pd05ap99 Executive Order 13117--Further Amendment to Executive Order 12981, as...

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    The last issue I'll tell you is that I firmly believe we ought to 
deal with Social Security and Medicare in a way that maximizes the 
amount of the surplus we use over the next 15 years to buy down the 
public debt.
    Now, that is much less popular than the alternative proposal by the 
congressional majority, which is to give most of the surplus away right 
now in a tax cut. It's your money anyway, they say. And of course, it 
is. It is your money anyway. But keep in mind, our country quadrupled 
the national debt between 1981 and 1993. And in an uncertain economic 
climate in the rest of the world, with all the financial troubles you've 
seen in Asia, it seems to me to be given a chance to pay down our debt 
to the lowest level we've had since before World War I is better for 
most of you than a short-term impact of a tax cut.
    Why? Because it will give us lower interest rates, lower inflation; 
it will lower interest rates for countries that have to borrow money 
that you want to sell your products to; it will maximize growth; it 
will, therefore, maximize income and job-generating potential in 
America. And to me, the benefits of having an America that could be out 
of debt in 17 years, that's quite staggering. Because we might have to 
borrow money ourselves someday, again, and we don't ever want to do--
ever get back to the way we were when we were having to borrow money 
just to pay the bills.
    Most of your companies have borrowed a lot of money, but presumably, 
you didn't do it very often just to make payroll. And that is what we--
that's the decision we've been given the opportunity to deal with. So it 
seems to me that's the right decision to do.
    And I think that--when I look at our technology policy, I think 
about that. I think about how can we have the dynamic balance, how can 
we maximize this. This is almost 100 percent positive good. And if there 
is something that has to be done to limit it in any

[[Page 543]]

way, shape, or form, how can we minimize the damage to the economy and 
to the rapid spread of opportunity.
    Now, that's what we've tried to do for 6 years, and it's worked 
pretty well. So we've cut the deficit and balanced the budget, but 
almost doubled investment in education and training.
    I believe very strongly that we have to continue to expand trade. 
That's another issue. Most of you support that position. Most of you 
believe the President should be given fast-track authority. And most of 
you believe if we can get an agreement with China that is good for the 
American economy, we should extend the opportunity to them to join the 
World Trade Organization. I believe that.
    But I ask you to think about how are we going to get this passed in 
a Congress where there are some people who are afraid of trade and some 
people who are basically--they're afraid trade hurts more of the people 
they represent than it helps--and others just are afraid trade gives 
power to countries that they feel will be adversaries of the United 
States over the long run. Some people feel that about China now, that 
they're inevitably our adversary.
    I say there has to be a dynamic balance here. We should be trading 
more. We should be opening our markets more. We should be getting more 
open markets, but we should make sure we're investing what is necessary 
here to help people who are dislocated by trade through no fault of 
their own, and we should support the same thing in other countries. When 
we elevate trade, if we increase national income it should lift the 
incomes of all working people. It should be a race to the top, not a 
race to the bottom.
    And when we deal with China, we should recognize that we're 
advantaged when we open China more, economically, informa- tionally, 
culturally; but if we have honest differences with them over political 
and human rights, we ought to say it. And we ought to encourage them to 
air their differences with us but not in a way that isolates us one from 
another.
    Keep in mind what I said to you about these ethnic wars. There are 
people who cannot bear to live without somebody to be afraid of or look 
down on. And there are--sometimes I have the feeling that we're looking 
for a new enemy in America. I'm not looking for a new enemy. I didn't 
pick Mr. Milosevic, for example. His conduct made him the adversary of 
the United States and people who believe in the inherent dignity of 
every religious and ethnic group in the world. I did not look for a new 
enemy.
    So I say to you, if you want us to go forward with China, then 
remind everybody the same debates we're having about China today are 
being held about the United States in China. I promise you there are 
people inside the high councils of government who say, ``Those Americans 
don't want us to amount to a hill of beans. Those Americans want us to 
be their enemy so they will have a way to increase the defense budget. 
Those Americans will do everything they can to promote discord in our 
country; that's why they're all for political and human rights. They 
want us to just pure disintegrate, just like we did once before.'' And 
by the time--you know, you just keep on talking like that, and there is 
enough mutual misunderstanding until finally you get the political 
equivalent of a divorce.
    So I say we should be careful. We should evaluate our partners, our 
friends, our potential adversaries based on the facts at hand. But we 
should always be working for the best future, even as we prepare for 
something we might not like. And that's where I think you are.
    So I ask you to work with us to help to fashion a fast-track bill, 
for example, that will reflect a new consensus on trade; that will be 
able to say: we want more trade, but we want to lift people up and we 
don't want to tear the environment up, and there is a way to do that. 
And, yes, we would like to have a good relationship with China that 
includes a frank, sometimes even uncomfortable airing of our 
differences, but we recognize that the Chinese people will be better 
off, and we'll be less likely to have conflict in the 21st century if 
there is more constructive relationships--not just commerce, but also 
culture, education, all kinds of information. And so let's try to build 
that sort of relationship.
    And that again I say, it seems to me you folks are in a unique 
position to make these arguments because if you take--well, Rich

[[Page 544]]

was giving his speech tonight, and I was thinking about what his company 
does in Newark, New Jersey. Now, most of the people there helping in 
Newark, New Jersey, will never work for Lucent. But it will be a more 
successful company if everybody is at least literate enough to make a 
decent living, have a good job, and buy those products. And life will be 
a lot better if every inner city in this country has a set of thriving 
businesses beyond the drug trade, and where the children feel safe 
walking on the street, and where the schools are functioning at a high 
level and people aren't dropping out of school. And so they invest in 
that; not because it immediately shows up on the bottom line, but 
because they have a sense that life is of a whole texture and you have 
to understand what these relationships are. That's what we have to do as 
Americans. And that's how we have to look at this.
    So let me just mention two or three specific things that I think we 
should do in your area--and I ask you for your help. First, we have to 
work to keep America's lead in science and technology, which means you 
have to do your part, but we have to do ours. Basic Government 
investment in research and development is important and fulfills a role 
fundamentally different from that done by most companies.
    Tonight I ask you to help us to increase our investment for the 
seventh straight year in research and development. Our budget provides 
those kinds of investments that will spur the next generation of 
information technology, meet the challenge of climate change, find new 
cures for medical difficulties, explore space, protect our 
infrastructure against terrorist attacks.
    The budget resolution passed by the congressional majority would 
inevitably lead to big reductions in many of these investments. It is 
not necessary for us to do this. We can find a way to be fiscally 
responsible without cutting our R and D investments, and I ask for your 
help in that regard.
    Second, I ask you to work with me to maintain the right conditions 
for entrepreneurship in electronics. Just a few years ago, E-commerce 
did not exist. In 4 years, retail trade on the Internet could reach $100 
billion, business-to-business trade above a trillion. Two years ago the 
Vice President and I released a framework for seizing the potential of 
global electronic commerce. We said the Internet should be a free-trade 
zone, with incentives for competition, protection for consumers and 
children, supervised not by Government but by the people who use the 
Internet every day. Most of you thought that was a pretty good idea.
    Now, in the coming months we've got to fill in the blanks of that 
nice sounding general statement. I want to work with you to find ways to 
give consumers the same protection in the virtual mall they now have at 
the shopping mall, to enhance the security and privacy of financial 
transactions on the Internet, an increasingly deep concern of citizens 
everywhere, and to bring advanced, high-speed connections into homes and 
small businesses.
    I may not know as much about cable modems or T-1 lines as the Vice 
President--[laughter]--``may'' is a misleading word there. [Laughter] 
But I know what this can do for our children's future.
    The third thing I'd like to ask you to do relates to something Dave 
McCurdy talked about. I want you to help us continue to work to bridge 
the digital divide. We have to have shared prosperity and leave no one 
behind. Today, affluent schools still are more likely than disadvantaged 
ones to have Internet access in the classrooms. And white households are 
more than twice as likely to own a computer as black or Hispanic ones. 
The digital divide has begun to narrow, but it won't disappear on its 
own. We'll have to work at it.
    Dave talked about the first NetDay in 1996. Listen to that--before 
that day, only 8 percent of our classrooms were wired to the Internet. 
Today, well over half of them are, and we are well on our way to 
connecting every classroom to the Internet by the end of next year.
    I'd like to ask you to do one other thing, as well. A lot of you 
have had a hard time finding sufficiently trained workers in the United 
States to do the work you need done. Last year I agreed to increase the 
number of H-1B visas as an emergency measure. But over the long run, the 
answer to this problem of the lack of skilled workers cannot simply be 
to look beyond our borders. Surely, a part

[[Page 545]]

of it has to be to better train people within our borders to do this 
work.
    For many years, your foundation has made this a top priority, and 
many individual firms have, as well. Cisco Systems is now working to 
establish a networking academy, for example, in every empowerment zone 
high school that wants one. These academies will provide students with 
the skills they need to get certified for jobs in information 
technology. It's like giving a student a first-class ticket to a high-
skill, high-wage future. We have to do more of that.
    Because you have done so well, I would argue that you have larger 
responsibilities as citizens than those who have not. And many of you 
are fulfilling them remarkably.
    The last thing I'd like to say is this: You were very kind when I 
spoke about Kosovo earlier--kind to stand, maybe just hoping I was 
through with my speech. [Laughter] I believe there is a hunger for 
substantive information on the part of our citizens greater than I have 
ever seen before. And the more you give them ways to get information, 
the more hungry they feel. But keep in mind, you can sit in front of 
your television and channel-surf all night long. You can have 50 
channels, or 70 or 80 or 90. You may pick up a lot of facts, and you may 
go to bed bleary-eyed at 3 in the morning, and the next day your 
understanding of what it is you have seen or heard might not be any 
greater.
    And so the last thing I would like to say is, with your employees, 
with those in the community with whom you work, help people to 
understand that the forces of globalization can be good, but they 
present challenges that must be met. Help people understand that the 
forces of decentralization, of the breaking up of old blocs can be a 
magnificent story of individual empowerment and democratization, but 
they, too, present challenges that must be met.
    I have done everything I could to fashion a Government that could do 
its part to meet those challenges. It's the smallest Government we've 
had since President Kennedy was here. It has given more power to States 
and localities. It works more with community groups and churches and 
social programs. It does a lot of things that need to be done badly, and 
I'm sure we can do better.
    But in the end, there will be these gaps, and someone must be 
standing in the gap to reaffirm our basic devotion to freedom and 
democracy, to peace and prosperity, and to the principle that we must be 
a community, that out of many we are one, and that we are still about 
the business of our Founding Fathers, forming a more perfect Union.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 8:25 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the J.W. 
Marriott Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to John E. Major, chairman, 
Electronic Industries Alliance; Richard A. McGinn, chairman and chief 
executive officer, Lucent Technologies; Brig. Gen. Hiram (Doc) Jones, 
USAF, Deputy Chief of Chaplains, who gave the invocation; Prime Minister 
Tony Blair of the United Kingdom; Gov. James S. Gilmore III of Virginia; 
and President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 
(Serbia and Montenegro).


<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]
                         

[Page 545]
 
Monday, April 5, 1999
 
Volume 35--Number 13
Pages 531-577
 
Week Ending Friday, April 2, 1999
 
Statement on the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty

March 31, 1999

    I am very pleased that yesterday negotiators from the 30 countries 
that are party to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe 
(CFE) reached an agreement setting the stage for a final adapted treaty. 
All countries agreed to deeper limits on their conventional forces and 
stronger measures to ensure compliance. The decision preserves NATO's 
ability to fulfill its post-cold-war missions, to ensure its new members 
are full military partners, and to deepen its engagement with 
Partnership For Peace states. It also takes into account the interests 
of non-NATO states and helps fulfill the commitment President Yeltsin 
and I made last September to conclude a final adapted treaty by the OSCE 
summit this year.
    At a time when we are trying to end a pattern of escalating 
insecurity, brutality, and armed conflict in the Balkans, I am gratified 
that these 30 countries, comprising the vast majority of European 
nations, are moving in a different direction. Together, we are building 
a Europe in which armies prepare to stand beside their neighbors, not 
against them, and security depends on cooperation, not competition.

[[Page 546]]


<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]
                         

[Page 546]
 
Monday, April 5, 1999
 
Volume 35--Number 13
Pages 531-577
 
Week Ending Friday, April 2, 1999
 
Executive Order 13117--Further Amendment to Executive Order 12981, as 
Amended

March 31, 1999

    By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and 
the laws of the United States of America and in order to further the 
implementation of the reorganization of the Arms Control and Disarmament 
Agency (ACDA) into the Department of State, in this instance by 
eliminating ACDA's vote on dual-use export license decisions in the 
administration of export controls, it is hereby ordered that Executive 
Order 12981, as amended (``Executive Order 12981''), is further amended 
as follows:
    Section 1. The second sentence of section 1 of Executive Order 12981 
is amended by deleting ``, and the Arms Control and Disarmament 
Agency''.
    Sec. 2. The second sentence of section 5(a)(1)(A) of Executive Order 
12981 is amended by adding ``and'' after ``the Secretary of Defense'' 
and before ``the Secretary of Energy,'' and deleting ``, and the 

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