Remarks and a
Question-and-Answer Session With the Members of the
Center for the Study of the Presidency
The President. Thank you very much,
and welcome to the White House. I know you don't think you're in the White
House, but somehow -- you know
Well,
I can't think of groups that are more welcome here than those sponsored by the
Center for the Study of the Presidency. For more than two decades, the center
has contributed to our understanding of the high office that for a brief time
the American people have entrusted to me. Under the
leadership of Gordon Hoxie, the center has helped both the country at large and
the men who've held this office to see more clearly the institution and the
challenges of the day that the Presidency and its trustee face.
The
modern Presidency is, like everything else in our system, the product of both
the founders' design and later practice. I remember this every time I give a
press conference. Perhaps you know that historians date the Presidential press
conference back to our sixth Chief Executive, John Quincy Adams. Before that,
Presidents didn't have press conferences. But it seems that every morning
before dawn,
I'm
told that this weekend, at the center's 19th annual student symposium, you will
be examining ``Congress and the Presidency in Economic and Foreign Policy.''
One of the most important tools that the President has, both in economic policy
and in foreign policy, is the veto. From the very beginning there were repeated
attempts to get around the intent of the framers when they gave Presidents this
tool. The entire scope of the veto was challenged.
As
Edward Corwin's classic study, ``The President,'' points out: ``Naturally the veto power did not escape the early talent of
Americans for conjuring up constitutional limitations out of thin air. People
said the veto was solely the means furnished the President for carrying out his
oath to `preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution' and was not validly
usable for any other purpose. They said that it did not extend to revenue
bills, having never been so employed by the King of England, and that it was
never intended to give effect merely to Presidential desires.'' But these
challenges to the plain and straightforward meaning of the Constitution all
failed.
Today
we're facing another challenge to the use of the Presidential veto. In recent
years, Congress has unjustifiably diminished the veto's utility, particularly
when it comes to the budget. You may remember that I had a costar when I
delivered the State of the Union Address this year. It was that 1,000-page
continuing resolution that Congress sent to me last December and gave me only
10 hours to study and then sign or shut down the Government. I've been
reluctant -- as I believe any President should be -- to allow the Government to
stop functioning. So, for the second year running, I signed a single monster
bill that funded most of the Government. But as I told
Congress in January, never again. Next time I veto, and they can choose
whether to shut the Government down or not.
But
the question I would ask you is: Doesn't the new practice of creating gigantic
continuing resolutions require a new and better response? Can anything but
enactment of a line-item veto provide the leverage we need to curb wasteful and
unnecessary spending?
In
the mid-seventies, Congress shoved the President aside in the budget process.
It legislated major shifts in the checks and balances
of budgetmaking power. And the results came
immediately. Before that, Federal deficit with inflation taken out had been
steady or falling for a quarter of a century. Since then, it's been in a steep
climb.
In
my years in the White House, I've seen one Member of Congress after another
call for lower deficits and less spending and then go out and vote for more
spending. Some, of course, just want more spending, but many are sincere. They
are caught in what scholars call a ``prisoner's dilemma.'' If nearby districts
or States get Federal dollars, they feel they have to match it or look bad to
the folks back home.
The
fact is that there is only one way, once and for all, to stop them before they
spend again. And that's to restore the role in the budget process of the only
elected official who speaks not for local interests but for the interest of the
entire Nation: the President. And the way to do that is with the line-item
veto.
You
know, we say that the States are the laboratories of democracy and have been
since our earliest days. Is there any provision of government that has been
more successfully tested on the State level than the line-item veto?
Forty-three Governors have it. When I was Governor of California, I used it 943
times and was never overridden once. I found that somehow things got in the
budget that just couldn't live in sunlight, and that's all the line-item veto
is -- a way for the President to let some sunlight into the dark, dank caverns
of the budget process.
Well,
I've just about used up my time. You know, there's a story about one of my
favorite Presidents -- Calvin Coolidge -- who, as you know, was famous for
using a few, a very few, well-chosen words. He'd just made a campaign speech
when a woman ran up to him and exclaimed, ``Oh, Mr. Coolidge, what a wonderful
address. I stood up through it.'' Coolidge said, ``So
did
Well,
thank you all, and God bless you. And I'm going to take a few minutes here -- I
know I don't have much time, and I hope that some of you won't mind if I limit
this to the students present -- that they must have, as a part of your meeting,
a few questions still about the Presidency. The reason I'm shutting out those
of you who might be on the faculty is, I had trouble
with questions from you back when I was in college. [Laughter]
As
a matter of fact, two from my alma mater,
Well,
does someone have a question that they -- --
Civil
Rights Legislation
Q.
Mr. President, I would like to thank you for vetoing the recent so-called civil
rights legislation recently sent through Congress. After your veto, why do you
think you had problems getting enough Senators or Congressmen to help you
sustain your veto? And if you would have had the line-item veto, what specific
aspects of that civil rights legislation do you think you could have vetoed?
The President. Well, the things that I
would have changed with the line-item veto are what made me veto the bill. I'm
not against the whole purpose of that bill. As a matter of fact, I sent up a
bill that called for it -- virtually what was in this one -- except for the
provisions that were in there that would now give the Federal Government
regulating control over everybody down to a farmer or a mom and pop grocery
store or anything else. That's what I had against the bill. I'm not against
extending civil rights. But it was so written that if -- well, as I said in one
of my statements, if a church or a group of churches, for example, put
together, as many of them do, a summer camp, and if that summer camp happened
to, let's say, be located on Federal land or surplus land or anything of that
kind, automatically, all of the churches involved in that would be subject to
Federal regulation.
And
thus they would be -- well, I can tell you what that excess regulation can do,
and maybe there are some here from the -- physicians in the colleges and universities
-- that know. It was not too many years ago in the Federal Government -- we've
been trying to get the Federal Government out of things where it doesn't belong
and get them back to local and State control and so forth. I actually learned
of a college like that that many of you go to. The college's average cost for
administrative overhead was $50,000 a year. Federal regulations imposed brought
that up to $500,000 a year just for the administrative overhead and the
paperwork that was required of the Government rules. And I don't think it
improved education a bit.
Foreign
and Domestic Spending
Q. Mr. President, hello. I'd first like to say
thank you for providing a renewed sense of unity and patriotism to American
citizens.
The President. Thank you.
Q.
But what I'd like to ask you is: Do you anticipate a decrease in foreign aid
and perhaps an increase in domestic aid throughout the
The President. Well, actually, there
has been a decrease now mandated by Congress on foreign aid. And frankly, it
has set us back a great deal. Foreign aid isn't just a charity that -- for
example, it includes security features, also. And it helps other countries
provide for their own defense where, because of our own national interest, if
they can't do that, we have to. And ours is more expensive than their own homegrown variety. So, we're trying to reverse
that.
I
just met with another President of one of our
So,
I hope that we can reverse this trend and begin to restore some of that. With
regard to aid throughout our country, let's get something straight. For
example, aid to education, we've always believed, is a local and State
responsibility. And it was not too many years ago that under the New Deal --
Federal Government decided to get itself involved. But the Federal Government
only contributes 7 percent of the total cost of education. But for that 7
percent, the Federal Government gets greedy and wants a lot more privilege and
authority over education than they've bought for 7 percent.
But
with regard to need -- here we're looking at welfare reforms, also. Because
again, I once found a program when I was Governor, a Federal program, that the
administration overhead was $2 for every $1 they got to a needy person. We
believe that some reforms are needed to make it more practical than that. And
right now, the most effective aid to the people is coming from what I call the
private sector. Last year, private individuals and groups and organizations
raised $84 billion for charitable causes for the needy.
Someone
-- I better -- young lady right back there?
The
President's Legacy
Q.
I just was wondering, now that you're in your last year, what do you think is
your greatest accomplishment, or one of your greatest, and what would you like
to be remembered for in history books? [Laughter]
The President. I try not to think of
the history books -- [laughter] -- very much about that, contrary to what a lot
of people say. I think it's -- I've always looked at this job, as I indicated
it in my remarks -- you don't become President, you are given temporary custody
of an institution called the Presidency. And you don't have any right to go
around changing its traditions or rules or anything else, as some have tried to
do. But when we came into office, we were in quite an economic bind. Inflation
was in double digits, unemployment was up -- well, we really were in something
of a recession. Interest rates -- the prime rate was 20.5 percent. And we set
out to make some economic changes.
Maybe
one thing that I'll remember with joy -- I don't know whether anyone else will
-- having gotten my degree in economics, that makes me able to tell ethnic
stories about economists -- [laughter] -- I had always believed, and put it
into practice over great opposition -- and that was the most important part of
our economic reform -- was the reduction of the marginal tax rates. A man named
ibn-Khaldun, a few centuries ago said that at the
beginning of the empire the rates were low and the revenue was high. He said at
the end of the empire the rates were high and the revenue was low.
Well,
over all the objections, we cut the marginal tax rates, and that has been the
most important part of our economic recovery. We have the highest percentage of
the potential labor pool in
But
I think what you mentioned a little while ago, also -- after all of the rioting
and the cynicism that came out of the
But
you continue, and then I think I'm getting to the place where I have to quit.
Tactical
Nuclear Weapons
Q.
Hello, Mr. President. My question is that in a TV documentary I saw that we
have nuclear weapons in
The President. Well, all I can tell
you is that we have a very elaborate program of security for anything nuclear,
including even the plants where things like that are constructed. And I think
it is as effective a program as we possibly can have. I think, also, you're
probably talking about a type of nuclear weapon that is not included in the INF
agreement where we've gotten rid of a whole system for the first time of
nuclear weapons.
I'm
speaking of the tactical battlefield weapons, which would be what you were
referring to there. Those weapons we cannot start trying to reduce until we
engage the
Now
-- --
Civil
Rights Legislation
Q.
Hello, Mr. President. My question is in regards to your veto on the civil
rights legislation -- excuse me -- [laughter] -- legislation. I, in fact, was
not in favor of your veto; however, you did express that you had an alternate
plan. I'd like to know some of what that involved or detailed.
The President. Well, it was the thing
we've been trying ever since to reverse the Grove City ruling, and so it was
basically what was the most apparent thing in the program that I vetoed, or the
bill that I vetoed, except that they added, as I've said, all those other
things of controls in there. Well, virtually, there was a Senate bill on the
floor about the same time that the one that I vetoed had been on the floor, and
that one was defeated in favor of this other one. And my bill was very similar
to that Senate bill. So, in trying to persuade some legislators to vote to
sustain my veto, I reminded them that their record showed that they had voted
for that other bill and then voted when they didn't get that, voted for this
one. And I said, I'm giving you a chance to vote again
on the same kind of bill you wanted to pass before as that Senate bill.
And
I think there was a concern about some of them that they would appear to the
folks back home as if they were against civil rights. Well, I want to tell you,
I have -- long before the term was ever coined -- I have been a devotee of
civil rights. I grew up in a family -- one brother, my mother and father, and
we grew up with the belief that the ugliest sin in the world was discrimination
and prejudice. And so, all my life has been over on that side. I had to be, or
I'd have been laced. [Laughter]
But
I've tried to explain there; it was only those other factors that they gave the
open door for excessive government regulation. For example, when I said, all
the other people -- well, this grocery store -- if people came into that grocery
store with food stamps, that automatically made them
subject to Federal regulation and things of that kind that were never intended.
And that's all I wanted cleaned up.
So,
I've just talked to our people. Now, since our veto wasn't sustained, I've talked
to them. But why don't we pick out one-by-one those things now that are in that
legislation that's been passed and introduce legislation one at a time to get
those other things canceled.
Q.
So your bill has approximately the same elements, however, you didn't want -- --
The President. That's right -- the
main feel of the bill that I vetoed, yes.
Q.
Thank you.
The President. Well, could I take just
one more? [Laughter] You ought to know I'm late. I've got somebody waiting to
-- [laughter]. I can't take any more after this one.
Q.
Mr. President, you once referred to Oliver North as a national hero. Now that
he has been indicted, are you going to pardon him and Poindexter?
The President. Now, wait a minute, I'm
having a little trouble hearing.
Q.
You once referred to Oliver North as a national hero. Now that he has been
indicted, are you going to pardon him and Poindexter?
The President. I still think Ollie
North is a hero. And at the other hand -- and any talk about what I might do or
pardons and so forth -- I think with the case before the courts, that's
something I can't discuss now. But from my -- I just have to believe that
they're going to be found innocent because I don't think they were guilty of
any lawbreaking or any crime.
I've
got to take a second and tell you something that -- [laughter] -- you know. The
whole so-called
Well,
we, behind the scenes, have been trying for years to get an end to the
Iran-Iraq war, for example. So I said, yes, we'll meet with them. Incidentally,
they came through a third country in the
Well,
I had told our people when the word came to me to go back that we had a rule
that we didn't do business with countries that practice terrorism, and
Well,
I thought about it, and there was a lot of objection among some of our people
and all -- and debated. And I knew that the Hizballah
[radical Shi'ite terrorist group operating in
And
it wasn't until then that our Attorney General discovered a memo that seemed to
indicate that there was more money than we had received, although we had
received the price we asked. And I immediately took him and went before the
joint leadership of the Congress and told them what we'd discovered -- we had
no explanation for it, but were going to try to find out; that I'd asked for a
special investigator and also that I had appointed a commission to look into
this and see what was going on because this money was supposed to be in a Swiss
bank account.
Now,
that's the whole extent of the so-called scandal -- what our intent was and
what happened. And you know something? After all the investigation, today I
still don't know who got that extra money or where it came from. I'm hoping to
find out.
But
I didn't mean to get into that long an answer. But I wanted you to know that I
have some definite reason for still thinking that Ollie North is a hero.
All right. Thank you all.
Note: The President
spoke at