    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [July 26, 1997]
    [Pages 1005-1006]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Closing Remarks at the Lake Tahoe Presidential Forum in Incline Village
    July 26, 1997

        Let me say, first of all, again I'd like to thank Senator Reid for
    getting my commitment to do this. When I was a boy, I grew up in a town
    that permitted me to grow up next to a national park, next to a national
    forest, in a community surrounded by three lakes, one of which was
    virtually destroyed. I feel like I have been through a lot of these
    things, and I feel very much at home here.
        And the second thing I'd like to do once more is to thank the Vice
    President for all he's done to sensitize me about these issues and to
    educate me. I made a joke about it earlier, but it's not funny; it's
    true.
        The third thing I'd like to do is to say to all of you, I leave here
    basically with three different conclusions or commitments in my own
    mind. One is the one that Senator Feinstein and Mr. Upton and Governor
    Miller and others, Congressman Fazio pressed home, is we don't have an
    unlimited amount of time; we have to keep intensifying our efforts. You
    have done more than anyone could ever have expected you to do, and we
    have to do our part. So I got the message, and we'll stay after it.
        The second point again I want to reiterate is that you have done
    something here which, if we can properly publicize it, will help your
    Nation very much, because you have proved that you can bring all these
    people together and demolish the false choice between the environment
    and the economy. And that's very important, because there are lots of
    other places we have to do it and issues that affect local communities,
    the Nation as a whole, and in some cases, our entire globe.
        The final thing I'd like to leave you with is that you have also
    proved that there is a way of doing things that makes community-based
    solutions work, to go back to the Congressman's point. Community-based
    solutions only work when people come together, agree on a common goal,
    share values, and are willing to give up a little of their own turf in
    order to work together to a common goal.
        But I ask you to compare--compare just for a moment--if you want to
    appreciate the significance of what you are achieving here, compare what
    you have done--look at this group just sitting around here today--with
    the fact that in Bosnia today we can't even get the parties

    [[Page 1006]]

    to agree on what their currency will look like, but we just recently got
    reinstituted a cease-fire in Northern Ireland for people who are
    fighting over things that happened 600 years ago that the young college
    students would like to let go of and their elders won't let them.
        Now, I mean, I don't want to--I'm not overdramatizing this. Mature
    societies, to preserve our life on this globe, when we're going to have
    a global economy, a global society, and a global environment, are going
    to have to be able to find community-based ways of bringing shared
    values and common cause together and overcoming false choices, like
    education and the environment--I mean the economy and the environment--
    and also overcoming past divisions.
        And this is a mark of the kind of society it will take to preserve
    America's greatness for the next 100 years in a lot of ways. How, for
    example, can we have--we believed that we could reduce the budget
    deficit and increase our investment in education. Everybody said it
    couldn't be done; we did it. We believed that we could reduce the size
    of Government and, in the Vice President's terms, make it cost less and
    do more. There are 300,000 fewer people working for the Federal
    Government, but we're far more active--look here, today--in many
    important areas than we ever were before.
        We have to be able to get these false dividing lines out of our
    minds and the idea that we have to fight with each other if we're
    different out of our minds. We've got to flush this out of our
    collective systems. This is a huge issue. If you look at the coming
    racial and ethnic and religious diversity in our country, we have to
    follow the model you have established here for reconciling our
    differences, celebrating them, and then coming together as one America.
    I say this because President Truman once said that most of his job was
    trying to convince people to do things that they ought to do without his
    having to ask them in the first place. [Laughter] Now, that was sort of
    a down-home way of saying what the President has to do is to always
    imagine where we're going and try to make sure people are thinking about
    it in the right way.
        I didn't think, even myself, when I came to Washington, we'd ever be
    able to do what we did on this balanced budget agreement, to get huge
    majorities of both parties in both Houses to vote for it. I just don't
    accept the kind of old divisions and inevitable choices that basically
    rob us of the future we could create in a very dynamic time, when you
    get everybody together and, as Mr. Upton said earlier, whole new
    possibilities open up.
        I want you to think about this, because you will have other
    challenges that don't relate to the environment and Lake Tahoe that can
    be dealt with in exactly this way. And our country and our world is
    going to have to mature to the point where we bring to bear on other
    challenges the way you have gone about dealing with this.
        And I was sitting here, hanging on every word everybody said, and
    saying, what I would give to see this kind of thing happening in
    Sarajevo today, in Belfast today, in Gaza today, in Washington, DC,
    today. [Laughter] What I would give. And I think you need to think about
    that.
        So I will end with a laugh, but I'm dead serious. You think about
    this. Think about the kind of world you want to make for your children
    and grandchildren. You cannot--this is a dynamic time. The best days of
    this country are still ahead, but we have to deal with our most profound
    challenges in this way.
        Democracies only do things when a real majority of people really
    want to do them. And we have this enormous set of opportunities, and you
    have shown us here not only how to deal with the environmental
    challenges but how we ought to come together to make the most of our
    common future. And for that, I am very, very grateful. And you may be
    sure, I will be giving you a lot of free publicity around the country--
    [laughter]--in the days and months ahead.
        Thank you, and God bless you. Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:47 p.m. at the Hyatt Hotel. In his
    remarks, he referred to John Upton, member, Eldorado County, CA, board
    of supervisors.