Bill Clinton: “The answer, I think, is twofold: First, a lot of those aerospace workers who lost their jobs, lost their jobs because of…”

“The answer, I think, is twofold: First, a lot of those aerospace workers who lost their jobs, lost their jobs because of cutbacks in defense which had to come at the end of the cold war. That is, we couldn't keep spending so much more than all of our competitors in these high-wage countries on defense without paying an economic price for it. But we shouldn't have cut defense as much as we did in terms of high-tech, high-wage employment without a plan to reinvest in other industries, in other technologies, to put those people to work. So the first thing we have to do is to invest more in converting these high- wage jobs to other technologies. The second thing we need to do, frankly, is to take a serious look at the aerospace industry itself. The Congress passed a bill last year that was never enacted that we're now trying to get up and going, where I will appoint someone and they will appoint some people to a commission to focus on how to rebuild the aviation industry in our country in two ways: Number one, people who work for Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and other subsidiary companies--how can we get more jobs in making these planes and selling them at home and around the world. And number two, how can we do something about the commercial airlines themselves to avoid further bankruptcies and massive layoffs like--we've got a Florida station here with us tonight. Miami has been devastated by layoffs at Eastern and Pan Am. So we are going to work on that. And I assure you that I'm going to have a strategy to try to invest in commercial aviation. And we're also going to either have to--either the Europeans are going to have to quit subsidizing airbus and trying to deny us access to those contracts, which is something else that's going on now, or we're going to have to meet the competition. I am not going to roll over and play dead. Seven, seven technologies are going to shape the high-wage jobs of the future. And one of the biggest is commercial aviation. The United States has a lead there. We are losing it because we have not fought to maintain it. And I assure you, as soon as I get this budget and this investment plan, this jobs program sent up to the Congress, we're going to start working on defense conversion and aerospace. Mr. Bonds. We're going to switch now to Ann Bishop, WPLG, Miami. Florida Disaster Assistance and Military Base Closings Ms. Bishop. Thank you very much, Bill. And of course, we've not only had the devastation of the air industry but also Hurricane Andrew. And I want you to meet now the Reverend Walter Richardson, who certainly lives in the area that was hardest hit.”