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12/07/95 THU 16:14 FAX 202 219 3904
WOMENS BUREAU DIP
002
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
ABC Event
The White House
Washington, D.C.
October 31, 1995
PRO-TYPISTS, INC.
Professional Transcription Service
Area Code 202 347-5395
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9195-amt
PROCEEDINGS
THE FIRST LADY: Please be seated.
Good afternoon, and welcome to the White House,
and happy Hallowe'en.
Over the last several weeks, I have been thinking
a lot about raising children and the obligations that we
owe to our own children and other people's children. And I
am convinced that there is no more important issue for any
of us to be discussing these days. I am actually trying to
finish a book about that called "It Takes a Village to
Raise a Child," and it really says what I believe.
And increasingly, American business has a very
important role to play in the village. And I am pleased
today to have the opportunity to recognize and thank the
many businesses and municipalities and organizations that
are here today for your commitment, not only to your own
families, but to the families of the people who work for
you, and your communities, by creating family-friendly work
places.
I suppose that there are some who still do not
believe that we should try to make our work places family
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friendly, that somehow that is someone else's
responsibility. But I think that any of us who look into
the future know that we all have a stake in what happens to
all of our children. And part of what this afternoon 1s
doing is recognizing those of you who understand that
fundamental principle.
Last year, the Department of Labor asked women
what they thought of their jobs. And over 250,000 of them
responded. They told the Department of Labor and the
President, to whom they actually wrote postcards and
letters, in what was called the Working Women Count survey,
that they like working. They like contributing to their
family's income. They like making a contribution. But
that they need to have a more supportive and understanding
work place, because we all need help in making sure our
work and family obligations are fulfilled.
Just a few minutes ago, I met some of the
families that you see here on this stage and in this
audience, and I know, as I looked around the table, what it
means for the mothers and fathers that I met to feel that
their employers appreciate them as full human beings, as
participants with obligations to their children.
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I met with Dr. Suzanne Sherman, who works for
Kodak in Rochester, and relies on their emergency and back
up child care for her two sons. Alma Raymond, a single
parent in New York City, who would have had to have left
her job at the WYCA if it did not have an employee discount
on their summer camp. And Susan Cullin and Joel Silverman
of Austin, Texas, who know that their children are safe and
well cared for at a child care center sponsored by IBM.
The economy has changed, and with it, the
stresses on American families have increased. Most
families have to have two wage earners, and many families
are supported by single parents. Three out of four working
women have school-aged children, and it is really hard to
keep body and soul together on lots of days, as I can speak
from personal experience.
When you're supposed to be somewhere for your job
at 9:30, and your daughter's been up all night sick, and
it's now 7:30, and your husband's out of town, and she's
running a fever, and your baby sitter calls and says, "I'm
sick," and describes the same symptoms that you've been up
with all night with your daughter, and you don't know what
you're going to do -- I've been there, done that, and I
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know that trying to figure out how to keep your job and do
the best job you can, and to be the very best parent you
can -- which is, after all, your most important job -- is
not easy.
As a forty-two-year-o1d factory worker and mother
of two said to me recently, "What do you do with your kids
when you're assigned the 4:00 p.m. to midnight shift?"
So what we're trying to do is create what we're
calling the Working Women Count Honor Roll, and that Honor
Roll will honor businesses and local governments and other
organizations pledged to make work better and work places
friendlier for parents and their families. we know that
there are many, many companies of all eizes out there that
are already doing what needs to be done, and we hope that
by next summer, we will have one thousand pledges from
companies that will say they want to be part of this
effort.
The changes are happening where it counts: in
the work places and neighborhoods and communities around
America. The city of Kansas City, Missouri has pledged to
grant city employees four hours paid leave annually to
participate in their children's activities, and the mayor,
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Mayor Cleaver, has challenged area businesses to follow
suit.
This is really important. We want parents
involved in their children's education, and then we tell
them: "You can't go to the parent-teacher conference. You
can't go to the school performance. You can't see your
child play that sports game that is so important to him."
And many parents then feel a sense of powerlessness, and
check out. So I know how significant this effort ie.
In Texas, the Fort Worth Star Telegram pledges to
broaden and formalize family friendly practices, including
Flex-Time and telecommuting. It has developed a prenatal
maternity care program for the early detection of pregnancy
problems, and has set up a private room where employees may
nurse their babies.
Now, every reporter here, I hope, will tell their
paper, their station, their news service, about what the
Fort Worth Star Telegram is doing to make it possible for
families to stay together and earn a living.
Now, the Oregon Community Foundation's Oregon
Child Development Fund has pledged to raise $900,000.00
over three years to fund job training for hundreds of
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infant-toddler child care providers. This is really
important, because too many parents have to leave their --
our children -- in child care centers where the providers
there are paid minimum wage, where the turnover 1s six out
of ten workers leaving every single year, where they have
very little training, where in most states, you have to do
more to get a license to cut hair than take care of
children.
so trying to train child care workere is
important because actually the facts are that well-trained
workers provide higher-quality care, and it is usually not
more expensive, but many parents don't know that, and don't
know quite what to look for.
Now, as it's Honor Roll pledge, the American
Business Collaborative, which we recognize today, will
launch a $100 million initiative to develop and strengthen
school age child care and elder care projects in
communities across the country. I am so excited about
this, because this is the kind of pooling of resources that
I would like to see happen with more businesses.
I often visit businesses and they say they can't
afford to do it on their own, and I ask if they've talked
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to the business down the street, or the business next door,
to get together to provide some of these services. And I
think this is a really important idea that I would like to
see others follow.
I'm also pleased that ABC funds an AmeriCorps
program run by the National Association of Child Care
Resource and Referral Agencies, where AmeriCorps members
are helping thousands of families find out where they can
access high-quality child care.
So all of these programs that we are honoring
today are on the cutting edge of what needs to be done
around the country, if we expect to have not only the kind
of work force that is loyal, dependable and committed to
its work, but if we expect to have our children being given
the kind of support they need to develop as they should.
So I hope that we will be able to challenge other
businesses to do the same. We need thousands to do SO.
And I want each of you to know that you really are an
example for people all over the country.
And the person who has helped to spearhead this
and make it happen is the Secretary of Labor, himself the
father of two. The other day, a woman friend of mine was
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given an award, and she got up and thanked her husband and
said he had two children and he never complained about it.
He just did his part. And for those of us who have
followed Bob Reich as both a leader and a thinker, one of
the most impressive things about him is his fathering,
because he is, really a committed Dad.
So please join me in welcoming the Secretary of
Labor.
SECRETARY REICH: Thank you SO much.
As the First Lady was talking about child care
crises, I suddenly flashed upon, in my mind's eye, years
back when my wife and I had our first of many child care
crises. I was out of town, and Clare --
That's even before I became Secretary of Labor.
And Clare was teaching school. She's a -- she was teaching
college. And our child care worker at that time was sick.
And she -- her class was coming up within ten minutes, and
there was no place for our two little boys. So she took
Adam and Sam, and she ran into the Dean's Office, and she
said, "Here."
And she went off and taught. And the Dean stood
there with Adam and Sam, and that was -- he became
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
October 26, 1995
REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
AT THE NATIONAL BREAST CANCER COALITION SECOND ANNUAL GALA
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you all. Thank you so much, Fran.
You're right, I was a little put out when you picked my
birthday. I grumbled, I complained, but I decided that it was
much more important for me to be here with all of you,
particularly those of you who are survivors. Because, birthdays
are only as important as the quality of life and the
opportunities we have to be with people we love and we care about
and I'll be home tonight and they'll be there, so I am very
honored on behalf of the President and myself to celebrate
survival, to celebrate courage, to celebrate perseverance, to
celebrate all those virtues and traits that bring so many of you
here in this room tonight.
I'm particularly pleased to be with Patricia Duff and Ron
Pearlman and salute them for their individual and corporate
devotion to this cause and so many others that they have
championed. I'm pleased to be with Monty and Suzie Herwitz and
to have met their family tonight. I also am always delighted to
see Paula Zahn who always does a wonderful job and tonight shared
that personal story with us. And I was so pleased to see the
three honorees accepting their awards this evening. All of them
stand for the hundreds of thousands of women and families who are
being honored through them because of their activism and
commitment on behalf of the coalition and the cause of
eradicating breast cancer.
I don't know that I could ever say quite enough about Fran
Visco. She is a fearless advocate. She is someone who believes
with every cell of her being that things can be better if enough
people banned together to work on behalf of the common good. I
happen to believe that also, and felt from the very moment I met
her in Williamsburg those three years ago, now, that she was
someone with whom I had a great deal in common and I am honored
to be anywhere she is.
I also want to acknowledge and thank someone who is here,
Dr. Susan Love, who will be speaking to you later. I know that
everyone in this room appreciates her pioneering work in breast
cancer treatment and prevention. But I hope you also know that
she has changed the way medicine treats breast cancer. She has
1
taught a whole generation of medical students how to take better
care of breast cancer patients. And so we owe her so much, not
only for the obvious work she does with individual patients, for
the extraordinary effort she has made to educate all women about
issues effecting our health, but the way she has changed the
medical professions attitude about this illness.
The kind of coalition that has been put together that we are
honoring here has only been in existence for five years, but it
has accomplished so much in a short period of time. It has
literally changed and saved lives which is something not many of
us can say. It has walked into the midst of grief and tragedy
where children have been robbed of their mothers and we as adults
have lost our own, where husbands have lost wives, where mothers
and fathers have lost daughters. And walking into the midst of
that, the coalition in its many forms of all the women and men
who support its work, have said you too can be part of this
fight. Turn your loss into an energy designed to eradicate
breast cancer. Help us change the way we think about this
disease. Help us find a cure. Help us prevent it. Hope has
often replaced the grief and the tragedy.
I know that when my own mother-in-law went through her four
years of struggle with breast cancer. What I admired most about
that remarkable woman's courageous efforts, is how she found
energy to keep working on behalf of breast cancer prevention and
treatment, to travel when she could barely walk to make speeches,
to lend her name to fund raising efforts, because she wanted so
much to continue every single day to be part of the eventual
solution.
We all know the frightening statistics and we all have our
personal stories. We know that breast cancer is no respecter of
race or ethnicity, it strips all of us down to our basic human
essentials. It reminds us that, beneath the differences that we
too often use to divide ourselves, one from the other, we really
are all the same. We have the same hopes and dreams and
aspirations, the same fears and challenges. Breast cancer has
been a disease that, for too many years, was not talked about --
left on the back burner of medical research -- and not considered
a disease that was as important as some others.
Thankfully, that has changed and we are making progress, but
the progress must be continued. In the four short years that the
national breast cancer coalition has worked to make government
funding for breast cancer research a priority, we have seen an
increase in the money allocated from ninety million to six
hundred million dollars today. That funding addresses breast
cancer on all from; from research into its causes, its genetic
roots, its possible environmental connections, to the improvement
of mammography, tot he development of innovative treatment and
prevention strategies.
2
But you know because you are here, that as with so many
other aspects of our life together, government can not fight this
disease alone. Private support and funding are critical to
keeping both advanced breast cancer research and public outreach
efforts on track. Every dollar donated to breast cancer research
prevention and treatment brings us years closer to the final
eradication of this disease.
By your grass-roots activism, your outspokenness, your
persistent lobbying, you have raised awareness about this disease
and you have frightened a lot of officials into doing exactly
what they should have done anyway. I hope that you appreciate
the importance that this coalition has played, because even if
you have a very supportive President, as you do, someone who is
committed both because of his head and his heart, it is still
difficult unless there is a network of activists who are
constantly keeping watch to know exactly what is going on, even
in the government.
As Fran mentioned, there was a moment a few months ago when
it appeared that because of budget cuts and the like, that the
money that had been fought so hard for in the Defense Department
would be lost because it was not considered essential to our
national security. The President was able to step in and put a
stop to that because he had made it a priority. But it's that
kind of constant vigilance that is required.
We are moving forward on the National Action Plan on Breast
Cancer and it's very important that this plan stay on track as
well. It has been formulated by consumers, clinicians,
scientists, government officials, and other experts. It is a
part now of the government, it is being implemented through the
public health services office on women's health, whose director,
Dr. Susan Blumenthal is here with us tonight and whom I would
like to thank for her constant and vigilant watch over what
happens with this plan. But each of us who care about what
happens to our friends, our family members, ourselves must remain
vigilant.
If I have any message this evening, in addition to
congratulating all of you and thanking you for your efforts, it
would be to please ask you to give as much attention and energy
as you can in the coming weeks and months. To being sure that
the gains that have been made on behalf of breast cancer and
medical research, prevention, and treatment will continue.
I am worried about the cutbacks in medicare and what that
will mean in the decrease in the accessibility of older women to
mammograms and to clinical visits. I am worried about the
cutbacks in Medicaid and what that will mean to poor women who
will not have access. I have met too many women, who, as Fran
said, are cut out of our existing health care system. I've had
3
women tell me that at their annual check-up, which they paid for
out of their own pocket because they had no insurance, their
doctor found a lump, referred them to a surgeon, where they were
told that because they didn't have insurance, it should just be
watched for a while.
I've been at breast cancer awareness meetings like the one I
attended in San Diego, where I was trying to encourage older
women on Medicare to take advantage of the medicare benefits to
have mammograms, when a woman stood up in the back of the room
and said: I'm only sixty, I don't qualify for medicare, I still
work, I have no insurance, I have a lump, what can I do? So I
worry about whether we will be taking one step forward with
respect to the prevention and research and two steps back with
respect to affordability and access for women.
We all have to be vigilant, because as we continue this
fight against breast cancer, we know that there will be many
competing considerations. There will be other diseases, there
will be other needs that people have, and as we watch the budget
battles that are going to be engaging the Capitol and Washington,
and the capitols around the country, we have to be sure that
women's health and diseases like breast cancer are not once again
relegated to the back of the concerns where, for too long, they
were.
I also want to say that I am particularly worried about the
impact on women in minority communities who are already less
likely to seek treatment, less likely to be able to afford it,
and I was pleased to see the honorees this evening who, in their
own way are working to reach out to women across the board in
every community. But we have to speak out, about what budget
cuts and budget priorities mean in real people's lives. Behind
the statistics and all the numbers, are women, women who need
treatment, women who need care, women who need the kind of work
that you are doing so that the disease can be prevented.
This is not a faceless disease, nor is it just a woman's
disease, it is a family disease, and it's a national epidemic.
The President and I will continue to do everything we can to
assist the coalition in its endeavors. And I look forward to the
day, very honestly, when the coalition will be disbanded because
we will have a huge gathering in a much larger room where we
will have Billy Joel be the warm-up act for an announcement that
breast cancer, like polio, is through.
That's what we are working for. Thank you for what you are
doing to make that day possible.
###
4
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
November 3, 1995
REMARKS BY FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
FOR "KEEP PATIENTS FIRST" RALLY
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you very much. I want to thank the
sponsors for organizing this event and all of you for the work
you do. You provide the highest quality health care in the
world. You represent the most vulnerable of all Americans --
the people who too often are left out and forgotten. You are
here being their arms, their legs, their eyes, their ears,
because you like me, are very concerned about the proposed
Republican budget cuts -- that has stripped more than $440
billion dollars for Medicaid and Medicare.
This debate, no matter what you hear, is not about balancing
the budget. The President has said for a long time -- yes we do
need to balance the budget so we can lift the burden of debt off
our children and strengthen our economy. In fact, the Democratic
members of Congress you see on this stage, and this President
have already begun to do that.
For the first time since Harry Truman was President, the
budget has been cut three years in a row. We do not have to
argue about balancing the budget, it is moving towards balance.
The real issue is -- will we balance the budget by making
health care unaffordable for Medicare beneficiaries?
Will we forget that three out of all of the people on
Medicare earn less than $25,000 a year?
We do not have to cut Medicare and raise costs to
beneficiaries to balance the budget.
We do not have to cut Medicare spending in New York alone by
over $18 billion.
We do not have to cut Medicaid spending by over $21 billion.
We do not have to force states to cut coverage under
Medicaid for over 8 million children, older Americans and people
with disabilities.
1
This is not just about balancing the budget. It is not just
about billions of dollars. It is not just about what we will do
to our hospitals here in New York, to medical schools, to the
people who take care of the sick and the ill and the dying. It
is even more important than all of those significant issues.
This debate is about what kind of country we are, what kind of
people we are, and what values we still do have.
There are many people who claim to promote family values,
but then propose policies that do not value families. We need to
stand up for the value of all Americans. We need to be sure that
when we go into the budget debate of the weeks ahead, that there
will be people who make it very clear that we will stand up for
those who do not have a voice or a vote in Washington. Who do
not have a lobbyist or a special interest representing them.
And I would like to say a special word about what will
happen to children. Eleanor and others have talked eloquently
about their families and what the cuts in Medicare will be in
older Americans.
Will the cuts in Medicare also affect younger Americans to?
Because families trying to raise children will find that they can
not afford to do for their children what they want to do, because
of the cuts in Medicare.
The Republican budget is an attack on children -- and we are
not talking only about poor children -- we are talking about all
children. The budget cuts that the Republicans propose will deny
millions of children basic health care, schooling opportunities,
proper food, a safe place to live -- even the clean air and water
they need, and the food that they expect them to have to grow to
be healthy.
Just last week when I was at Babies and Children's Hospital
I talked with parents who were there because their children were
sick. And the children were so sick, that even for families that
made a good living they could not afford the medical expenses,
and so their children were on Medicaid.
I was very struck by how those parents had given up
everything to take care of their children. They knew there is
nothing more important in their lives than taking care of
children. Why would we as a country begin to deny the most basic
and fundamental obligations we have to care for our children --
and that is exactly what this Republican budget does.
Let me just give you a few examples: the Republican budget
would eliminate Head Start -- the program that helps young
children get ready to learn for 180,000 children. And the cut in
nutrition assistance for 14 million children, and reduce funding
2
to keep our drinking water clean. It would do away with
national service, the program known as Americorps.
But what in particularly proves that we have to stand up and
speak against, is what the Republican budget proposal would do to
health care. They are dismantling the social safety net known as
Medicaid. The primary source of health coverage for one out of
four children in America.
Medicaid pays for the coverage for millions of children who
are disabled, and who suffer from chronic illness. It is the
primary source of health coverage for nine out of ten children
with HIV and AIDS. Medicaid is the primary source of pre-natal
and maternal health care for low income pregnant women. And
Medicaid is also an important source of funding for long term
care for older Americans. Over two thirds of all nursing home
residents are there because of Medicaid support.
Medicaid is not for somebody else, Medicaid is for all of us
-- it is there in case we need it, it's there so if Americans
need it, it's there if your child needs it.
If the Republican budget cuts went through they would
eliminate health care coverage through Medicaid for half a
million children in New York alone.
I have to ask, as I ask myself, I have to ask all of you.
Do you think it is the American way to deny infants the
preventive health care they need to stay healthy? I don't think
so.
I don't think it is the American way to deny treatment to
children who are disabled or desperately ill, or to punish hard
working parents whose family health care coverage vanishes with a
job loss, or a job change. It is certainly not the American way
that I know, to make the oldest among us give up their
possessions, sell their house, sell their car, live in poverty if
a spouse has to go into a nursing home.
The America I grew up in, the America I want my daughter to
grow up in, is better than that.
And every time, every time, I look out to a crowd like this
I think of all the stories that appear, all the people who have
worked so hard and given so much, who have tried to keep their
body and soul and their families together. I do think of us as a
great extended American family, whose top priority has always
been our children.
Now, whenever I make a speech like this, somebody invariably
either writes or says, "Well, you can't expect the government to
take care of children -- that is the family's responsibility."
3
Well0 who argues with that? Of course it's the parents primary
responsibility.
But let's not fool ourselves. National policies, whether
they are about education or health care or taxes or the
environment, affect every family and child. This debate is not
about some abstract government program. This debate is about
whether or not we will take care of our children. And I would
like to ask all of the policy makers in Washington to start
thinking about these issues -- not as Republicans or Democrats,
not as partisans, but as parents. As parents we know what our
children need and who do everything we can to meet those needs.
We know if all our children are healthy, we feel better,
but if one of them gets sick we will do everything to take care
of that sick child. But when it comes to legislating for other
people, parents can turn into partisans, and parental instincts
disappear.
Let's start considering ourselves when it comes to our
children, that each of us has an obligation to take care of the
children around us. Think about it as parents.
Think about it as the children of parents who might need medical
care or health care in the future.
Now we already know that the budget that the Republicans
have passed are dead on arrival when they arrive in the Oval
office. We already know that the President will veto those
budgets. But after those vetoes are signed, the hard work will
begin. Which is why we need all your voices -- not just for a
parade and at a rally -- but in the days and weeks ahead, we
need your voices to speak out.
We need you to write letters.
We need you to attend meetings and rallies.
We need you to talk to your friends and neighbors.
We need you to call radio talk shows.
We need your voices heard, so that everyone in Washington
has the chance to put aside partisan political agendas and to
think like parents, to think like family members, to think like
citizens who care about each other and have obligations towards
one another. That's the America that I know is waiting there for
us, that's the America that we have to fight for -- it is the
American way to stand up for each other -- that's what your duty
is today. Thank you for being here, but stay in this debate.
# # #
4
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
October 23, 1995
REMARKS BY FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
AT BABIES AND CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL
AT THE COLUMBIA-PRESBYTERIAN MEDICAL CENTER
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you very much. Thank you for those
flowers, too. Thank you.
I am very pleased to be here and to have an opportunity to
discuss the health and well-being of America's children at one of
America's foremost hospitals for children. I learned just a
little while ago from Dr. Speck that Columbia-Presbyterian is the
oldest and the largest not-for-profit hospital center in the
United States.
But certainly those of us who care about high-quality health
care in America or anywhere, and those of us who care about
children, know of its importance in delivering the kind of
excellent health care that we have come to expect in the United
States. And that's what I want to talk to you about today
because I have been fortunate in my life to be involved with
children's hospitals and to visit many of our children's
hospitals around the country.
From my experience as a parent and as a board member of a
children's hospital, I know there is something very special about
these places. Mrs. Wray was describing her own personal
experience and I had the privilege of speaking with a number of
other parents and children about their own experiences here.
I am here today because I am worried about the future of
hospitals like this one. And more generally, I am worried about
the future of America's children.
Decisions are being made in Congress at this very moment
that threaten to devalue and demean every aspect of our
children's lives -- their health, their education, their
nutrition, their housing, their safety, and the environment in
which they grow up.
The facts are simple and they are stark. Children are the
biggest losers in the Republican budget proposal.
1
Today the Clinton Administration is releasing a detailed
analysis of the impact of these proposed cuts on our children.
And this analysis -- which goes state by state, looking at what
will be the impact on children if these proposals actually become
law -- is shocking reading.
We know that any mother or father or aunt or uncle or
grandparent or concerned adult would not take comfort in knowing
that for all the rhetoric we hear, often coming out of the United
States Congress about helping children, the Republican budget
will in fact deny millions of children the basics they need to
live productive lives.
They will be denied health care they now have, schooling
they can count on, proper food, a safe place to live, a secure
neighborhood, air and water that we can count on as being clean
enough to breathe and drink.
We are not talking about only poor children. I wish that
-- if that's all we were talking about -- there would be an
uproar and an outcry from every person in our country, that we
should not do to the most vulnerable children among us what we
would not let anyone do to our own children.
But these budget cuts go much further. These budget cuts --
in the way they undermine health and food safety; the way they
strip away environmental protections; the way they put at risk
many of the services that all Americans and their children count
on -- is an assault on every child's future -- my child, as well
as any child in this room, or living within a few blocks of this
hospital.
We also know that families making less that $30,000 a year
-- which are about half the taxpayers in the United States --
under the Republican budget proposals will actually see their
taxes go up, so that people who make more money than that can see
their taxes go down.
So it is not merely that we will be undermining the services
available to all children, that we will be particularly
assaulting the services needed for poor children, but under these
Republican proposals, we will be taking money away from families
who earn less than $30,000 a year so that they will be further
handicapped in taking care of their own children.
Now I can only believe that most Americans have not yet
fully grasped the impact of these budget proposals, because we
are all for balancing the budget. It was this President and
Democratic Congressmembers, like Carolyn Maloney and Charles
Rangel, who are here, who voted for the first time in 1993 to
actually begin balancing the budget after 12 years of profligate
spending that drove the deficit through the ceiling.
2
So there's no debate about balancing the budget. There is
also no debate about being more efficient in providing services.
It was again, this President and the Democratic Congress that
began the process of making government more efficient.
We don't have any objection to sensible, reasonable
proposals that will put our economic house in order.
But we will not stand by silently and see those who are most
vulnerable among us -- those who work hard for a living, those
who make less than $30,000 a year -- pay the price for the
profligate spending that went on during the 1980s in order to
profit those who do not need that kind of help.
If one looks in the faces of our children, one can see the
hope for the future, but we know the struggles that they are up
against. We know that consistently, too many of the children in
the richest nation in our hemisphere, in our world, live in
poverty.
I just returned from a trip to South America. I visited
many nations, much poorer and less developed than ours. Yet I
talked with leaders who were doing all they could to increase
spending for education, increase spending for health care --
looking for ways to invest in their children, at the very time
when the United States Congress is looking to reverse our own
historic commitment to the children of America.
Our nation has survived as the longest living democracy
because of our historic commitment to children and families. Now
is no time to step backwards and that is exactly what this
Republican budget analyzed here would have us do.
Let me give you just a few examples. The Republican budget
would eliminate Headstart for 180,000 American preschoolers. It
would deny tens of thousands of children right here in New York
the opportunity to have the kind of personal attention in school
to acquire the skills that they need.
It would eliminate Goals 2000 which sets standards for
teaching and learning in America.
It would eliminate summer jobs for 600,000 young people and
do away with the President's national service program known as
Americorps in which young men and women earn their way to college
by performing community service.
We can look across the board at this budget and see that no
part of our life together as a nation would be left untouched and
damaged.
I want to talk though, just for a minute, about health care
3
because here particularly, the Republican budget cuts are cruel
and unconscionable. And I can only hope that the people who are
voting to put them into place do not understand the consequences
of their votes.
We are seeing the dismantling of the part of the social
safety net known as Medicaid. It has been dismantled in these
proposals with very little discussion, except with those who
think they might profit from the dismantling.
We know when we look at what Medicaid has done, that it is
the primary source of health care for nearly one in four American
children. The next time you see a group of children anywhere,
just mentally count off, because one in four in some way --
middle class, upper class, poor -- depend on Medicaid.
And one in three children under the age of three depend on
Medicaid.
More than half of the children on Medicaid live in families
with working parents -- parents who are doing the best they can
to earn their own livings, but cannot meet the medical needs of
their children.
Medicaid is the primary source of health coverage for
millions of children who are disabled or who suffer from chronic
illness.
It is the primary health care coverage for nine out of 10
children with HIV and AIDS.
Medicaid is the primary source of prenatal and maternal
health care for low-income, pregnant women.
Medicaid is also an important source of coverage for the
health care of older Americans living in extreme poverty or with
serious disabilities and is the largest insurer for over two-
thirds of nursing home residents.
Medicaid is literally a lifeline for many, many millions of
Americans.
The Republican budget cuts would eliminate health care
coverage through Medicaid for nearly one-half million children in
New York alone, and four and half million nationwide by the year
2002.
That means those children would no longer be able to get
immunizations or check-ups or other preventive services now
covered by Medicaid. It means that they would use the emergency
room as so many uninsured families who make just a little too
much money in order to qualify for Medicaid do for their health
4
care coverage now.
Ripping apart this safety net is not the American way.
It is not the American way to deny infants the shots they
need to stay healthy.
It is not the American way to deny treatment to children who
are disabled or desperately ill.
It is not the American way to punish hardworking parents
whose family health care coverage vanishes with a job loss or a
job change.
It is not the American way to make the oldest among us give
up their possessions, sell their house, sell their car, and live
a life of poverty if their spouse has to go into a nursing home.
Cutting $182 billion from Medicaid will force families to
make grim choices that you or I would not wish to make and no
American family should be forced to make. Choices between health
care for children or nursing home care for parents. Choices
between education and vaccinations; between food and prescription
drugs.
The people at this hospital know that the choices that will
be forced on American families will also be forced on our
hospitals -- private, not-for-profit hospitals like this one and
public hospitals throughout our country.
These are the institutions that take all of our children,
regardless of their income, regardless of where they come from.
These doors are open. However, the doors of many of the for-
profit hospitals in America are closing and the doors of the not-
for-profit, community hospitals will be likely closed permanently
if the combined cuts in Medicaid and Medicare go through.
For the children of America that need help, they know they
can find it at children's hospitals. These hospitals cost more
because taking care of sick children is more expensive than
taking care of sick adults. And children's hospitals cannot
shift those higher costs to adult patients the way other
hospitals can. Already Medicaid pays children's hospitals, on
average, less than 80 cents for every dollar spent to care for a
child.
The impact of cutting Medicaid even further is obvious.
Children's hospitals simply will not be able to provide the
services they do today and will not be able to maintain their
open-door policy.
Throughout our history, we have thought of ourselves as an
5
American family whose greatest priority was our children. And as
Americans, we have prided ourselves on our compassion. And I
think that is a pride that was well earned because we have put
our children first, both in our public investments and our
private ones.
We have built magnificent hospitals like this, we have
provided the basis for medical research that cannot be matched
anywhere in the world. We have taken care of our poor.
Anyone who, like me, has traveled in countries struggling
because of their economic problems to take care of the health
care needs of their people, know that when one walks through a
hospital in Brazil or Bangladesh or Moscow as I have, you see
literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people with
nowhere else to go, with doctors struggling to provide even the
most basic kind of health care.
I do not want to see that in the United States of America.
There is no reason we should.
Now, any time I make a speech like this, somebody invariably
either writes or says, "Well you know, you can't expect the
government to take care of children -- that is the family's
responsibility." Who argues with that? Of course it is the
family's responsibility. of course parents bear the primary
responsibility for their children.
But let's not fool ourselves. National policies -- whether
they are about education or health care or welfare or taxes or
the environment -- affect every family and child. They are
mirrored in the lives and experiences of our children. And
government has played and must continue to play an invaluable
role in safeguarding the interests of children and families.
It does so in ways that we don't often think about. When I
was speaking with the parents and children a few minutes ago, I
met two families with adopted children with serious health
problems. They were able in part to adopt those children and
give them the love we would want for every child because Medicaid
helped to pay the health care costs of these special needs
children.
We don't think about how the actions that are being proposed
today will push more and more families closer to the brink of
economic disaster.
And that is what I want every American to start considering.
Think about this budget debate -- not as a Republican or an
Independent or a Democrat -- think about it as a parent, as a
grandparent, as an aunt, as an uncle.
6
Don't get so wrapped up in the statistics and the policy
papers that we forget our basic obligations. We know as parents
what we owe our children. We know what we try to do in order to
meet those needs.
I looked into the faces just a few minutes ago of mothers
and fathers who have given up everything to take care of sick
children -- and who among us would not do the same?
But when it comes to legislating and making policy, parents
turn into partisans and good parental instincts seem to retreat.
Would we ever say as parents that only one of four of our
children could go to a doctor or get a vaccination or have a
hearing test? of course not. We would demand and work for the
right to make sure they were all taken care of.
Would we ever say as parents with a child that had spinal
bifida or congenital heart disease or cystic fibrosis that they
no longer deserved treatment and care? Of course not. We would
do everything within our power to make sure our child was taken
care of.
But in this time we live in today, with the kind of
reckless, ideological effort to meet fixed budget targets to
prove a point, we are undermining what parents try to do every
single day.
We as a society are doing things we would never do as
parents. How can we legislate what we would not approve of as
parents? How can we vote for people who would do that? How can
we permit it to happen?
I hope that as this debate goes on we will recognize, first
of all, that the kind of cuts that are in this Republican budget
proposal cannot be permitted to be enacted in to law.
There is an alternative: a balanced budget proposal that the
President has put forth that truly does put children's needs
first. It doesn't give tax cuts to the wealthiest of Americans,
and for those in this atrium who would lose their tax cut, I
apologize. But you don't need it. Our children need that
funding in order to keep their lives going.
And more than that, these budget battles are not just about
money, they are not just about who wins and who loses in
Washington, they are about our values as a nation. What do we
really care about? What kind of people are we , what kind of
people do we intend to be?
Any family does its best to take care of its old and its
young. There is an inner-generational compact that is more
important than any kind of contract for legislation.
7
That compact says loud and clearly: "We owe each other
something. We have obligations to one another and besides, we
never know what might happen to us."
There, but for the grace of God, go our child, our spouse,
our parent -- and we ought to be a little more humble in the face
in the unpredictability that life deals all of us.
Our children are our present and our future, a test of our
humanity and our faith. And our children are watching. Will we
pass this test or will we fail them and ourselves?
When I was in Chile, I was reminded of their Nobel Prize-
winning poet, Gabriela Mistral who said these words, that I think
we ought to say to ourselves over and over again in the weeks and
months ahead: "Many things we need can wait. The child cannot.
Now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being
made, his mind is being developed. To him, we cannot say
tomorrow. His name is today."
And today each of us has an obligation to the children we
know, the children around us, and the children of this country,
and we will we be judged on whether or not we meet those
obligations.
I think we will, because when it finally comes time to make
the decision, I do not believe a majority in Congress or a
majority in the United States will turn their backs on our
children.
Thank you all very much.
###
8
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
June 26, 1995
REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
AT PBS PANEL DISCUSSION
THE WHITE HOUSE
MRS. CLINTON: Good morning. And welcome, everyone, to
the White House for this very important meeting. I am delighted that
you could all be with us, and I want particularly to recognize a few
people who were able to join us this morning. We have Representative
Jim Moran from across the river in Virginia, and Representative
Eleanor Holmes Norton from here in the District of Columbia.
We are also delighted that Richard Carlson, the
President of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; Ervin
Duggan, the President of the Public Broadcasting Service; Delano
Lewis, the President of National Public Radio; and Larry Irving, the
Secretary for Communications in the Department of Commerce are also
all here with us.
This is a meeting about a very important subject. It is
about the role that television plays in the lives of our children
and, particularly, the role of public broadcasting. I think that it
is very important in our country today to acknowledge and admit that
television is a pervasive influence in our lives and has a
particularly significant impact on the development of our children.
There are some who have engaged in a long discussion --
even an argument -- over the last decades about what television means
in our lives, what the role of violence, for example, in television
is. But I would like to focus today on an issue that we are now
finding more about, and that I hope will influence the debate about
the role of public broadcasting and its contribution to children's
development as we struggle with and argue over the proper role of
government.
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Public broadcasting is for many, many children the only
channel available that has consistently effective educational
programming. Probably about 40 percent of our families in America do
not have access to cable television. And because of the demographics
and incomes of those 40 percent of our families, we know that they
have a disproportionate number of our children. More than 40 percent
of our children reside in those 40 percent of our families.
If you were to look, as I have done, at the daily
television schedule of our three major networks and our public
broadcasting channel, you would see what is available for those
children in those homes. Now, certainly, there are other options on
cable, but they are often far outnumbered by channels that provide
information and programming that is not always suitable for our
children.
But looking only at the four available channels that
that
those 40 percent of our families have access to, it is clear that
what is available to children with respect to their educational and
developmental needs is not usually found on commercial television.
It is found during the day on public broadcasting.
And there are those who think that the educational
programming of public broadcasting is a luxury. But to them I would
ask: What is the necessity that can be substituted for that luxury?
Where are the outlets for the kind of helpful, productive, learning
opportunities that children have access to on public broadcasting day
in and day out?
But you don't have to take my word for it. You don't
have to take anybody's word for it. We actually have research. We
have evidence about the impact of television and the impact, in
particular, of public broadcasting.
One of my great hopes from a meeting such as this is
that our decision makers will not just engage in ideological
discussions, but will make decisions based on the evidence that we
have available to us. If one disagrees with the evidence -- fine.
Provide counterevidence. But it is difficult to engage in a
conversation about what is in the best interests of our children if
the people engaging in it are merely taking ideological positions.
And so, today, I have asked some people who have a great
deal of experience and knowledge about the impact of television and,
particularly, the impact of public broadcasting on children, and
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especially on low-income children who often do not have the
educational opportunities, the intellectual stimulation, the academic
preparation that many of us try to provide for our own children.
I am sure anyone who has followed our national
discussion about television knows of the woman I am about to
introduce. She is someone who, for many years, has been, in effect,
sounding the alarm about the impact of television. I wish that alarm
were heard in every family more loudly than it sometimes is, as well
as in the board rooms and legislative chambers of our country because
she has pointed out, time and time again, that children are shaped by
what they see, by what they hear, by what they are taught.
And the constant, pervasive presence of television in
most of our homes is a challenge for parents who will have to learn
and be willing to accept responsibility for monitoring more closely
the television-watching of their children. But it is also a
challenge for the larger society.
And so it gives me great pleasure to introduce Peggy
Charren. She is the founder of Action for Children's Television and
is currently serving as a visiting scholar at Harvard, continuing to
examine and accumulate and analyze evidence about the impact of
television on our children's lives.
*****
MS. CHARREN: There's time for a few questions, and I
though that, given that we have the First Lady with us, we would let
the First Lady ask the questions today instead of the audience.
MRS. CLINTON: Well, the one thought that kept running
through my mind after what we've heard is, can you imagine any child
rushing home from the first day of school and trying to tell the
Power Rangers that she'd gone to school? (Laughter and applause.)
You know, there's just sort of a disconnect there.
Well, I really find everything that each of you has said
to be born out in our common experience. Really, it is common sense.
But let's see if we can maybe take it one step further for people who
are still saying to themselves, well, if this is so important,
commercial television will pick up the slack; if this is so
significant in the lives of our children, there will be a market for
it, so all of what you are saying can be understood and accepted, but
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doesn't necessarily lead to the conclusion that you have to have a
public television presence with designated programming for children
in order to make the point that each of you has supported.
So let me ask both Peggy and John and then everyone else
to comment. Why isn't it likely that if the worst were to happen,
and the programming that we've already talked about and the
significance of it that the research has demonstrated were to
disappear, that that vacuum wouldn't be filled by the existing
marketplace?
MS. CHARREN: I think that if there's anything that my
27 years of activism on behalf of choices for children on television
has proved, it is that even with a lot of conferences, even with
articles in the paper, even with the people who make that kind of
television having children, they will not provide the kind of
programming that children need that really enhances education. They
are more comfortable with the other kind of programming.
And the problem is that when you talk to 2- to 15-year-
olds in a voice that you want to tell them something important, you
speak in a different language to preschoolers, to elementary-age kids
and to older kids. And if you want to get the most eyeballs watching
the commercials, you tend to say things that all children will listen
to. And maybe all children do read comic books at one point. But
when you talk to them about how wonderful literature is, you do it
the way the book business does. And Public Broadcasting handles that
screen the way the book business handles children's books.
MR. WRIGHT: I think the most important thing to think
about with respect to the private sector is not that it's unwise, not
that it's entirely vicious, not that it's a handicapping condition to
the entertainment and education of children, but that they are
focused entirely on the bottom line. They exploit children. They
gather eyeballs glued to TV sets which they then sell to ad agencies
and advertisers who then re-exploit the children to sell them
products they don't need, food that's not good for them, and toys
that enhance their fantasy and their willingness to attend the
programs which gather their eyeballs for sale. I think I'll stop on
that line. (Laughter.)
But the research that they do -- I spoke to the
executive producer of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and I asked her,
what kind of research do you do? How do you know what messages you
are getting across to children? And she said to me -- and this is a
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quote -- "After every rap we sit around and we ask each other, what
questions have we answered; what ideas would children take away from
this episode that we have just made?" And in the research community
-- this was at a Children Now conference and some of you were there
-- in fact, you were there by television -- everybody said, you asked
who? They said, we asked ourselves.
Until we start asking the children, until we start doing
the research, something other than market research, until we leave a
program like "My So-Called Life," -- one of the few decent programs
for young people that the commercial ever made that was cancelled.
Not enough eyeballs to sell. Not a wide enough range of children
watching it. And every network has done that. I can remember "Hot
Hero Sandwich" on NBC -- a wonderful, wonderful program. What
happened to "Big Blue Marble" on ABC? And many, many, many more.
It is incompatible. The system is incompatible. You've
got to do it because air waves belong to the people, the children
belong to the people. And you've got to have something for kids that
is theirs.
MS. MANZANO: Well, I'd just like to say, the private
sector won't pick up the slack because I'm always amazed that "Sesame
Street" hasn't been imitated in the private sector. We've been on
the air so long, and everybody agrees that we're great. But nobody
cares to sort of -- to imitate us. And like you said, there were all
these wonderful shows for children that got cancelled right away.
I was asked once to write for a children's show on
commercial television. And I asked, what age group is this show
aimed at? And they said, oh, you know, kids. (Laughter.) Well, how
could -- you don't write for a three-year-old the same way you write
for a five-year-old, and certainly not a seven-year-old. So I knew
immediately that they hadn't even examined themselves and they didn't
even know what they were going to say to these children. It was
bottom line. And they started out with the result of what they
wanted their show to do which was sell a certain product -- not what
the show was about.
MS. CHARREN: And one of the worst problems that
happened in the last few years is that the show itself has become a
product too often on children's television on commercial
broadcasting. And that's unfortunate because it -- that line between
editorial and commercial speech so you don't know who's talking to
you.
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And it means that we're telling our children, one in
four of whom lives below the poverty line, what they should spend
money on to feel good, to have friends. And that's really very sad.
They can do what they do as long as we have the part of that
broadcasting service that is saved for public broadcasting which
cares first about the public and first about our children. And I'm
not sure they care about anything else at all.
MRS. CLINTON: Joan, do you want to add anything?
MS. DYKSTRA: No. I think everyone has stated it very
clearly. I think the bottom line is that we want quality programming
for children. They have an opportunity. They can give us quality
programming. I fail to see where it is. I do know that PBS brings
me quality programming for children.
MRS. CLINTON: You know, I think it's an important point
that the economy that we all rely on is driven by a need to create
aspirations and expectations and, really, unfilled wants. I mean,
that's how people continue to buy goods and services. So that's
really the reason -- for a market economy in a way that is going to
continue to grow and provide more prosperity for people, it has to be
rooted, in a funny kind of way, in people's insecurity. I mean, if
all of us today said to ourselves, we have more than enough stuff, we
are not buying anything else, and we really meant it, you know, that
would not be good for the economy. (Laughter.)
So there is a need on the part of the economy, and
particularly one like ours, to continue to try to create in our minds
the desire for more and different things. And there's absolutely
nothing wrong with that. That is the way the system works.
But I do think there is a dark side that we don't pay
attention to. And it's something that was just alluded to -- that
when we turn our children and think of our children as miniature
adults, and really see them primarily as consumers, as little
shoppers who we want to turn into grown-up buyers of as many goods
and services as we possibly can sell them, that has a very different
perspective than if we see them as individuals with certain
potentials who it is our responsibility as parents, as citizens to
nurture.
And so there is an inherent conflict as the Professor
pointed out. And it is very difficult, I think, to be fair to
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commercial television, for them to fulfill a nurturing developmental
responsibility when that is not, as they clearly understand, their
bottom line.
So part of what we have to do as a society is to assign
different roles and responsibilities to different sectors of our
society. And commercial television has a different role and
responsibility, particularly as it pertains to children, than public
broadcasting.
And I think without that kind of choice, it is very
difficult for parents, even those trying hard to be conscientious
ones, Joan, to do what they believe they should do. I mean, teaching
values to children in between commercials on Saturday morning
cartoons is a lot harder, believe me, than watching "Sesame Street"
or "Mr. Rogers" or "Barney" or something like that with your child.
So it's not an either/or. And that's what I think we
have to keep trying to emphasize. It is not an either/or where it's
only commercial television or it's only public broadcasting. It is
both. And we have to see the responsibilities, particularly for
child rearing, in a much broader way so that each sector of our
society, starting with parents, but expanding far beyond just the
nuclear family, understands they have a role in determining how well
our children turn out.
And that's really what your research has shown is that
we know children are going to watch television. What we have to do
is provide the best possible choices. But if we don't have the
choice, then we've already made the decision, haven't we? And that's
what we're trying to avoid in this discussion about what happens with
the future of public television.
MR. WRIGHT: I'd like to add a parenting anecdote
because I think you did bring in parents and you did bring in
teachers, and they are going to be critical in the future of kids'
understanding and use of media.
And I'd just like to tell a very quick story. I have
four grandchildren, two more on the way. And these four kids love to
watch television. They watch lots of television. But none of them,
as yet, know that there is such a thing as commercial broadcast
entertainment television. I'm not even sure about PBS. And the
reason is that television for them is something that you take off the
shelf in a little box and put it in a machine and play it. And on
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that shelf are videocassettes and books. And the videocassettes were
taped off the air; they were bought; they were rented. I blush to
admit, some of them were taped from rented copies. (Laughter.)
But they got there because some parent cared enough to
put them there and to let the children watch over and over again, as
they do with their favorite books, the stories that are dear and near
to them.
MS. CHARREN: And to follow up on that, a lot of the
choices that are available from the new technology, which I mentioned
earlier, are not available to kids who need them the most. They are
expensive. Cable is expensive. Some of the pay channels are money
on top of money, and they provide a number of the choices that cable
does provide for children, and that if we don't really take care of
the public sector of broadcasting, we are going to have a situation
in this country that will make what's going on now look nice by
comparison when we don't reach one, whole, big portion of kids
growing up in America. So I want to take very good care of PBS.
MRS. CLINTON: And I just want to add to that comment,
Peggy, that we haven't talked this morning about the evidence that I
think is now conclusive about the impact of watching violence on
television and on children's behavior. We have argued about this
issue ever since the Surgeon General's report back in 1972 talking
about the impact of television viewing on children's behavior. There
have been many studies since.
And it is like the old problem we have -- every time
there is another irrefutable piece of evidence about the linkage
between smoking and lung cancer, there will be somebody, well-paid,
who will stand up and say, well, that's not definitive. And we face
the same problem when we talk about the effects of violence and
children's behavior.
But Peggy is right. I mean, this is not just a do-
gooder, altruistic, nice thing that people like Peggy and I and the
rest of us here think should be done because we like children's
television. Certainly, I do. And I believe strongly in it. And
that's what my daughter watched, and we read the books that went
along with it.
But I am equally concerned about the other side of the
equation that the Professor talked about. And that is, those
children who are not watching the 25 minutes a day of public
MORE
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broadcasting but are, instead, watching the 25 minutes of commercial
television without much parental supervision or mediation as to what
they are seeing.
It is absolutely true that not every child who watches
hundreds of hours of violent television becomes violent. But most of
the reason for that rests in the home and the neighborhood that are
structured and coherent enough that the child's experience of
watching television is mediated. But in the absence of that
mediation, and in the absence of the other factors that help a child
separate reality from fantasy, that help a child learn empathy and
sensitivity, it is absolutely clear that the television-watching
habits of vulnerable children will affect both their own violent
behavior and their response to violence that they see around them.
It has a desensitizing impact.
So this is an issue that we think goes far beyond the
narrow concerns of the group of us who are arguing strongly to
preserve public television and, particularly, educational and
children's programming. It is also a plea to all programmers of
television, including commercial television, to think about the
impact of your decisions.
The bottom line can be described in many ways. Only one
of those descriptions concerns profitability and the dollars that
come in. There's a bottom line to society as well. And we think
that bottom line is better served by having better television
programming for our children
Thank you all very much for being with us. (Applause.)
###
MORE
THE WHITE HOUSE
OFFICE OF THE PRESS SECRETARY
For Immediate Release
August 14, 1995
Remarks by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
to the President's Advisory Committee on
Gulf War Veteran's Illnesses
Washington, DC
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you very much. I am delighted to be
here at this first meeting, and on behalf of the President, I want
to thank the Chair and members of the President's Advisory
Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses for your willingness to
perform this public service. I also want to welcome all the
veterans, their friends and families, who are here to talk about
their personal experiences and to hear from the Administration
officials who have been working diligently on the issues raised in
the President's Executive Order creating this Committee.
I want to start by emphasizing again how proud we all are of
our victory in the Gulf War. Because of the enormous skill and
bravery of American troops, an end was put to Saddam Hussein's
brutal and illegal occupation of Kuwait. Because of the strength
of U.S. leadership, the international community came together to
stop and reverse unprovoked aggression against an innocent nation.
This Presidential Advisory Committee is an important example
of the President's commitment to leave no stone unturned in the
Administration's efforts to understand Gulf War veterans' illnesses
and to make sure that the government is responsive to veterans'
needs.
In his announcement, the President assured Gulf War veterans
that we are grateful for their bravery, and we are as proud of them
today as all of us were when they returned victorious in 1991. And
most important, the President made it clear that just as we relied
on our troops when they were sent to war, we must assure them that
they can rely on us now.
The President and I have heard from many Gulf War veterans and
their family members about their illnesses. We have received
letters from all over the country, and have had the privilege of
meeting with many veterans and family members in person. Some of
these men and women, such as Steve Robertson and Nancy Kapplan,
will be speaking to you this afternoon.
Veterans have told me about their frustrating efforts to find
out why they are ill and how their illnesses can be treated. They
have shared moving stories of the devastating effects on families
2
when fathers and mothers become disabled and unable to work. They
have described what it was like to serve their country in a desert
land where oil well fires turned the day to night, and where
sandstorms made it difficult to breathe. Some described scud
missile attacks, or told of frequent use of insecticides to
protect them from insect-born diseases.
Many Gulf War veterans have been outspoken in seeking and
providing information about their illnesses. This Advisory
Committee will determine whether the experiences these veterans
describe in the Persian Gulf, and in receiving medical care, have
been adequately addressed or whether there are additional actions
that need to be taken.
When Secretary Jesse Brown and I met with veterans at the
local VA Hospital here in Washington, and when then Deputy
Secretary of Defense John Deutch and I met with active duty
soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital, the stories we heard touched us
deeply, and provided important information as well. I know you
will be working closely with veterans, who will be an invaluable
resource in your deliberations, and I am pleased you will begin by
hearing directly from Gulf War veterans today.
I have also met with the physicians, nurses, and other health
care professionals from the VA and DOD who have worked with Gulf
War veterans who are ill. They too express great frustration about
the difficulties they have faced in helping some of the veterans
and their family members whose illnesses remain undiagnosed. I
know you will also work closely with these dedicated men and women,
and learn from their experiences.
When the men and women of the U.S. military, Reserves, and
National Guard were called to war in 1990, our Nation knew that we
could rely on them, and they served our nation honorably.
When we look back to the euphoric parades for returning U.S.
troops in 1991, we can still remember a great feeling of relief.
We had won the war, and most Americans had returned home safely.
But throughout 1991 and 1992, there was increasing concern
about some of our Gulf War veterans. There were veterans who
described symptoms that did not respond to treatment, and did not
go away as expected. When my husband became President and learned
that the numbers of veterans with chronic symptoms seemed to be
increasing, he took an active interest in helping our veterans.
Because of the leadership and dedication of the Departments of
Veterans Affairs, Defense, and Health and Human Services, this
Administration has already made unprecedented efforts to help Gulf
War veterans. For example, never before has an Administration
moved so quickly to conduct research aimed at helping returning
soldiers who are ill. This year alone, the three Departments will
3
spend approximately $15 million to study possible environmental
hazards, to determine whether illnesses have been transmitted to
spouses and children, and to develop improved treatment programs.
With the leadership of the VA, this Administration strongly
supported laws to ensure that compensation is available to those
who are disabled, even if the direct causes of the illnesses
stemming from their military service are unknown. The VA is also
providing priority medical care to Gulf War veterans, and both VA
and the Defense Department have established special treatment
centers to help veterans whose illnesses are particularly difficult
to diagnose.
The Defense Department has also recently initiated a new
program that will declassify documents and other information about
the Gulf War, and make them available on Internet.
All these efforts will serve our veterans well, and most were
accomplished with bipartisan support from the 103rd Congress, under
the leadership of then Chairmen of the Veterans Affairs Committees,
Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Rep. Sonny Montgomery, and their Committee
members.
As President Clinton stated when he first announced this
Advisory Committee, he is determined to do whatever it takes to
respond to the concerns of Gulf War veterans.
This Administration has already convened several other panels
of outside experts to examine various issues pertaining to Gulf War
veterans' illnesses, but it came to realize that the issues are so
complex they require a more comprehensive, sustained effort.
And so the President established this Advisory Committee, to
be independent and appropriately staffed, with the relevant
experience and expertise that the members represent. This Advisory
Committee is unique because, as the President outlined in his
Executive Order, you will review all aspects of the Federal
governments' programs and policies that affect Gulf War illnesses,
telling us what we are doing right and what we should be doing
better.
The Executive Order specifies that you will provide "advice
and recommendations" based on your review of the following:
research; medical treatment; risk factors from service in the Gulf
War, including possible environmental factors, and drugs and
vaccines; reports of the possible detection of chemical and
biological weapons; coordinating efforts that have been established
by Federal agencies; external reviews by other expert panels; and
outreach to veterans.
As you can see from that list, your mandate is broad. In your
efforts to review all these programs and policies, the Secretaries
4
are pledged to assist you, and you will find their doors open to
you. And the President has made it absolutely clear, in his
Executive Order and in his announcement of this Advisory Committee,
that when you consider your task, no issue is off limits and every
reasonable inquiry should be pursued.
There are many opinions about how many Gulf War veterans are
ill, what has caused those illnesses, and how they can best be
treated. In talking to veterans and to those who are trying to
serve them, it is clear that those opinions are as strongly held as
they are diverse.
And so, your task is a difficult one. There are many
unanswered questions, and we are counting on you to make sure that
this Administration is doing all it can to catalog relevant
questions and, in so far as possible, answer them.
For that reason, you were selected on the basis of your wide
range of expertise in medical issues, scientific research, policy,
and military matters. The veterans on the panel will contribute
their invaluable perspectives from their military experiences, and
it is particularly important that two of you served in the Gulf
War. You all were selected because you do not have pre-conceived
notions about the scope of the problem of Gulf War illnesses, or
the causes and treatment.
None of us knows what the research now being conducted or
called for in the future will tell us. So far, the research that
the government has conducted indicates that thousands of veterans
who were healthy when they left for the Gulf War are now ill. Many
veterans believe that these symptoms cluster together into a "Gulf
War Syndrome" that is unique. Based on the research to date,
however, experts have concluded that there is not enough evidence
to call this a syndrome. This is an issue that will continue to be
studied as more research is completed.
There are disagreements about the likely causes and the best
treatments for these symptoms. These issues also will continue to
be studied as more research is completed.
The President has appointed this Advisory Committee because we
do not yet have the answers to these important questions. These
are complicated scientific questions that deserve careful
scientific scrutiny.
In his Executive Order, the President has entrusted you to
make sure that the Federal government is supporting appropriate
research, and that, whenever possible, the results are being used
to inform treatment, compensation, and priorities for future
research. You are also entrusted to examine the wide array of
Federal programs and policies to make sure that they not only make
5
humanely. sense, but also that they are being administered effectively and
I want to leave you with the image of an open door. Perhaps
your most important tool as you serve on this Committee is your
ability to be open-minded, to take advantage of our open-door
policy to seek out the information you need to evaluate all
existing programs and policies, and to make recommendations to
ensure that this Administration will continue to be responsive and
responsible to our veterans. We owe them that much, and more, and
all of us are greatful for your willingness to take on this
important public service. Thank you very much Madame Chairman.
###
For Release
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
REMARKS TO THE NATIONAL PTA 100TH ANNUAL CONVENTION
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JUNE 22, 1996
Thank you. Thank you so very much. Don't you feel like you
were at the Olympics when that music started? You know I'm so
excited about the Olympics coming, we had the torch arrival and
departure at the White House yesterday, and the night before.
And when the music started, I thought of all those times as a
little girl when I would sit in front of our television set and
watch the Olympics. My brothers and I would go out and race each
other around, and my mother one time went to the dime store, you
see how old I am, the dime store, and bought ribbons for us.
It is such, a pleasure for me to be with people who care so
much about the values that make our country what it ise and who
know how important it is to support our children. want to
thank Joan for that introduction, but more than that, for the
leadership she has given on behalf on the PTA. She has been a
strong, strong voice. And I know she is going to be succeeded by
a strong, strong successor. So the leadership of the PTA is in
good hands.
And how fortunate we are to be celebrating the 100th
anniversary of this important group. I wasn't able to see the
slides but I heard some of the laughter and I know that Joan did
a quick change from the clothes she was wearing to the clothes
she is wearing now. We are celebrating a centennial commitment
to the children of this country. And there are lots of parallels
between the times when the PTA got started and our times today.
I was thinking as I stood backstage that a hundred years ago, we
were changing from a society that was primarily agricultural and
rural to one that was industrial, where people were leaving the
farms and crossing the oceans to come to our cities. Where we
faced new challenges about how to educate young people of
different backgrounds to be prepared for a new century.
And here we are again, as we move from the industrial age,
from the cold war, from the hot wars of this century, to a time
when the global economy and technology have changed our world so
much, and once again you are ready. You are ready to help us
meet our challenges and protect our values. And for that as a
mother and citizen, I say thank you -- thank you to the PTA and
all of you who are among its leaders.
And during your conference here, I hope you will continue to
celebrate your achievements. Since the turn of the century, the
national PTA has been at the forefront of our country's efforts
to create a better world for all children. Child labor laws,
complusary public education, the national health service, special
education, juvenile justice issues, all that we have addressed as
a nation in the past hundred years -- in these and many issues,
we have seen the strong role that the PTA has played, both at the
national level and in countless communities across our country.
And I know that as we prepare for a new century, and for a
new millennium, all of us can count on your being there again.
On behalf of the President, I want to thank you for helping to
put the well-being of our children first in the recent budget
negotiations. The PTA was one on the first organizations that
realized that threats to programs like school lunches were
threats to the well-being of all our children. Your rallies on
the Hill and your participation in an active education coalition
were key to our efforts to honor America's historic commitment to
education, and to providing all children in this country with the
knowledge and skills they will need to fulfill their own god-
given potential.
And I am so pleased that your priorities and initiatives for
It
the next years will also address these important issues --
protecting children from violence, AIDS education, reaching out
to preschool parents, working with schools of education at
colleges and universities to make it possible for more parents to
be encouraged to participate in their children's education.
Parental involvement is the key to how well our children will do.
Some of you know that I do think it takes a village to raise
a child, but it takes strong parents who are committed to being
their children's first teachers, to make sure those children get
a good start in life, and to make sure the village lives up to
our responsibilities as well. But despite all of the work you
have done and the stands you have taken, we cannot let down our
guard. We must stand very firmly on the side of public education
and we need an even louder chorus of parental voices in the
upcoming fights over the budgets to come. Because, even as
teachers and schools prepare to welcome record numbers of
students, some fifty-two million this September, and we know that
our classrooms will be filled with more children than there were
even in the baby-boom generation. And these children will need
the time and attention of more teachers. They will need text
books, they will need school buildings that are not falling down
around their ears.
And yet there are some in congress who are proposing to
freeze the education budget in the face of this new generation of
students who need the same support that I could expect when I was
2
going to school. This is a time to invest in education, not a
time to retreat from our historic investment.
You know that as our global economy becomes even more
competitive and demanding, that all of us -- children and adults
-- must sharpen and raise our skills -- we cannot walk away from
the higher national educational standards set by Goals 2000. The
national PTA helped turn Goals 2000 into law. And it is working
well in 46 states. I ask you to help us defend these standards
from those who would wish to reverse this progress.
I also want to congratulate American public education; too
many people for too long have only accented the negative, and I
for one am tired of that. America is filled with good news and
positive stories about how people are solving problems. And just
recently we saw a report that American students are second to
only students in Finland when it comes to reading ability. Let's
make sure Americans know that, because we've sure gotten all the
bad news about educational achievement in the past.
So we know we can make progress and our students can live up
to high expectations, but we have to keep working. And I urge
the National PTA to become an active partner in Secretary Riley's
"Read Write Now" effort. He is attempting to link one million
disadvantaged kids with three hundred thousand reading mentors
this summer. It is the one-on-one personal connection that
nobody, nobody can argue against. It is what lights the eyes of
a youngster who all of a sudden recognizes a word, and it is what
warms the heart of the adult who takes the time to work with that
child. Just think of what they could do to turn around the lives
and school success of young people, if three hundred thousand of
us mentor a young boy or girl this summer.
We also know that computer skills are important and the
President is attempting to make sure that every school is hooked
up in America to the Internet. We do need to make sure that
there are technology literacy funds available, but even more so
we have to make sure that our teachers are trained to use those
computers in the classrooms.
So there is much, as you gather here in Washington, you have
every reason to be proud of. I was thinking to myself how in the
last few years the National PTA is again at the forefront of our
debates about education, and about our children. And we know
that parents today need to help. Every one of us has some area
where we rely on someone else. Whether it's the teachers or
schools, the doctors and nurses or hospitals, the police on our
streets, the people we will never meet, who make sure our air and
water are clean and that our food is fit to eat -- we are all
interconnected. But I want to spend a few minutes today talking
about specially the challenges we parents face in today's world.
Particularly because we are living in a media dominated age.
3
It is a topic I feel very strongly about, and I want to expand on
the thoughts I shared with some of you at the National PTA
Legislative Conference earlier this year.
Specifically, I want to talk about television. Like it or
not, and some days I do and some days I don't, TV is a fact of
life. Hundreds of channels with everything from up-to-the-date-
news to 24-hour-a-day weather channels to talk shows, to violent
movies, to what everyone finds as we use our remote control
devices. And for many of our children, those television images
are disturbing, they are what some call "junk food for the eyes."
And we have in every home in America children who are being
influenced by the images and ideas that come into those homes
through our television sets.
Now for those of us who are parents, trying to raise
healthy, well-adjusted, compassionate children, it is easy
sometimes to feel helpless against such a barrage of images and
negative influences. But, in no small part due to the National
PTA's advocacy and leadership on this issue, we are finally on
the road to changing this situation. Let me thank you for
working with the National Cable Television Association in the
Family and Community Critical Viewing Project, which is helping
parents to control the effects of television violence and
commercialism on their children.
The President and the Vice President have long supported
efforts to give parents the tools to make television a positive
influence in their children's lives. And I believe that these
past few months have marked a hopeful turning point for families
and their relationships to those TV sets in their homes.
Earlier this year, the President successfully advocated for
what is called a v-chip in TV sets. It is a device that parents
can use to block out programming that they consider
objectionable. It is totally within the authority of the
parents. In February, at a White House meeting, The President
helped persuade the nation's television broadcasters and
producers to establish a voluntary ratings system that will
inform parents about the content of shows they plan to air.
That means that when the v-chip is operational, in just a few
years, and the ratings system is going, parents will be able to
make judgments by looking at this rating system and then
programming the TV set to decide whether or not a program will be
permitted to be viewed in their homes.
But parents don't just want to tune out bad shows, they also
want to tune in good ones for their children. American families
need more and better programming for children. This is
especially true for elementary school-age children. A study
released by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public
Policy Center showed that while 75 percent of programming aimed
4
at pre-schoolers could be called "high-quality," just 26 percent
of programs targeted toward children ages six to eleven could be
called good. Nearly half of the programming was rated "low
quality."
Now the President, with your help, has been working hard to
establish a minimum requirement for television broadcasters: all
that we are taking is for three hours a week of educational,
child-friendly programming. I don't think that is too much to
ask. And the good news is that it's on the verge of happening.
A majority of the FCC Commissioners will soon, I believe, take
positive action on this issue.
The three-hour requirement is simple, and it is fair. As
Vice President Gore noted a few days ago, "It leaves 98 percent
of broadcasting time for other programs."
Next month, the President, the Vice-President, Tipper Gore,
and I will meet with media executives and children's programmers
to discuss ways to strengthen children's television.
We simply must demand more of the people who are producing -
- and profiting -- from the shows that young people watch. From
my point of view, the very popular "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers"
show, for example, has no place on any lineup described as
"children's programming."
Experts have said that the show is "devoid of any enriching
value." "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" show for the example has
no place in any line-up described as children's programming.
Experts have said that show is devoid of any enriching value.
"Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" is one of the most violent
television programs, on television today. Hundreds of acts of
violence, from kicking to missile launches, are depicted in each
episode. The shows teach children that heroes always resolve any
conflict through violence. They convey to children the sinister
message that the more powerful your weapon, the more powerful you
are. And even though they are zapped, kicked and fired upon
countless times, the Power Rangers never feel any pain or suffer
any injury.
As a result of the show's popularity, young children on
playgrounds across America are imitating these so-called
"superheroes," they kick, they punch, they fight each other, as
well as the imaginary archvillains Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd.
Now you and I know that kind of playground activity has been
a hallmark of playgrounds for generations. Long before
television, and long before specific shows like the "Power
Rangers". But the repetition, the intensity of this message
that children see over and over again on television is different.
5
As Dr. Robert Phillips of the American Psychiatric
Association explained, "Children are like little VCRs, they see
something once and then they repeat it over and over again."
I know this not just from experts and news accounts, but
from children themselves. At a roundtable discussion about the
V-chip and TV violence with children and their parents, some of
whom were PTA members, I met a 10-year old boy who told me that
his playmates "just pretend they are Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
or the X-Men and then they' just go around pretending they're
killing each other or such things and think nothing of it."
Producers and broadcasters of shows like the "Mighty Morphin
Power Rangers" say that they are simply giving children what they
want to watch. In truth, they are appealing to the worst in our
kids at the very times they are most likely to be watching TV.
And, broadcasters are hiding the best children's programming in
the least-watched "throw-away" hours.
We must stop showing violent, harmful programs to our kids
during prime viewing hours. It is time for our media executives
to show some greater responsibility for the children of America.
And as adults and as parents it is time for us to stand up
and be counted. Decency and civility are values that are
critical to the functioning of our society. Otherwise, in the
absence of efforts to reach out to one other to teach each other
good and positive lessons about how we work together and about
how children grow up together, we will find ourselves and our
children so inured to violence and sensationalism that we will
not be able to help themselves.
We have enough evidence now from psychological and
educational studies which shows that children, particularly from
less stable homes, without the kind of structure that many of us
have tries to impose, despite the media in our own houses, these
children are particularly vulnerable to such messages. And they
take those messages to heart. Like those little VCR's and they
play back what they have learned.
As parents we cannot wait to act. We are on the front
lines. We have to take responsibility, we have to start in our
own homes by making clear what is and what is not acceptable
television watching. We have to be willing to work with our
schools as you have done to help families learn how to watch
television critically, and to raise questions so that children
know the difference between fantasy and reality. We have to give
children something else to do besides watch television hour after
hour after hour.
In many neighborhoods we should be working to keep schools
open from three to six so that children are not on their own and
unsupervised. We should be enlisting ourselves once again in
programs, not only to mentor young people but to play with them,
more recreational activities. We should take a stand against the
6
policies making it more difficult for young people to find
extracurricular opportunities.
I was recently in Denver and I young man told me that he had
been a wrestler for his first two years in high school, but next
year because of budget cutbacks his family was being asked to pay
$150 for him to participate in that extracurricular activity.
Many of us saw the Richard Dreyfuss movie, "Mr. Holland's Opus"
and we could chart the decline in the drama, music, and art that
was available that I took for granted in the 1950's and 1960's in
my schools, where children now are not being given those
opportunities. Television is being used to fill a void that
parents, teachers, schools and communities used to fill with
positive, productive activities for young people supervised by
adults.
So while we take a stand against what we see on television,
we should take a stand as you have done on behalf of providing
more opportunities for children to say yes to, to give them
something that is positive for them to learn from and be part of.
There is wonderful opportunity in our country now, because I feel
it as I travel around from place to place. Americans are tired
of just wringing our hands at our problems -- we want to roll up
our sleeves and get about the business of solving them.
And every where I go I find people who are doing just that.
And it doesn't matter if I'm in an inner city school in
Philadelphia, or in a school outside of Duluth, or in Corpus
Christie, or in the San Frenado valley of California, everywhere
I go it is so heartening to me, because every parent I talk with,
every teacher, every young person is saying the same thing --
they are saying to me, as a young boy in Philadelphia, in a very
tough neighborhood, in an inner city school that was attempting
to be a haven against gangs, and graphti, and violence, he looked
at me and he said, "You know Mrs. Clinton, most of us are good
kids, but the only kids who get the attention are the bad kids,
you know they are the only kids who get on television, they are
the only kids who people really worry about sometimes, and most
of us are really doing the best we can."
And I believe that, I know, I've looked into the faces of
thousands and thousands of preschooler, and elementary kids, and
middle schoolers, and high school students, and they are good
kids. And even the ones who are teetering on the brink of gang
pressures and family disruptions, and all of the problems
children should not have to contend with, but do in today's
world, they are desperate to be pulled back. They want some adult
to say to them, 'You are a good young person, don't waste your
life, learn to read, get out and do something positive for
somebody else. Don't feel sorry for yourself, don't let yourself
be turned into a victim."
That is what the PTA has done for a hundred years. Because
you have brought together parents and teachers in a partnership.
You have presented a united front to our children that reminds ne
7
of my late father who used to say "You get in trouble in school,
you get in trouble at home. " And you know, that's the way it
needs to be again.
And that is the crusade you are leading. Our children need
to know that the adults in their lives care about them and we
care about them so much that we not only love them, we discipline
them. And we not only teach them, we guide them. And we're not
only trying to do our best at home we are trying to make sure
they get their best at school. That is what we owe to our
children.
That is what you have done for a hundred years. And I
believe that, just as at the time the PTA was formed, you have
never been more necessary. You have never been more important to
parents, struggling to make sense of a world that is sometimes
very difficult to understand. You have never been more important
to stand up against the forces of commercialism that would use
our children, that would try to sell them products, like tobacco
at an early age, that is not good for them.
You have stood against those kinds of pressures, and what we
now must do, is with the same level of confidence and optimism
that created the PTA, go forth into this next century, just as
committed, just as concerned and just as ready to take on the
challenges of this century, as were those who came before you.
I am very optimistic, I see positive signs everywhere I go
of people taking back whether it's the authority in their own
homes over the television set, or parental involvement in the
schools. And what I hope each of us will do as we meet our
challenges and protect our values, is to make it clear to every
American, that commitment to children, to their education, their
health and to their well-being is not a luxury. It is central to
what of nation and people we will be.
Lady Bird Johnson once said that children are likely to live
up to what you believe of them. I want every child in America to
have at least one adult in their lives who believes that child
has God given potential that will enable that child to be a good
productive citizen, a good worker, a good family-member. And if
we could just commit ourselves to reaching out to all those
children, then I believe our future is in very good hands.
Thank you for what you have done for one hundred years, but
do not grow weary doing this work -- we need the PTA now more
than ever. Thank you all very much.
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TALKING IT OVER
BY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
RELEASE: WEEKEND, FEBRUARY 10-11, 1996
I always admired Christopher Reeve as an actor. I never saw him on Broadway, but
like most people, I loved his movie portrayal of Superman and his role in the fantasy
romance "Somewhere in Time."
My admiration has only grown since his riding accident last May. Christopher Reeve
is no longer playing a part that's heroic. He's living one.
Hooked up to a ventilator and paralyzed from the neck down, he has inspired
millions with his courageous response to a tragic and freak fall from a horse. Who wasn't
moved by his candor and grace in the memorable interview he gave to Barbara Walters just
a few months after his spinal cord was crushed?
Now, along with his painstaking recovery, he faces medical bills totaling $400,000 a
year. With an insurance policy that limits the lifetime benefits he can receive, his coverage is
due to run out after three years.
Still, he never dwells on his own situation. As a celebrity, he knows he can make a
living giving speeches and directing films. He is far more worried about the tens of millions
of Americans who can't get or keep medical coverage because of the misplaced priorities of
our health care system.
Christopher Reeve wants to know why our country is willing to spend billions of
dollars on Medicare and Medicaid payments to cover nursing-home fees for quadriplegics
and those suffering from neurological diseases like Lou Gehrig's, Parkinson's and
Alzheimer's but not spend the lesser amounts it would take to find cures.
I know the health care reform effort I worked on was not successful. But the issues it
raised and the problems it sought to resolve are still with us today.
The United States is the only industrial society in the world where insurance
companies are allowed to deny coverage to people who are sick or have lost a job. And
insurance companies continue to get away with limiting people's lifetime benefits.
As Christopher Reeve said just last week, "These issues are crucial to our welfare."
There are ways to make progress without a massive overhaul of the health care
system.
Right now, a bipartisan bill that deals with some of these issues is stuck in Congress.
Sponsored by Republican Sen. Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas and Democratic Sen.
Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, the bill would make long-overdue changes in the ways
insurance companies treat Americans.
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It would prevent insurers from denying coverage to a person who already has a
medical condition. It would forbid insurance companies from dropping longtime customers
when they become chronically ill.
And it would require insurance companies to sell policies to workers who have been
covered for at least 18 months by their employers so that they remain insured even if they
lose or leave a job.
There is also an amendment to the bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. James
Jeffords of Vermont, that would help the 230,000 Americans in situations similar to
Christopher Reeve's. It would raise the lifetime limit on benefits to a minimum of $10 million.
The Kennedy-Kassebaum bill has support from dozens of Republicans and
Democrats. It is now ready for a vote by the full Senate. Very few legislators have publicly
opposed the bill.
So why hasn't it passed?
Because a handful of senators have used parliamentary maneuvering to stall it for
five months. To make matters worse, we cannot even hold the senators accountable
because the Senate's rules allow then to remain anonymous.
Christopher Reeve is pushing hard for passage of Kennedy-Kassebaum and the
Jeffords amendment. He also is doing his part to educate people about the failures of a
system that spends far more money on expensive treatments than on preventing and curing
costly diseases.
He has writtento the President and House Speaker Newt Gingrich about
congressional threats to cut funds for research into spinal cord injuries and neurological
diseases (and is proud to have lobbied successfully against some of those cuts).
He has worked on animated diagrams for television that explain what happens to the
body when the spinal cord is injured. And he recently announced an effort to establish the
Reeve-Irvine Research Center at the University of California at Irvine that will support the
study of spinal cord injuries and diseases. Philanthropist Joan Irvine Smith has agreed to
put up $1 million for the project to be matched with money from other sources.
"There is a humanitarian and economic rationale" for medical research and fair
insurance policies. he says. "It's good for the country in every conceivable way."
If you agree with Christopher Reeve, take the time to call your senators and ask them
to help us take a first step to bringing better health and peace of mind to millions of
Americans. Tell them to pass the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill.
COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
REMARKS FOR THE PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE ON THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES
"COMING UP TALLER" REPORT ON AT-RISK YOUTH
THE WHITE HOUSE
APRIL 26, 1996
Thank you all. Thank you very much. Thank you and welcome
to the White House. And I want to start by thanking the Chicago
Children's Choir because we were, Richard and the rest of us, in
the Blue Room getting ready for the program. I'm going to ask
them to sing again in the middle and the end of the program
because I really appreciate their being here.
I want to thank so many people, but let me start with
Sheldon Hackney, and Jane Alexander and Diane Frankel who
through thick and through thin, have remained tireless in their
efforts to promote our nation's rich cultural and artistic
legacy. And the good news is that a day after there was an
agreement on the 1996 budget, we still can say that the United
States supports the arts, and the humanities and our museums.
And we're just so grateful for the constancy of effort that many
of you brought to this struggle in encouraging members of
Congress and others to understand that our country needed to have
the kind of commitment represented by these agencies. So, I want
to thank all of you for making that possible.
On behalf of the President, let me also convey our very deep
appreciation to the members of the President's Committee on the
Arts and the Humanities. Under the leadership of John Brademas,
you have devoted considerable time and attention over the past
year to helping children discover their creative potential
through art, words, and ideas. And I would like to ask all the
members of the President's Committee on the Arts and the
Humanities, starting with Mr. Brademas, to please stand so that
we can recognize and thank all of you for your work.
I would also like to take this opportunity to commend the
countless artists, teachers, museum professionals and community
leaders across our country who are offering our children positive
alternatives, often amidst violence, and destruction, and
despair. These men and women, many of whom are in this room
representing thousands and thousands of others across our
country, believe in the promise of every child, and in the power
of the arts and humanities to transform children's lives. Your
dedication and expertise have given and will continue to give
thousands and thousands of children new hope and confidence in
their own future. And I am very grateful that those of you who
1
could be here were able to join us today.
You know, every day, through the media, particularly
television, we hear so many negative stories about America's
children. We hear about children floundering in a sea of
confusion, frustration, anger, and violence. We hear about
children growing up in environments that are so impoverished --
economically and spiritually -- that they cannot resist the lure
of drugs, gangs, and other forms of destructive behavior.
But there are so many more positive stories to tell. There
are so many young people and children, who despite the odds, are
going forward with optimism and confidence in their own lives.
I was in a school in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and a
young boy in seventh grade said, "You know, Mrs. Clinton, all we
hear about are the bad kids; nobody really pays attention to us,
and we're trying real hard to do the best we can." He said, "It
must be like when an airplane crashes; everybody pays attention,
and people forget about the thousands that land safely everyday."
And I told him that I would do my part, as each of you is doing,
to make sure that the positive stories get told. That we know
that in every corner of America there are examples of children --
- who might otherwise have been written off --- discovering joy,
and fulfillment, and discipline and confidence. And often the
way they are doing that is through artistic and intellectual
expression.
The study that the President's Committee is releasing today,
called "Coming Up Taller," offers compelling evidence that the
arts and humanities provide young people with creative,
productive, and safe outlets for their energy.
My husband often says, "Children need something to say yes
to." And what better to say yes to than music, dance, painting,
poetry, writing, drama, history, photography and other forms of
creative expression.
The Committee's study -- which was funded entirely by
private sources -- cites numerous instances of children whose
school work, social habits, and outlooks on life have improved
with exposure to arts and humanities programs.
I couldn't possibly relate every story. I hope you will
read the report with the care it deserves. But for example, let
me just mention a few:
-- One teenager, at risk of dropping out of high school,
became involved with an artists-in-training program sponsored by
the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Now she has a full scholarship to
college and is in her second year studying voice.
2
-- A sixth-grader growing up in a low-income area of
Philadelphia joined The People's Light and Theater Company, which
works with students after school on a year-round basis. The
students wrote, improvised and performed plays, including works
of Shakespeare. Today, the girl is one of the top students in the
12th grade and is hoping to become a lawyer. I'll have to talk to
her about that decision. Her 19 classmates in the program will
all graduate from high school this spring.
-- A four-year-old boy came to pre-school every day but
never talked. One day, as part of an early childhood arts
program, the boy drew a picture in class, and began to tell his
classmates the story behind his picture. Since then, his
development has flourished through arts projects.
Each of these cases illustrates the benefits that come when
children are engaged in activities that teach new skills, build
strong interpersonal relationships, emphasize excellence, and
provide a stable, safe environment that enhances learning and
growth.
The President is extremely proud that his Administration --
through the National Endowment for the Arts, and its partnerships
with the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and
Human Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development
and the Corporation for National Service -- as well as the
ongoing work of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the
Institute of Museum Services, has consistently supported creative
alternatives for young people.
Clearly our nation today faces great challenges and
difficult choices when it comes to how we allocate federal
resources. But I hope that, as we establish priorities for a new
millennium, Americans will appreciate that the very small amount
of public support given to the arts and humanities is a down
payment on our future. It is not only an investment in our young
people -- it is an investment in the values we claim to honor and
the cultural traditions in which our democracy has flourished for
more than 200 years.
If we care about civility, character, and our democratic
freedoms, then we ought to support the federal agencies and
institutions whose mission it is to make American culture
available to all children, not just those whose parents can
introduce them, but every child in whom that spark can be lit if
they are given the chance.
Now this is National Poetry Month, and there is probably no
better way to express what we all feel and what brings us
together here than to quote some of the eloquent words from Rita
Dove, our National Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995. As Ms. Dove
reminds us:
3
"If children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will
know how they feel. If they can't imagine a different world, they
are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by
its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in
America's alienated and disparate neighborhoods, there can be no
greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart -- and
then to discover that one is not alone in one's feelings. Once
hope and self-esteem have been engendered, the work of redefining
the future can begin."
Well that is what we are about the business of doing,
engendering hope and self-esteem and trying to redefine a better,
more optimistic and confident future. Indeed, when we hear the
extraordinary voices of the Chicago Children's Choir, or the
words of the two young people who will talk to us today -- or
when we learn from Bill Strickland about his experiences as a
student and teacher in children's art programs -- we know that
our rich cultural traditions are alive and well and safely
guarded for the future.
Thank all of you for your resilience in the face of some
opposition and misunderstanding, for continuing to believe in
America's children, and for understanding the roles that our arts
and culture play in our individual and collective lives.
We are so honored today to have one of our finest actors and
citizens with us. Certainly those of us who have followed his
career have appreciated so much of what he has brought to the
screen, the way he has moved us, the way he has provoked us, but
recently he has, through a particular movie, reminded us of how
important the work teaching of young people is when it comes to
the arts. I was asked recently what my favorite movie of the
year was, and I said " Mr. Holland's Opus." Not only because it
started in the 1960's, when I was in high school, so I sat there
looking at those white socks and tennis shoes the girls were
wearing, seeing the scenes in the hallways, living through all
that I can recall, but also remembering what it was like when I
was in high school and even the smallest school, in the poorest
state - like my husband's school in Hot Springs, Arkansas - had a
band, had an orchestra, had art classes, had drama classes, put
on plays. And now I look around, and just as we saw in the
movie, those are considered frills. They're being cut out. No
one wants to go to the trouble or spend the relatively meager
resources needed to give children a chance to flower in ways that
will give them the positive direction that some many of them
need. I'm really grateful for that movie, but I'm even more
grateful for the support and the career of Mr. Richard Dreyfuss.
Please join me in welcoming him here today. Thank you.
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TALKING IT OVER
BY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
When you think of the arts in America, what first pops into your mind? If you're like
most of us, you probably have an image of adults -- wealthy adults -- who have the time
and money to go to the opera, attend a play or concert, or spend hours browsing through
a museum.
In fact, the greatest beneficiaries of public funding for the arts are America's
children. Through federal support of local arts agencies and community groups,
hundreds of thousands of children each year are able to discover the joy, discipline and
self-confidence that comes from their own artistic and creative expression.
That's why current arguments about limiting public funding for the arts are so
misguided - and short-sighted. Learning to paint, dance, write poetry, act, sing or play an
instrument gives children reasons to believe in themselves and their own futures.
For many children from impoverished backgrounds, exposure to the arts can
literally mean the difference between a life of accomplishment and one of hopelessness
and failure. This idea is not my own; a recent report issued by the President's Committee
for the Arts and Humanities, "Coming Up Taller," identified cultural programs that provide
young people with safe and productive alternatives to crime, violence, gangs, drugs and
other disturbing elements of popular culture.
One of those is the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in Pittsburgh. It is a testament to
the power of the arts to transform children's lives. The organization, which is supported
by both the National Endowment for the Arts and donations from corporate and private
foundations, trains inner-city schoolchildren in ceramic art and photography and opens
their ears to world-class music.
But its students learn much more than how to shape clay, take pictures and
appreciate jazz. They leave the guild knowing that they have the potential and tools to
become successful and productive citizens. Eighty percent of the guild's students go on
to college.
I met Bill Strickland, the founder of the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, last month
at a White House ceremony to celebrate arts programs that serve "at-risk" youth. Bill was
himself headed in a downward spiral, he says, until an inner-city art teacher introduced
him to "ceramics, jazz, and beautiful objects" and taught him that "having ideas had
value."
"I learned that I could achieve recognition from my peers through creative activity,"
he says.
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Determined to give other children the same opportunities he enjoyed, he founded
the guild. "The antidote for these 'at-risk' children, we have discovered, is to surround
them with good architecture, good food, good artists and good teachers who are allowed
to function in well-equipped environments and who will not accept anything less than the
best that the human imagination can provide," he says.
Hundreds of young people have passed through the guild's doors during the past
nine years. In that time, the guild has never had a police call, a fight, or a drug or alcohol-
related incident. Although it's located in one of Pittsburgh's most depressed
neighborhoods, there are no bars on the windows, security cameras in the building or
guards at the door.
"Given the current enthusiasm for building prisons to lock people up," Bill said, "I
would challenge them to build centers like this one to set children free."
While those who oppose public funding for programs like the Manchester
Craftsmen's Guild have not succeeded in abolishing the National Endowment for the Arts
and other federal cultural programs, their crusade will continue. And that means that all of
us who care about the arts -- and what the arts can do for children -- have to work as hard
as we can to protect a 30-year bipartisan commitment to making the arts more accessible
to more Americans.
That historical commitment represents a belief that the arts have the power not
only to improve our aesthetic surroundings but to improve our society as well. Learning
about culture, after all, is fundamental to understanding our own heritage and the diverse
world in which we live.
I find it particularly ironic that those who bemoan America's loss of values
(particularly those arising from Western civilization) are often the first to recommend
cutting public funds for the arts. Without federal support for arts programs, countless
children would never be exposed to Sophocles, Shakespeare or Mozart -- or the painting
of Georgia O'Keeffe, the music of Wynton Marsalis and the dance of Arthur Mitchell.
Today, funding for the NEA costs every American 32 cents a year, less than the
price of a candy bar. For those who wonder whether it is money well spent, ask yourself
this question: Would you rather see a child pick up a paintbrush or a pistol? Would you
rather see a child pick up a guitar or a gun?
COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
May 21, 1996
05/15/96 WED 08:55 FAX
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TALKING IT OVER
BY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The woman visited her new daughter in the hospital every day, reaching into
the Incubator to stroke her foot. The receiving blanket seemed heavier than the baby,
who was being fed by a tube in her stomach.
The woman is not the baby's birth mother, but she is her mother In every way
that matters.
She and her husband already had a 3-year-old adopted son when they heard
about a premature 1-pound baby girl whose birth parents could not take care of her.
The couple decided to adopt the tiny baby. Her start was rocky, but now the child is a
healthy 3-year-old.
"She was just like a little flower that blossomed," the mother says. "She is a
burst of energy."
Now, the couple, who are African-American, are in the process of adopting a
12-year-old girl who was abused. They also are encouraging more African-American
families to open their homes to children in need.
Last summer, I wrote about this important issue. I'm writing about it again
because so many children's lives would be better if they could only find a home.
Today, 21,000 children are ready and waiting for families to nurture and care for them.
Tens of thousands of others will be eligible for adoption in the coming months and
years.
Not all these children are healthy, white babies. Many are physically and
developmentally disabled. Many are minorities. Many suffer from emotional traumas
wrought by abuse, neglect and unstable living arrangements. And many are teen-
agers who already have been shuffled from home to home.
Fortunately, some steps have been taken in recent years to make adoption
easier. The Family and Medical Leave Act, which became law three years ago,
ensures that parents can take time off when they adopt a child without fear of losing
their jobs. The Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 prohibits adoption agencies from
denying the placement of a child solely on the basis of the adoptive parents' race,
color or national origin. Over the past three years, adoption subsidies have helped an
increasing number of families cope with the costs of adopting and raising children with
special needs.
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The President is supporting legislation in Congress that will give tax credits to
families that adopt. The House, for example, just approved a bill that would give
adoptive families a $5,000 tax credit. The Senate, meanwhile, is considering a $7,500
credit for families who adopt children with special needs. This may not be enough to
cover medical and emotional health care costs for special-needs kids, or even
education, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not only is adoption good for children, it saves taxpayers a lot of money. As one
woman said at a recent adoption discussion at the White House her family has saved
the state and the federal government in excess of $1 million by adopting several
special-needs children.
In addition to government, the private sector also has a role to play. Wendy's,
the hamburger chain founded by adoption advocate Dave Thomas (who himself was
adopted), gives workers paid leave and financial assistance with adoption costs.
Margaret Fitzgerald, who participated in our gathering, said her employer,
AT&T, gave her six weeks of unpaid leave when she and her husband adopted a son
four years ago. The company also reimbursed her legal fees.
But the most important thing of all is for more people to reach out and give every
child, regardless of age, disability, race or ethnic origin, the chance to be part of a
loving family.
Just ask Julie Stinger, a teacher with five adopted children -- four biracial and
one white -- several of whom had health problems. She told us how, as a white
woman, she had to fight to adopt her first two black children, even though the birth
parents agreed to the adoption and she had cared for them as a foster parent for 18
months. "I fought tooth and nail," she said.
Later, she had similar trouble when she wanted to adopt her fifth child, who is
white. Authorities were concerned about placing a white boy with four non-white
brothers and sisters.
"Even though we went through some traumas in the adoptions, I would do it
again, I would do it 10 times over," she said. "Adopting a child is the most gratifying
thing that ever happened to me."
After Julie recounted her story, I asked her oldest son, Joey, if he had anything
to add. He nodded.
"I just want to thank my mother," he said.
COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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TALKING IT OVER
BY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
RELEASE: WEEKEND, OCTOBER 21-22, 1995
Every Thursday, a woman named Miriam volunteers in my staff office at the White
House. She is a retired schoolteacher, mother of two, proud grandmother and caring
colleague who seldom arrives at work without cakes, cookies, pies or donuts for the staff.
I wish her story ended here. But it doesn't. Like more than 2 million other women in
America, Miriam has breast cancer.
She found a lump in her breast five years ago. Since then, she has undergone two
surgeries, 33 days of radiation treatments and five separate chemotheraples, Including
the debilitating sessions she now has every week.
Miriam is not the only woman I know who is battling this disease. In fact, it is hard
to find a family in our country -- or a workplace, neighborhood, church group or social
club - that has not been touched by breast cancer.
My mother-in-law, Virginia Kelley, died last year after a four-year struggle with the
disease. The mother of one of my best friends was diagnosed a few months ago. Another
friend just told me that his sister -- only 41 years old -- has a massive lump as well.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and if you want a chilling statistic,
here it is: One in eight women in our country will develop breast cancer during her
lifetime, compared to one in 20 a generation ago. And 46,000 American women will die
of breast cancer this year.
Those numbers shouldn't be so high. When detected early and treated
aggressively, breast cancer does not have to be an automatic death sentence. Every
week, I meet women who are longtime breast cancer survivors living full and healthy
lives. The key to early detection is a regular mammogram, particularly for women over 65,
who account for half of all breast cancer cases.
Younger women should discuss with their doctors whether they should get regular
mammograms. When I turned 40, for example, I began having one every year.
In traveling around the country to talk with women about breast cancer, I was
startled to learn that only 40 percent of older women, whose mammograms are now
covered by Medicare, actually take advantage of this potentially lifesaving benefit.
Why do so many women fail to get mammograms?
Unfortunately, many are reluctant to get screened because they have been told
that the procedure is painful or embarrassing. Others don't realize that the benefit is
covered under Medicare. Some women lack insurance coverage or the funds to pay for
the test. Still others have never been told by their doctors that a mammogram is one of
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the most effective ways of detecting malignant breast lumps. Some women have even
told me they didn't want to find out if they were sick because they believed there was little
they could do about it.
Finally, many women are so busy taking care of their families that they forget to
take care of their own health.
I know that a mammogram is not the most comfortable experience. And when you
are responsible for kids, a spouse, a job and all the other pressures of daily life, taking
the time to get one may seem like too much of a hassle.
But getting a mammogram is a lot more comfortable and a lot more convenient
than the pain that comes with cancer and its treatments.
That's why it's important that Medicare continue to cover older women for
mammograms every two years and at any other time a doctor believes it is necessary.
And it would be a big step forward If communities and local health facilities also offered
screenings once a year for women who don't have health insurance or would otherwise
be unable to afford a mammogram.
When appropriate, doctors, regardless of their specialty, should encourage
women patients to have regular mammograms. Any woman who fears breast cancer
should remember that if she does have the disease, she should find out as quickly as
possible so that she can begin treatment and get on with living her life.
That's what Miriam does. My staff and I often talk about how much we admire her
courage and her selflessness. She tells us that she gets through her treatments by
setting personal goals: getting her kitchen remodeled or living to see the birth of her new
granddaughter, who was born last month. Now she is looking ahead to her 60th birthday
in March.
She says she is no longer afraid of the disease and has no plans to stop her
volunteer work. "I will come in until I just can't do it anymore," she said a few days ago.
"The chemo hasn't knocked me down yet."
What impresses me most about Miriam is not just her grace or sense of humor but
her willingness to talk about breast cancer so that others can learn from her experience.
"Get a mammogram," she frequently reminds us. "It's much less frightening than
not having the chance to see your children grow up or your grandchildren graduate from
high school. You owe it to yourself and your family."
We should all listen to the words of one so wise.
COPYRIGHT 1995 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
08/07/95 NON 17:19 FAI
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TALKING IT OVER
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
RELEASE: WEEKEND, AUGUST 12-13, 1995
Have you seen what's on daytime television lately? During a recent workout,
I started channel surfing, and the first show I saw was about wild
teen-agers and their mothers. Another network featured women who use men for
money. And on a third were people who believe their thoughts are controlled by
aliens.
1 cringed.
Then, I found refuge in Big Bird.
For many parents across our country, there is great comfort in knowing that
however prurient. violent or sensational daytime programming has become, there is
still an oasis for children called public television.
The truth is, my daughter is a Se
Street kid. When she was younger, we
would tune in together and read the books Rt went along with the shows. Over the
years, my husband and I could see that Big Bird, Emie, Bert and Cookie Monster
had helped her learn to spell, count and, perhaps just as important, appreciate the
cultural richness of our country.
But my daughter's experience is not the only reason I am disturbed by recent
attacks on public television. There Is no escaping that television Is a pervasive
influence in the lives of all of our children - one that can have a significant impact,
positive or negative, on their social and intellectual development.
A friend told me recently about the time her daughter came home from the
first day of school and was so excited that she couldn't stop talking about it. After
telling her parents about everything that had happened, she went to the television
set and told Mr. Rogers too. Can you imagine that child having the same
conversation with the Power Rangers?
The little gift's story gives us a window on the latest research. Studies show
that children who watch programs like "Sesame Street," "Barney" and "Mister
Rogers Neighborhood" are better prepared to learn by the time they begin
kindergarten than children who watch only commercial television. Early on, reading
becomes a part of their lives. So do numbers, ideas and a rich imagination.
In fact, just at that wonderful stage when young children seem to absorb
every new word and concept they come across, educational television provides a
unique learning tool. Even watching as little as 25 minutes a day can help.
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Researchers have found that low-income children between the ages of 2 and 5 who
watch a small amount of educational programming do significantly better on tests of
reading potential, vocabulary. mathematical reasoning and overall readiness for
school.
By contrast, kids who spend the same amount of time watching non-
educational cartocns and adult programs are not as well prepared for learning in
school.
Recently, Sonia Manzano, known to millions of children as "Maria" on
"Sesame Street," came to the White House to talk about educational television. She
described what it was like to grow up in the Bronx as a Hispanic child who never
saw anyone who looked or talked like her on television.
*I know that if a child spends his life not seeing himself reflected in society,
which mostly means on television, it will wear him dn in she said.
Children's programs like "Sesame Street," she said, offer a feeling of
belonging and positive role models to all children in our society.
They are particularly beneficial to low-income children whose families often
lack other opportunities for intellectual stimulation.
The public broadcasting channel is the only source available for educational
children's programming for about one-third of American families that cannot afford
or do not have access to cable television. And 1 bet most Americans would be
surprised to know that the majority of public television viewers come from families
with annual incomes of less than $40,000. It is the children in these families who
gain the most from public broadcasting.
I do not mean to suggest that public television is a panacea. Clearly, we
parents must take responsibility for turning off the television more often and
monitoring the shows our children do watch. And we can do more as a society to
help our families meet that challenge. A rating system and the proposed v-chip to
block out violent programs from individual homes could make a difference.
But let's not kid ourselves. In a cuiture like ours, which is so dominated by
television, children's programming is not a luxury enjoyed by a privileged few. It is a
necessity for tens of millions of American families.
COPYRIGHT 1995 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TALKING IT OVER
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
RELEASE: WEEKEND, JULY 29-30, 1995
The first time I met Mother Teresa was not In an urban slum or a remote village in
India but in the fancy ballroom of a Washington hotel. It was February 1994, and she had
just delivered a speech against abortion at the National Prayer Breakfast. When she
finished her remarks, she pulled me aside for a chat.
She told me about her homes for orphaned children In New Delhi and Calcutta and
asked for my help In setting up a similar home for abandoned and neglected babies in
Washington, D.C. I agreed to work on the project. Although we differ on some issues, we
found common ground on adoption. So we sat and talked about how to find homes for the
hundreds of thousands of American children who need loving families.
A year later, my daughter and I visited Mother Teresa's home for children in New
Delhi. There were too many cribs and too few tollets, and there was too little space. There
was no way the place could ever pass Inspection In any American city. But there were also
dozens of beautiful bables, mostly girls, being fed, clothed, sheltered and loved until they
could be adopted.
These Images stayed with me when I returned home. I was even more determined to
help Mother Teresa bring to Washington the compassion I had witnessed in India. But you
cannot imagine how much red tape was getting in my way. Ironically, many regulations
designed to protect children often overlook what kids need most: love and attention.
Finally, on a sweltering day this past June, the Mother Teresa Home for Children
opened In an affluent residential neighborhood of the nation's capital. It is a two-story
Tudor house with a swimming pool In the backyard, donated by a remarkably generous
person who chose to remain anonymous. At the dedication ceremony, Mother Teresa -
happy, enthusiastic and all business - took me on a tour. Grabbing my hand and leading
me up the stairs, she walked me through brightly painted rooms filled with cribs, bassinets
and stuffed animals.
Although it will accommodate only eight children at a time, this home is a crucial step
in awakening Americans to the crisis of adoption.
We should worry less about how many cribs can be placed in a room and more
about how many children can be placed with loving families. And instead of yelling at each
other about abortion, we should spend our energy making adoptions easier. If that were to
happen, there would be far fewer abortions and far more children in happy homes.
Today, there are about 450,000 children In the United States who need permanent
families. There are tens of thousands of parents seeking to adopt.
2
Yet every day, complex regulations, outdated assumptions and wrong-headed laws
stand In the way of bringing these parents and children together.
For some Americans, like a woman who wrote to me recently, cost is the biggest
barrier. She and her husband, both musicians, spent thousands of dollars adopting a little
boy six years ago. He Is, she said, "the joy of our life." When her cousin's daughter recently
became pregnant at age 18 and could not afford to keep the child, this same couple
volunteered to adopt again.
As simple as this case should have been -- the parents and baby were members of
the same extended family and all parties agreed to the adoption - it still cost upward of
$4,000 because of legal fees and paperwork.
For others, there is a fear factor. Like many Americans, a 40-year-old newscaster I
met recently in New Mexico was interested In adopting but was discouraged by highly
publicized cases like Baby Richard's. However rare they are, cases in which birth parents
abers
seek to reclaim custody of adopted children undermine people's faith in the adoption
system.
Decisions to give up children for adoption should be difficult to overtum, especially
in the cases of children who become attached to their adoptive families during their
formative years, like Baby Richard. The decision to return the child to the biological parents
or to uphold the adoption should be made as quickly as possible. No child should be left in
limbo.
The whole process also is made more difficult because of a historical bias against
Interracial adoptions, which can mean endless waiting until children are matched with
parents of the same race.
In a perfect world, most of us would choose parents who shared our cultural and
racial identities. But our world is not perfect. Today, there are far more minority children
needing homes than are being placed for adoption. To prevent these children from
languishing in foster care, new guidelines are now in place that will prohibit federally
funded agencies from using race as a factor in placing children.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we did something dramatic about adoption? Why not set a
goal of placing 100,000 children each year for the next five years? To do this, we would
have to make adoption easier and enlist volunteer lawyers and judges to speed up the
legal process. And we should also follow Mother Teresa's model, In which considerations
like money, regulations and skin color do not outweigh the more important gift of love that
adoptive parents want to offer.
COPYRIGHT 1995 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED