    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [June 30, 1997]
    [Pages 846-848]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the New England Presidential Luncheon in Boston,
    Massachusetts
    June 30, 1997

        Thank you. This is a pretty rowdy group today. [Laughter] And if you
    weren't rowdy before Senator Kennedy talked, you must be now. [Laughter]
        Let me say to the mayor, to Senator Kerry, Senator Kennedy, to all
    the Members of the Congress that I have been with today, the State
    officials, Steve Grossman, Alan Solomont, Governor Mike Dukakis and
    Kitty, who are here, and all of you--Joan Menard--I've probably
    forgotten somebody behind me; I'm testing my memory, which is
    deteriorating rapidly here. [Laughter] I'm delighted to be back in
    Boston, and I'm glad to have the chance to say again, thank you for
    being the number one State in America in the support for Bill Clinton
    and Al Gore in 1996. I'm very grateful to you all. Thank you.
        Thank you for being here for us in 1995, when everyone said that the
    days of our administration were numbered, the Democratic Party was on
    the downhill. You know all that stuff they said. You were right, and
    they were wrong, and I thank you for that.
        But most importantly, I thank you because you have helped us to
    prove that it's good for America to give opportunity to everybody who's
    responsible enough to work for it. You've helped us to prove that it's
    good for America to think about the future. You've helped us to prove
    that it's good for America to give everybody a chance, without regard to
    race or gender or any other thing that divides us, if we are united by
    our shared values and our willingness to be good citizens. You've helped
    us to prove that we can lead the world and be strong at home. And I
    think that all of you should be very proud of that.
        We are trying to prepare this country for a new century in which the
    young people in this audience will be able to do things with their lives
    that most of the rest of us could not even imagine. And I believe we are
    well on our way to doing it. You all know how we're doing today compared
    to 5 years ago. What I want us to think about is how we can be doing 5,
    10, 15, 20 years from now.
        I'm proud of the fact that we have the lowest unemployment rate in
    24 years and the lowest inflation rate in 30 years and the biggest
    decline in inequality among working people since the 1960's. I'm proud
    of all that. The biggest drop in welfare rolls in history, the biggest
    drop in the crime rate in 36 years, I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the
    fact that we have taken dramatic strides to protect our environment with
    safe drinking water and new clean air standards and new food standards
    and record numbers of toxic waste dumps cleaned up and record land set
    aside in preservation forever. Only the two Roosevelt administrations
    have set aside as much land to preserve for our country's future.
        But there is a lot to do. And you have to be a part of that. Because
    we're going through a transition in which we're changing so fast we can
    never be satisfied with where we are, we have to keep worrying about
    where we're going. And let me just mention one or two things, if I
    might.
        First of all, we're debating this balanced budget plan. If we pass a
    balanced budget that's faithful to the agreement I made, it will have
    the biggest increase in health care for children since Medicaid was
    enacted in 1965--the biggest. Thank you, Senator Kennedy, for leading
    that. It will have the biggest increase in Federal support for education
    since 1965. It will have the biggest increase in Federal support, to
    help everybody in this country who is willing to work go on to college,
    since the GI bill was passed over 50 years ago.
        It is a good budget for the American people, but it is important
    that we be faithful to it. If we are faithful to the agreement, it will
    help cities like Boston to take sites that have been polluted and are
    therefore useless now and clean them up and use them to provide for
    development and new jobs and new opportunities, to make sure this
    economic recovery reaches people who haven't felt it yet. If we are
    faithful to it, we can do all these things.
        The other thing that I am determined to do, that I spoke a little
    about in Washington before I left today, is to get a tax bill out of
    this committee--out of the Congress that helps all the American people.
    We can pay for this tax cut.

    [[Page 847]]

        First of all, let me say this: I would not support any tax cut that
    will bring back the bad old days of exploding deficits. I would not do
    that. This tax bill, in the first 5 years, is about one-tenth of the
    cost of the tax bill that was adopted in 1981, when the Reagan
    administration came in and asked us to adopt trickle-down economics. So
    we're not talking about a huge bill here. What we are talking about is a
    bill that is basically the dividend the American people have earned for
    bringing this economy back. And I believe it's important to pass a bill
    that will give everyone a fair chance to participate in it and that will
    be faithful to the budget agreement, which means among other things that
    we have to provide substantial resources to help middle class people to
    raise their children and educate them and then keep on getting an
    education for a lifetime. We have got to make at least 2 years of
    college as universal in the 21st century as a high school diploma is
    today.
        Why did Boston come back? Why is Massachusetts coming back? Just
    drive around this town and look at the concentration of world-class
    universities. Every person in this country who gets out of high school
    and has at least 2 years of fine education afterward has a fair chance
    to get a decent job with a growing income. Everybody who doesn't is
    likely to get a job with declining incomes.
        We must not use this tax bill to help people who don't need it too
    much without giving the middle class the tools they need to make higher
    education universal in America in the 21st century. We can do it, and we
    have to do it.
        There are a lot of other things going on there now. We're reviewing
    this tobacco settlement, and again, a lot of people who have fought for
    the public health for years and years and years deserve a lot of credit
    for this. I have no final opinion on it yet, but I will say this: We
    cannot agree to anything which undermines the capacity of the Federal
    Government to protect the public health and the health of our children.
    If this settlement furthers it, we should be for it. If it doesn't, we
    should not. That ought to be the test.
        In the area of crime, let me say the crime rate's going down; that's
    the good news. The bad news is it's still going up among people under 18
    in many places, but not in Boston. And the mayor heard me in San
    Francisco last week saying to the mayors, I am trying to pass a crime
    bill for juveniles in this country that will give other cities the tools
    that Boston has used to take us now almost 2 full years without a child
    under 18 being killed by a handgun. If we can do it here, it ought to be
    done everywhere in America, and we can do it.
        And finally, let me say we've had a remarkable amount of success
    moving people from welfare to work. But we have to create about another
    million jobs in the next 4 years. I've done everything I could to
    mobilize the private sector, but we can do more. Many of you have helped
    in this regard, and for that I am grateful. In this budget agreement
    there are specific provisions which will make it easier for us to work
    with cities and the private sector to hire people to move from welfare
    to work.
        But I would just say on that portion of the budget, everyone who
    ever criticized the welfare program and everyone who ever said every
    able-bodied person ought to work now has a moral obligation to support
    laws that will make sure there are jobs there. You cannot tell people
    they have to go to work unless they have work. That is a big moral
    obligation of this balanced budget, and we dare not pass a budget that
    walks away from that obligation to people. We have said, ``You have to
    work.'' We have to give them the jobs and the chance to build dignified,
    successful lives for themselves and their children.
        The last point I would like to make is this: In the end, the success
    of the United States in the new century will depend upon a remarkable
    partnership between our Government, our private sector, and individual
    citizens. I have been very moved by the things that I have seen
    repeatedly here in Boston in the form of citizen service: the City Year
    program, the mayor's youth advisory council, all the people that I've
    seen volunteering in various aspects of the effort to keep juveniles out
    of trouble and away from violence. We need more of that.
        And finally, we have got to prove that we can become the world's
    first truly multiracial, multiethnic democracy. A couple of weeks ago, I
    went out to the University of California at San Diego and asked the
    American people to join me for at least a year, and maybe longer, in a
    national conversation about where we are today on the subject of our
    racial differences, what we have to do to make sure that we are thinking
    and acting right about this and what new laws and policies we need.

    [[Page 848]]

        I just leave you with this thought: In the United States today,
    there is one State only, Hawaii, that has no majority race. Within 3 to
    5 years, our largest State, California, will have no majority race.
    Today, we have 5 school districts with over 100 different racial and
    ethnic groups represented among the student bodies--5 school districts.
    Within 2 years, we'll have 12, maybe 15. And within 30 years, there will
    be no majority race in the United States. We had better start thinking
    about how we are going to make sure that what we always said, which is
    that America is a place of ideas and ideals, not a place where there is
    a dominant race, a dominant class, a dominant in-crowd--we better make
    sure that's true.
        And so I leave you with this. The people of Boston and Massachusetts
    have embraced the vision that I have painted for the future more
    vigorously, more consistently, more ardently than any other place in the
    United States. I ask you to stay with it. Because if you imagine what
    the future is going to be and how we would make it, it is clear that if
    we succeed in becoming the world's first truly multiracial, multiethnic,
    multireligious democracy, we will be better positioned in the 21st
    century even than we are now to lead the world toward peace and freedom
    and prosperity and to give our children a better future than any
    generation has ever known.
        That's what I'm dedicated to. We've got 3\1/2\ more years to work
    for it, and your presence here today has dramatically increased the
    chances that we will succeed.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:18 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the
    Copley Plaza Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Thomas Menino
    of Boston; Steve Grossman, national chair, and Alan D. Solomont,
    national finance chair, Democratic National Committee; Michael Dukakis,
    former Governor of Massachusetts, and his wife, Kitty; and Joan Menard,
    Massachusetts State Democratic chair.