who don't
have that problem. That will lower the risk of any insurance policy
causing the company to go broke. And it will mean that we can pass a law
which says that you can't refuse to hire somebody just because they've
been sick before. In other words, I want to pass a law saying that you
can't refuse to hire
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somebody because they've been sick before, but first I have to make sure
that the companies themselves won't go broke if they do it. So we're
going to do that.
Now, let me make a comment about your parents' jobs. Your father
still works for Rockwell, and your mother used to. We had to reduce the
defense budget at the end of the cold war when the Soviet Union broke up
because we were spending so much more money on the military than any
other country. We had to invest it in other things here at home.
But we need people working in aerospace. There are about--I don't
know what kind of lives you all want to have now, but there are about
seven or eight major areas of technology which will produce a lot of the
high-wage jobs of the future, and aerospace is one of them. The United
States has not done a very good job of trying to build up aerospace jobs
in nondefense areas. And next week we're going to start on a major
effort, working with the Congress, to do that. I'm going out to
California and to Washington State where Boeing is headquartered, and
they just announced 23,000 layoffs, to talk about this. So we're going
to start trying to figure out what we can do to save the jobs in the
aerospace industry and maybe to start building them up again.
Spotted Owl Habitat Protection
Mr. Jennings. Oh, my goodness. Go ahead, Elizabeth.
Q. I live in northern California in a town called Hayfork. And we
live in the forests. And my Dad, he had a logging business. And he had
to shut it down because they're setting aside the forest for the spotted
owl. And this is my school yearbook, and I've highlighted the names of
the people--of the kids like me whose parents will lose their job
because of the spotted owl. And I just wanted to know what you're going
to do to try to help people get their jobs back.
The President. Can you all see this?
Mr. Jennings. It was not a set-up, I wish to assure you, Mr.
President.
The President. No. Did you all see this, all the yellow names here
highlighted? Does anybody else here know what she's talking about, the
spotted owl controversy? David, do you understand it?
Q. Yes.
The President. What is it? What's the issue?
Q. Well, the spotted owl's natural habitat in the wildlife is being
threatened by loggers who cut down the trees. It's like in the northwest
of the United States. It's like--that's a lot of people's living. And
they take the trees and produce timber that all of us use every day. And
now since the owl's habitat was being threatened, environmental groups
got the forest to be set aside as a preserve for the owl. But then when
that happened, it hurt a lot of loggers who make their living off of
that. So it's kind of a tough situation.
The President. Do you think that's a good description, Elizabeth, of
what happened?
Yes? Let me say that in northern California and in Washington and in
Oregon in the Pacific Northwest of the United States where Elizabeth
lives and where her father works, a lot of people make their living in
the forests. Part of the forests are called old-growth forests. They're
very, very old trees. And most of the old-growth forest has all been cut
down, but a little of it is left. And there's some logging in that. And
then, as Elizabeth can tell you, there are forests sort of rimming the
old-growth forest where the trees are newer where some of the land is
being ordered to be set aside for the spotted owl.
We have a law in the United States called the Endangered Species Law
which says that if an animal is placed on that list, then it has to be
protected, even if it costs some jobs to protect it. So there's been a
big fight going on for the last few years about how much land should be
set aside to preserve the spotted owl and how much land should be left
alone to log in the forest.
I want to make two points to you. First of all--and let me say, I
live in--my State, Arkansas, has--over half the land is covered with
timber, so I have a lot of personal friends who make their living the
same way your father did. First of all, the problem has been made worse
because the United States Government has not come up with a solution. So
that as you may know, the courts have stopped logging all over northern
California and Washington and Oregon, including some
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places where people should be allowed to log. So I have committed myself
to organize, along with Vice President Gore, a forest summit. And the
Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, in particular, is doing a lot
of work on that now. We're trying to set up a forest summit out there to
bring all the people together to try to come up with the best compromise
that will permit us to save not just the spotted owl but this other
point I wanted to make is the old-growth forest that remains, and still
let people log.
Let me say it to you in another way: We could remove all the
restrictions on logging tomorrow and even put more people to work; not
only secure your father's business, but we could put more people to
work. But then in a few years we'd have no trees at all to log. So the
issue is, how can we have a stable logging environment and keep a
significant number of people working and still preserve the old-growth
forest, and by the way, the spotted owl.
I think we can do a much better job if we can just get this out of
the courts and start--there is a lot of land available, that should be
available for logging that's been tied up in the courts that our
Government does not want to tie up anymore. So what I'm going to try to
do is put a group of people together to come out to Washington, Oregon,
and northern California and sit down and go through all this and see if
we can't resolve it so we can keep the largest number of people working
and still preserve the forests.
Q. But the land that they set aside, like there's lots of lightning
up where we live, and there's lots of dead trees. And if we don't go in
there and cut the dead trees down, it will start a fire and burn it all
down.
The President. That's right, there are a lot of problems. I agree
with you, there are a lot of practical problems with what has been done.
And that's why I want to try to bring, now that there's been a change in
the administration, I want to try to bring our people out there and sit
down with all the parties involved and try to hammer this out and
resolve it. Unfortunately, it's been all tied up in the courts. And a
lot of things have been done which should not have been done.
I believe--all I can tell you, is I'm going to do the best I can to
preserve the diversity of the forests, the old forests up there, because
most of it's already gone, and we can't afford to let it all go and
still provide a stable logging environment. As I said, we could build it
up, but if we built it up too much, we'd cut all the trees down; and if
we shut it down too much, we'll throw everybody out of work. So the
question is, we have to find some way to find the right balance, and
we're going to try to do it.
Mr. Jennings. We'll stay on the President's case and make sure that
you know particularly when the forest summit comes----
The President. Yes, I'd like for you--will you come and bring your
parents when we do it?
AIDS
Mr. Jennings. Mr. President, I know you feel the weight of problems
in the country in this room, and there's one other person here I'd like
to introduce you to and tell you a little bit about his life, because I
know he's been wanting very much to ask you a question. His name is
Joey. Meet Joey.
[At this point, a short film was shown in which Joey explained how he
contracted AIDS and how his illness has affected his family.]
Mr. Jennings. So what's your question, Joey?
Q. That President Bush, he took $350 million away from AIDS
research. I want to know if you're going to put that back.
Mr. President. Oh yes, and then some. Right now we're working on a
bill for the National Institutes of Health that will increase funding
for cancer research, for AIDS research, for health research generally.
And I think you'll be pleased with that. In addition to that, in this
budget that I have presented to Congress, I've asked them to fully fund
the Ryan White Health Care Act so that we can deal with the health care
costs of people with AIDS and the burdens that it puts on families.
Meanwhile, you hang in there. We'll keep working until we find a
cure.
Mr. Jennings. Is that a good answer, Joey?
Q. Yes.
Mr. Jennings. Something else, Mr. President. Joey, do you ever feel
discriminated against because you have AIDS?
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Q. Not a lot anymore.
Mr. President. You think people are kind of over their fears,
irrational fears of it now?
Q. They don't care about it anymore. No, I mean, they care about it,
but it's like they're not afraid of people. I hope not.
Mr. Jennings. Okay, thanks, Joey. Thanks for coming.
Foreign Assistance
Q. A lot of people across the world are fighting and killing each
other. I want to know if there's anything America can do to stop it?
Mr. President. The answer is, there are some things we can do and
some things we can't. Let's just take some specific examples, and then
maybe you can ask me some specific examples.
Somalia: a lot of people were fighting and killing each other. Our
country led a group of forces, but most of them were Americans, into
Somalia. And because the armies weren't big and the weapons weren't
great and because a lot of the people wanted us to come there, we were
able to stop a lot of the fighting and provide for safety for people.
Bosnia: you saw the young girl in Bosnia. A much tougher problem,
because there were more weapons involved, the land is more difficult,
the people have been fighting each other there for centuries, except
when they have been stopped by government authority there. And we're
trying to find ways to increase humanitarian aid to Bosnia and to push
for a peace settlement which, if the parties down there will agree, the
people who are doing all the killing, we could then come in and help to
enforce.
Haiti: a country in our own hemisphere where the elected president
was kicked out after he had threatened some of the people in the army
and the government in Haiti. We're doing our best to try to stop any
repression there and then to restore the elected government there. That
might not be as hard for us because it's a smaller population, a smaller
army, and because it's right here next to us, and we can do things with
and for them.
So it's different in different places. But I think the United States
has a responsibility to try to stop that. There are some places a long--
I don't know if you saw the religious fighting in India recently--that's
a long way from us, and it's very hard for us to have any influence
there. So we're doing the best we can. Let me just say, it works better
when the United Nations will do it, when other nations will go along
with us. And it works better if there is some support for a solution
short of war. So I'm going to do what I can to stop the fighting and
killing.
Mr. Jennings. I read in the paper this morning, I think, Mr.
President, that you are considering making air drops of food to people
in Bosnia who can't get it. Do you think you'll go ahead with that?
The President. Actually, after I leave you today I'm going to go
discuss it with our aides and consider that as one option. There are a
lot of children in Bosnia who now can't get food and medicine because, I
don't know if you've been seeing it on the news, but the trucks which
have been delivering those supplies have been stopped. So we have an
agreement tentatively to try to start the trucks up again, but we may
have to go in and drop some aid into them.
Fast Food and Advertisements
Mr. Jennings. We have a question from Georgia.
Q. Hello. Mr. President, when you go to McDonald's, do you have to
pay? Do they accept, or do they say you're the President so you don't
have to pay?
The President. Usually I pay. I have--in my neighborhood McDonald's
at home when I would go running every morning, they would often give me
a cup of coffee. But if I go into McDonald's and buy food, I try to pay.
I try not to have anybody give me food when I go in a place.
Mr. Jennings. We had a--is Basil here? Where's Basil? Basil, you
wanted to say something to the President about junk food, you told me
earlier.
Q. I'm Basil Jeheen. I'm vice president of Kids Against Junk Food.
President Clinton, I know that you have received some bad press from an
occasional trip to a fast food restaurant. My question is, how are you
going to protect kids from being bombarded with
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junk food advertisements during their TV shows?
Mr. Jennings. Whoo! [Laughter]
The President. I'm going to ask Mr. Jennings----
Mr. Jennings. I'm leaving.
The President. I'm going to ask Mr. Jennings not to take any more
advertisement from junk food manufacturers.
Let me say, if you look at what the fast food chains--this is not
McDonald's--if you look at Burger King, if you look at Wendy's, if you
look at Taco Bell--look at a lot of these fast food places, in the last
few years, a lot of them have made a real effort to reduce the junk food
content of the food they sell. They're offering more lean chicken;
they're offering more fish; they're offering more salads and vegetables.
I think a lot of the fast food places are trying to increase the
nutritional content of what they sell.
Let me just say this: About 40 percent of American food dollars are
now spent in fast food places, because so many mothers and fathers
work--parents work. And it's very important that you keep the pressure
up, through Kids Against Junk Food, to keep the pressure up to say,
``Okay, a lot of people work. They're busy. They have to buy food at
fast food places. But increase the nutritional content of the food.'' I
think that's what you ought to do, and I think that's the position I
ought to take.
Mr. Jennings. Go ahead.
Q. What I mean is, all right, say you're watching a cartoon and
something--they interrupt and then they have an advertisement for junk
food. I mean, they interrupt what you want to do, like----
The President. Let me tell you what the Government does and can do.
The Government can require the people who sell this food to publish on a
fairly large sign like the cereals do now what the real nutritional
content of the food is and how much stuff that's not so good for you is
in it. But right now we don't have the authority to stop it from being
advertised at all. Do you think there should be a law saying you can't
even advertise junk food?
Q. No. What I mean is there should be a limit. Like so many
advertisements per hour, because they just throw in advertisements. And
you pay for it, and throw in advertisements.
The President. What you need to do is to write the networks, ABC and
CBS and NBC, and maybe all the other smaller networks that advertise,
and tell them to reduce advertisements of junk food--limit to a certain
number of hours on Saturday morning, especially.
Mr. Jennings. Basil, one of the things--I'll tell you two things.
First of all, when you write to a network like that, if enough of you
write they listen to you. And the other thing I'll tell you about the
President which I think you'll find encouraging, though I hope it wasn't
just a political statement, sir--the President very kindly had a number
of reporters in the other day to have lunch with him, and he served us
broccoli. [Laughter]
At any rate, we're going to go to a commercial now, which makes me
just little nervous. [Laughter] We'll be right back.
[At this point, the television stations took a commercial break.]
Support for the President's Program
Mr. Jennings. We have a question from California on the telephone.
Go ahead.
Q. I'd like to know, as children, how we can help you achieve your
goals you have set?
The President. Oh, thank you, Byron.
Mr. Jennings. Paid political announcement.
The President. Thank you very much. Isn't that nice?
Mr. Jennings. Yes.
The President. Well, I'll tell you what you can do. You can, as a
student you can write to your Congressman and to your two Senators and
ask them to support the program that I've talked about today. You can
try to get your fellow classmates and your schools, your teachers, and
others to get in touch with the people in Congress and ask them to vote
for this program. And then at home, in your communities, if we pass the
program you can try to make sure that we do it right; that we actually
spend some of this money, for example, to recover houses for homeless
people, or that we put more young people to work in the summertime--that
we do these things. But the first thing we've got to do is pass the
program. So I would ask you, starting
[[Page 273]]
Monday, try to get your classmates to write your Member of Congress and
your Senators and ask them to vote for the program.
Mr. Jennings. On the other hand, they could also write you in the
White House and tell you that they think you're wrong so far.
The President. Sure, they could. If you think I'm wrong, write me
and tell me that.
Mr. Jennings. Now, a couple of kids who aren't here today but asked
me before, which I think is on these kids' mind, are you going to keep
your promises?
The President. I'm sure doing my best. The most important thing I
can do, I think, is to try to give these young people a future by
creating these jobs and dealing with their educational issues, and try
to do all the things that I talked about in the campaign. Sometimes
circumstances change and you can't do everything you want. I'm not
investing as much money as I wanted to in jobs and I'm raising a little
more than I wanted to in taxes because the deficit of our country is
bigger than I thought it was. But, in general, I'm right on track to try
to do what I wanted to do when I ran for President.
Endangered Species
Q. Well, I would like to know what are you going to do to help
endangered species?
The President. Well, we were talking about that before, you know,
with the spotted owl. There is a law which requires us to protect
endangered species and I support the law. I don't want to see it
repealed, but I want to see it administered in a way that doesn't throw
a large number of Americans out of work. And I think most people feel
that way. They feel we ought to have an Endangered Species Act, but
there ought to be a procedure to try to have a balance between
preserving those species and not hurting families too much. But I
support the Endangered Species Act.
Hillary Clinton's Role
Mr. Jennings. Another telephone call. Go ahead.
Q. Do you feel uneasy about Mrs. Clinton taking such an active role
in the Government because if something goes wrong both of you would be
blamed?
The President. No, I don't feel uneasy about it at all. I think it's
a good thing. She is a very able person. This is the first time since
we've been married that she hasn't had a full-time job in addition to
everything else, that she's got a lot of time. And she wants to be part
of my administration. She's the most talented person that I've ever
worked with on a lot of the issues that I care about. And I think she'll
be great on this health care thing, and if it doesn't work, I'm going to
be blamed anyway.
Native Americans
Q. Mr. President, I'm here today as a Lumbee Indian of North
Carolina. Yet under the law, I'm not an Indian. What are you going to do
to resolve this problem?
The President. Why is that? I don't understand it. You mean you're
not a recognized Native American under the law?
Q. Exactly.
The President. Why?
Q. Because the rules and regulations say that if a tribe is not
recognized, you're not an Indian.
The President. And why is your tribe not recognized?
Q. They're still trying to prove that we are Indian with the
Department of Interior and the BIA process.
Mr. Jennings. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The President. Yes.
Q. Yes.
The President. You've asked me a question I don't know the answer
to. But I'll tell you what I'll do. If you make sure--I guess Peter's
got your address--I will put somebody to work on it the first of the
week and I'll try to figure out if there is anything we can do. I wish I
could answer your question, but I didn't know that there were Native
American tribes that hadn't been formally recognized.
Q. Yes, there are lots.
Mr. Jennings. Nor did I. We'll find out for you. Right next to you,
Isaac.
The President. Thank you very much.
Teacher Furloughs
Q. President Clinton, what are you going to do about furloughs?
The President. About what?
Q. Furloughs.
The President. You mean from prisons?
[[Page 274]]
Q. No, I mean from teachers getting out of work.
The President. Oh. You mean, teachers being laid off?
Q. Yes.
The President. Well, where do you live?
Q. I live in Washington.
The President. In Washington. This is a problem around the country
because a lot of State and local governments haven't had enough money to
fund their school budgets. I think you asked me about that, too,
earlier.
There is nothing I can do about it directly, because the United
States Government, the President and the Congress don't hire teachers;
they're all hired at local school district level. But there are two
things that I can do to help indirectly. One is to try to get the
economy going again, because if people are working, they'll be paying
taxes, and the school districts will have more money. That's the most
important thing I could do.
The second thing is to try to have the National Government help our
schools a little more than they have for the last 12 years, and the
budget that I gave to the Congress does ask us to put more money into
education. And that should help some of the school districts around the
country.
The most important thing I can do is give them a healthy economy,
because most of the money to run the school district comes from the
local level. It doesn't come here to Washington.
Child Support Enforcement and Tax Reform
Q. Yes. I was just wondering: How can you help the families where
there's a mom and she's taking care of a kid or kids, and the father
isn't willing or isn't able to pay child support.
Mr. Jennings. And you have about 30 seconds, Mr. President.
The President. If he's not willing, we can have much tougher child
support enforcement. I feel very strongly about it, and I've got a good
program to strengthen it. If he's not able and the mother is working and
taking care of the kids, I think the tax system should actually give the
mother money back, if necessary. I think any parent that's working 40
hours a week with children in the home should not live in poverty. I
think we should change the tax system so that people who work with
children should be lifted out of poverty.
Mr. Jennings. That's a good question, Jordan. In fact, you know
where you can watch for something on that? In the confirmation hearings
for your new Attorney General.
The President. That's right.
Mr. Jennings. ----because she has quite a reputation in Florida on
that particular subject.
We could go on. You've been very gracious to stay the extra half-
hour.
Did you enjoy yourselves this morning? Was he good? Yes? He was
okay?
The President. I loved it.
Mr. Jennings. Satisfied with all the answers?
The President. No. [Laughter] Thank you.
Mr. Jennings. Well, Mr. President, you know as well as I do it's a
rare treat for any of us to be able to come in here and to see you.
Thank you very much for having us. Thank you all.
The President. You're terrific; our country's in good hands, all of
you. I feel good about our future just listening to you.
Mr. Jennings. Have a good weekend, everybody. Thank you very much,
and goodbye from the East Room at the White House.
The President. Thank you.
Note: The town meeting began at 11:30 a.m. in the East Room at the White
House. Peter Jennings, ABC News, was the moderator for the program.
During the meeting, Mr. Jennings referred to Stephen Urkel, the
character on ABC's television program ``Family Matters'' played by actor
Jalleel White. Prior to the town meeting, the President conducted a
brief tour of the White House.