Bill Clinton: “Yes, there are. Let me just explain a little bit about how our crime bill works. This crime bill would do far more than…”

“Yes, there are. Let me just explain a little bit about how our crime bill works. This crime bill would do far more than Congress has often done in the past. It's not just a posturing bill, where we say we're getting tougher on crime but we don't give the cities and the rural areas the means to deal with it. We actually would put another 100,000 police officers on the street in our cities over the next 5 years in community policing, that is, where people could walk the streets, know their neighbors, know the kids, work with people, and prevent crime as well as catch criminals. We provide the communities funds to help to promote more community activities for young people, to help to provide for afterschool activities, for jobs, for recreational activities, for drug treatment, for the kinds of things that will prevent crime, as well as for boot camps and other alternatives to prison for first-time offenders who are nonviolent. And as I said, we do increase penalties for the relatively small number of people who commit a large number of the violent crimes. And we eliminate several--28, to be exact--kinds of assault weapons which have no hunting or sporting purpose, which are just used to make sure that gang members are often better armed than police officers. So that's what this crime bill does. And it's all paid for not with a tax increase but with a trust fund which will be funded by reducing the Federal employment rolls by 252,000 over 5 years, not by firing anybody but by attrition. If this budget passes, this year's budget, combined with what we did last year, 5 years from my first year in office the Federal Government of the United States will be as small as it was when John Kennedy was President. It will be the smallest it has been in 30 years, which is a huge change. And all the money will be put right back into local communities and into law enforcement. So that's what we're going to do. It will make a difference, sir. Health Care Reform [Ms. Hindrew introduced a participant who questioned the proposed health care program in light of Government inefficiency in the operation of programs such as Medicare and VA hospitals.]”