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far away from the capital city. And I think it's very farsighted. I hope 
it will be good for the people and the economy of Okinawa, and I hope to 
goodness we'll have all the outstanding issues resolved by the time we 
get there.

[[Page 1203]]

    Jane, go ahead [Jane Fullerton, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette].

President's State of Residence After Term

    Q. Both you and the First Lady have indicated that you plan to live 
in New York once you leave the White House. I'm just curious what you 
would say to the people of Arkansas, the people who have supported you 
and who helped you run for President. Should they feel used or abandoned 
in any way? [Laughter]
    The President. No. Now, let me say this: I have made it clear what I 
intend to do and what I intend to do from the beginning. What I intend 
to do is to divide my time between, as I said in my interview with CNN 
from Europe, I intend to divide my time between Arkansas and New York. I 
intend to spend at least half my time at home, when I'm not traveling 
and doing other things, because I've got a library and a public policy 
center to build, and I want it to be great, and I want it to be a great 
gift to my State. I've worked quite hard on it and thought a lot about 
it.
    And I think that--I think the people at home will be quite excited 
about it when they see what we're going to do and will be thrilled by 
it. And I won't be home so much, I'll be underfoot, you know, I'll just 
be--but I'll be there quite a lot.
    Yes.

Northern Ireland Peace Process

    Q. Mr. President, on Northern Ireland. Sir, on Wednesday the 
deadline looms, and I was wondering whether or not if the IRA does not 
sign up for disarmament in time for Wednesday's deadline, whether or 
not--or a timeline is established for disarmament--will Gerry Adams 
still be allowed to come to the United States and raise funds?
    And secondly, do you have any personal words that you'd like to 
express to the people who are about to undergo another marching season, 
where it's been a very volatile and very bloody situation at times?
    The President. I'd like to answer the second question first. The 
people of Northern Ireland, a majority of both communities, voted for 
the Good Friday accords. They voted for peace, for decommissioning, for 
universal acceptance of the principle of consent. And in American terms, 
that's majority rule. They voted for new partnerships with the Irish 
Republic, and they voted for self-government.
    They were right when they voted for that agreement. It's still the 
right thing for the future of Northern Ireland. So I would ask those who 
march and those who are angry at the march to remember that.
    I don't want to answer your first question for a simple reason--I 
have been in intense contact with Prime Minister Blair and with Prime 
Minister, the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. As you know, I have invested a 
great deal in the process of peace. And I don't think we have a great 
deal of time to resolve this complicated issue. It's politically and 
emotionally complicated.
    But I just would ask all the parties--the only thing I want to say 
about it publicly now--if it doesn't work out, there will be plenty of 
time for you to ask me all the other questions, but I'm still banking 
that we'll get it to work out. But I think everybody needs to think 
about how far we've come, all the things that are in the Good Friday 
accords, the fact that the public--Catholic and the Protestant public--
voted for them, and ask, no matter how difficult these issues are, how 
in goodness' name we could ever let this peace process fall apart?
    This is a very serious, serious period. And I do not want to say 
anything that would make it worse. And in the days ahead, I intend to do 
whatever anybody thinks I can do to save it. But I hope and pray it will 
be saved, because the Good Friday accords were good when the people 
voted for them, they're good today, and the differences, though they are 
profound, are as nothing compared to the cost of losing it.
    Go ahead.

Effect of Books About the Clinton Presidency

    Q. Mr. President, in the wake of the books by George Stephanopoulos 
and Bob 
Woodward, I was wondering if you think that you can have anything close 
to a candid or a frank conversation with aides, or, for that matter, 
lawyers these days, and whether you believe that this makes you a more 
isolated President as a result of this trend?

[[Page 1204]]

    The President. Well, I don't feel isolated. I mean, you all are 
having at me pretty good here today. [Laughter] And that's one of the 
reasons I'm still here--because I haven't been isolated, either from the 
American people at large or from a wide and large network of friends.
    I haven't read either book, and I haven't read the excerpts of the 
book, Mr. Woodward's book in the Washington Post, so I can't comment 
because I don't know exactly what was said. And I think it's better for 
me not to comment on something that I haven't read.
    Yes, sir. The gentleman in the back.

Reconstruction of the Balkans

    Q. Mr. President, you've been very much involved in the last few 
weeks in an attempt to create a Balkan reconstruction program. Many 
people, including yourself, have referred to the Marshall plan after 
World
War II as kind of a comparison to what you want to accomplish. And yet, 
you and your administration officials have insisted that Serbia cannot 
be involved in this until Milosevic is out.
    Given the nature of the Balkan economy, which is a very integrated 
area with the electricity networks, the transportation networks, the 
Danube River, which is a unifying force which unites the entire region--
isn't it a folly to try and conduct a program of this nature by 
excluding Serbia? And really economically impossible without Serbia as a 
part of the picture you cannot really get the whole economy moving.
    And secondly, is there not a danger--I realize that you have said 
that the reason for excluding Serbia was to try and get the Serb people 
to reject Milosevic. But isn't there a danger that they may, indeed, 
coalesce around Milosevic, feeling themselves as victims, and support 
him in spite of his own personal character, simply because of the 
bitterness towards the West after the bombing and the sanctions and now 
what they feel is disappointment over the reconstruction?
    The President. To answer your question, first of all, I don't think 
it's folly or impossible to think we can have a Balkan reconstruction 
plan--a southeastern Europe reconstruction plan without Serbia. But it 
would be terribly unfortunate and more difficult. What will happen is 
that new networks will be formed, and the relative importance of Serbia 
will be diminished if they're not a part of it. But it will be much more 
difficult, and it will be very unfortunate.
    Now, having said that, what the Serbian people decide to do, of 
course, is their own affair. But they're going to have to come to grips 
with what Mr. Milosevic ordered in Kosovo. They're just going to have to 
come to grips with it. And they're going to have to get out of denial. 
They're going to have to come to grips with it. And then they're going 
to have to decide whether they support his leadership or not; whether 
they think it's okay that all those tens of thousands of people were 
killed and all those hundreds of thousands of people were run out of 
their homes and all those little girls were raped and all those little 
boys were murdered. They're going to have to decide if they think that 
is okay.
    And if they think it's okay, they can make that decision. But I 
wouldn't give them one red cent for reconstruction if they think it's 
okay, because I don't think it's okay, and I don't think that's the 
world we're trying to build for our children. So I think it's simple.
    And I'm--look, I met with Mr. Milosevic in Paris; I shook hands with 
him; I had lunch across the table from him. It was a delightful and 
interesting lunch. And I thought, well, maybe he had some distance 
between the extreme activities of the Serbs in Bosnia. And then he went 
right out and did it all over again, and I mean with people directly 
under his control. And I do not believe we should give them any money 
for reconstruction if they believe that is the person who should lead 
them into the new century. I do not, and I will not support it.
    Yes, go ahead.

Taxes

    Q. You said earlier that you would not be averse to cutting taxes. 
And yet, your budget, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 
actually raises taxes overall by some $50 billion over 5 years. Why is 
this, in an era of surpluses?
    The President. Well, now, what are they counting? They're counting 
all the money

[[Page 1205]]

from the tobacco tax that we used to pay for the----
    Q. All of it.
    The President. I believe that you have to have a very generous 
interpretation to reach that conclusion. You look, we're giving 11 
percent of the surplus on the USA accounts as a whole--11 percent. We 
have, in addition to that, you've got the long-term care tax credit, 
you've got the child care tax credit, you've got the continuing funding 
of all the education and child tax credits that we had in the previous 
budgets. And my guess is to get to that, they have to not count the 
continuing funding of the tax cuts, but count the continued extension of 
tax increases that have to have extenders as new revenues. I can't 
imagine how they got it otherwise.
    We did have a large cigarette tax increase in there because we were 
trying to depress teen smoking, and we were trying to get funds to use 
to deal with the health consequences of what is a virtual epidemic among 
young people.
    But I am for the tax cuts, and I will go back to the answer before. 
I've got new tax cuts in this budget, and I will work with the 
Republicans on it. But we should not--we should not--pass up this chance 
to save Social Security, to save Medicare, to give the prescription drug 
benefits, to pay the debt down, which will keep the economy stronger and 
keep people with more jobs and higher incomes. Then we can talk about 
the tax cuts. And if Mr. King is right and we have some more money, then 
we can talk about that. But let's deal with first things first. 
[Laughter]
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President's 176th news conference began at 3:47 p.m. in 
Presidential Hall (formerly Room 450) in the Old Executive Office 
Building. In his remarks, he referred to Hashim Thaci, leader, Kosovo 
Liberation Army (KLA); Christopher Edley, consultant, One America: the 
President's Advisory Board on Race; Deputy Assistant to the President 
and Deputy Director of Speechwriting James (Terry) Edmonds; Presidential 
scholar Danielle Huff, who introduced the President at Georgetown 
University earlier the same day; former Senator Warren B. Rudman, 
Chairman, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; dismissed Los 
Alamos National Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee; Holocaust survivor, 
author, and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel; civil rights leader Rev. Jesse 
Jackson; Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom; President 
Jacques Chirac of France; Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi of Japan; Prime 
Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland; and President Slobodan Milosevic of 
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). The 
President also referred to KFOR, the Kosovo International Security 
Force; and the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 
(Public Law 104-127). This item was not received in time for publication 
in the appropriate issue. A portion of this news conference could not be 
verified because the tape was incomplete.


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

[Page 1205]
 
Monday, July 5, 1999
 
Volume 35--Number 26
Pages 1189-1273
 
Week Ending Friday, July 2, 1999
 
Radio Remarks on House Action on the ``Foster Care Independence Act of 
1999''

June 25, 1999

    I am very pleased the House of Representatives has just approved, by 
an overwhelming bipartisan margin, the ``Foster Care Independence Act.'' 
This legislation would expand access to health care, education, housing, 
and counseling for young people who leave foster care upon their 18th 
birthday. I am very grateful to the bill's sponsors, Nancy Johnson and 
Ben Cardin. I also want to thank my wife for her early, early alert 
about the importance of this issue. I look forward to working with 
Members of both parties to pass similar legislation in the Senate. 
Together, we must help all our foster children make the transition to 
independence. We can't leave them out there alone. Instead, we must 
support them in living up to their full, God-given potential.

Note: The President's remarks were recorded at approximately 6:10 p.m. 
on June 25 in the Oval Office at the White House for later broadcast. 
These remarks were also made available on the White House Press Office 
Radio Actuality Line. This item was not received in time for publication 
in the appropriate issue.


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

[Page 1205-1206]
 
Monday, July 5, 1999
 
Volume 35--Number 26
Pages 1189-1273
 
Week Ending Friday, July 2, 1999
 
The President's Radio Address

June 26, 1999

    Good morning. This month schools across America are letting out for 
the summer and beginning to plan for the fall. Today I'd like to talk 
about what we must do to help our

[[Page 1206]]

schools prepare for the school year ahead and prepare our children for 
the future, by reducing class size in the early grades.
    For 6\1/2\ years, our administration has made improving our 
children's education one of our highest priorities. This year, in my 
State of the Union Address, I outlined a plan to help our schools, our 
teachers, and our students meet high standards. The plan would hold 
States and school systems accountable for fixing failing schools. It 
would require teachers to be qualified in the classroom in the courses 
they teach. It would insist that we put an end to social promotion, but 
to do it in the right way, by investing in our children and in our 
schools, from funding after-school and summer school programs to 
modernizing and rebuilding 6,000 schools across our country to finishing 
up our commitment to hook all of our classrooms up to the Internet by 
next year.
    Reducing class size is one of the most important investments we can 
make in our children's future. Recent research confirms what parents 
have always known: Children learn better in small classes with good 
teachers, and kids who start out in smaller classes do better right 
through their high school graduation.
    But in far too many of our schools, 30 or more students are pressed 
desk-to-desk in a single classroom. Too many teachers have to spend more 
time maintaining order than maintaining high academic standards. And 
with the largest school enrollments in our history still to come, the 
problem is only going to get worse.
    Now, if we're serious about preparing our Nation to succeed in the 
21st century, we must do more to help all our children succeed in 
school. That's why last year I asked Congress to commit to reducing 
class size to 18 in the early grades. And with bipartisan support, 
Congress approved a big downpayment on my plan to put 100,000 well-
prepared teachers in the classroom.
    I'm pleased to announce that later this week we'll deliver on our 

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