Bill Clinton: “Airline Industry May 24, 1993 Thank you very much. First of all, I want to just thank all of you for your willingness to…”

“Airline Industry May 24, 1993 Thank you very much. First of all, I want to just thank all of you for your willingness to serve. I think I should say, because of the coverage that this initial meeting is getting, that the American people should know that this is not an ordinary commission; there's only a 90- day time window. It will require an enormous sacrifice of your personal time and effort to do all the massive work that needs to be done, and I very much appreciate your willingness to do it. I'd also like to say a special word of appreciation to the Congress because of the bipartisan nature of the support that this Commission had. We all made efforts to appoint people without regard to party and instead based upon their knowledge of this issue and their commitment to doing something about it. And I think there is a real consensus in America that the people who make airplanes and equipment and the people who run our airlines are critical to our economic future. It's a big part of our trade surplus. There are millions of people whose jobs depend upon it. In his most recent book, ``Head to Head,'' the economist Lester Thurow argues that there are seven major areas of technology which will produce the lion's share of the high-wage, high-growth jobs of the 21st century, at least as far as we can see into that century, that aerospace is one of those areas, and that a nation with a stake in any of these technologies gives it up only at its peril.…”