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 havein 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

junk food advertisements during their TV shows?

Mr. Jennings. Whoo! [Laughter]

ments. And you pay for it, and throw in ad

vertisements.

The President. What you need to do is

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 advertise

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 thingsI'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 announce

ment.

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

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. 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.

Nomination of Mary Jo Bane To Be Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Children and Families

February 20, 1993

President Clinton announced today that he will nominate Mary Jo Bane, New York

State's Commissioner of Social Services, to the position of Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Children and Families.

Ms. Bane has been with the New York Department of Social Services since April 1992. She had previously served at that department as Executive Deputy Commissioner from 1984 to 1986. In between, she was a professor and Director of the Malcolm Weiner Center for Social Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Ms. Bane has also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education from 1980 to 81, as an associate professor of education at Harvard University Graduate School, and as associate director of the M.I.T.-Harvard Joint Center for Urban Studies. She has also been a volunteer with the Peace Corps, and is the author of many books and articles on welfare and public policy.

Remarks on the Economic Plan in
Santa Monica, California
February 21, 1993

The President. Thank you very much, President Moore, and ladies and gentlemen. This is a wonderful welcome on a Sunday afternoon, and I'm very grateful to you.

I was honored to fly out here today with two of your Members of Congress: Congressman Waxman and his wife, I know we're in Henry's district, he's here; Senator Barbara Boxer and her husband down there. And I think we have four or five other Members of Congress here. Where are they all? Here they are, Maxine Waters, Jane Harman,

Howard Berman.

We have a lot of your State officials here and mayors. Mayor Bradley, I think is here. He met me at the airport. I resent Mayor Bradley. He looks 10 years younger than me. [Laughter] I see a lot of my old friends here, a lot of members of your legislature. If I start introducing people I will never quit. But I do want to say a special word of appreciation to Speaker Willie Brown and Senator Roberti and those who invited me. They sponsored, along with Governor Wilson, that economic summit for California, and they invited me

to call in, and I appreciate that. And I am glad to see I have to say a few thingsI see your Lieutenant Governor, Leo McCarthy; and March Fong Yu here, secretary of state; and Gray Davies, your comptroller; Tom Hayden and Diane Watson; and Yvonne Burke. I'm pretty good at this, don't you think? I mean, just for a guy who walked in. And I still think John Garamendi's health care plan may wind up being the model for what we do in the country. It's got a lot to recommend it. Is the Mayor of Santa Monica here? Judy Abdo, stand up here. How are you? And we're in Terry Friedman's district. Is he here? There he is. Marguerite Archie Hudson, is she here? That's right. And we've got a lot of L.A. council members here. I see several here, Zev and others. Now we have-Santa Monica council.

Now, I'm leading up to something here which is that I want to introduce two other people. One is a good friend of mine, someone who helped me with higher education issues in the transition, and one of America's most distinguished educators, Dr. Johnetta Cole, the president of Spelman College is over here. Then I want to introduce someone who sort of played a hobo in my Inaugural gala and who makes me the second most famous person in the room, Mr. Bill Cosby, who just came in over here.

Ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to come out to California, which was so good to me and to Al Gore, a State that did so much to give us a chance to serve and to try to turn our country around, to talk about the economic plan that I have presented to the Congress, the challenge that it presents to the country, and the help that all of us need from you to have any hope of its passage.

I have embraced as my cause the idea that every person in this country ought to be able to live up to the fullest of their God-given potential. If it can happen anywhere, it must happen in California. Unless California is revived, the Nation cannot recover economically. And unless the people who live here in this State, indeed in this county, with all of its multiracial and multiethinic and multireligious implications, unless you can draw strength out of your diversity, the Nation cannot bring strength out of its diversity and out of the challenges we face today.