Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Cabinet Members and an Exchange With Reporters

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 2, 2000

September 28, 2000

Budget Negotiations/Tobacco Lawsuit

The President. Is everyone in? Good. Well, as you can see, we're about to have a Cabinet meeting, the primary purpose of which is to discuss the budget negotiations that will be going on now until the end of Congress.

Two weeks ago I met with congressional leaders in this room, and we pledged to use the short time left in the fiscal year to do some important things for the American people, to resolve our differences on a host of issues, to put progress over partisanship.

Since then, the Senate has passed normal trade relations with China legislation, and I applaud that. But beyond that, nothing has been done to finally raise the minimum wage, pass hate crimes legislation and a real Patients' Bill of Rights, pass a Medicare prescription drug benefit for our seniors, to enact the new markets legislation. The leadership promised action, but so far the results don't show it.

Now there are just 2 days to go in the fiscal year, and only 2 of the 13 appropriations bills have passed that are so necessary to keep our Government running. Still the Congress hasn't provided the funds to help build and modernize our schools, to continue to hire 100,000 new qualified teachers for smaller classes in the early grades, to improve teacher quality and strengthen accountability so that we can identify failing schools, turn them around, shut them down, or put them under new management. And nothing has been done to fund the largest gun enforcement initiative in history to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children, something that Republicans have said that we ought to do more of.

Right now another important decision is pending in Congress, even as we meet here. The Congress is choosing whether or not to lower the national drunk driving standard to .08 percent blood alcohol content, a move that we know, from the experience of States that have already done it, could save hundreds of lives every single year in the United States. I know that Congress is, as always, under a lot of interest-group pressure not to do this, but I hope, for the sake of highway safety and human life, they will.

Later this week, Congress will send me a short-term budget resolution. I expect I'll sign it so that we can continue to meet our responsibilities to the American people, but I ask Congress to finish the work they were sent here to do. Let's sit down for serious negotiations on a budget that preserves fiscal discipline, invests in our people, and produces real results and real progress for America.

I'd also like to say a few words about our efforts to hold tobacco companies accountable. Today the court ruled that our case alleging the tobacco companies were engaged in fraud in marketing tobacco can go ahead, although not on the other counts. This remains a very important opportunity for the American people to have their day in court against big tobacco and its marketing practices. I urge Congress to provide the funding to allow the lawsuit to move forward and not to shield the tobacco industry from the consequences of its actions.

Thank you very much.

Minimum Wage Legislation

Q. Mr. President, the Republican leadership would like to attach certain provisions and amendments to the minimum wage bill, which are opposed by organized labor. Would you sign the bill . if it came to you with their additions to it?

The President. Well, I don't believe that we ought to lower the pay of many tens of thousands of Americans under present Federal law to raise the pay of people who plainly deserve a minimum wage. I do not believe the minimum wage should be a vehicle to wreck fair labor standards that have been well established in our law and that could not be repealed on their own.

I think some tax relief for small business is appropriate. The initial package was more than 3 times as high as the one that Congress attached when we raised the minimum wage in 1996. And if we're going to have that much tax relief, then I want to talk about what it's going to be and who is going to benefit.

But this Congress has some interesting priorities. It didn't take them any time to repeal the estate tax or to pass other big tax cuts that benefited people in very high income levels, but they can't seem to get around to raising the minimum wage. The last time we raised the minimum wage, they said that it would hurt unemployment, hurt the economy, hurt the small businesses of the country. We set a new record for small business starts every year since. We've got a 30-year low in unemployment. This is just a simple question of whether we're going to give 10 million hardworking Americans a chance to have a decent life and to take care of their children in a decent way. And I hope they'll pass it.

Yugoslav Elections

Q. Mr. President, if you're convinced, as you said a couple of minutes ago, that Yugoslav opposition has made a persuasive case that they've won the election outright, why have you not explicitly called for Mr. Milosevic to step down?