    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [March 16, 1998]
    [Pages 387-389]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 387]]

    Remarks at a Democratic Business Council Dinner
    March 16, 1998

        Thank you. Please be seated. Thank you Tom, Steve, Len, Terry. Ladies and
    gentlemen, thank you all for being here tonight, for your support for
    the Democratic Party, and especially for the Business Council.
        The two things that I really like, that have kind of flowered in the
    last 5 years since I've been here for our party, are this Democratic
    Business Council and the Women's Leadership Forum. And Hillary is in
    Georgia tonight at a WLF meeting. We really believe in what they have
    done to broaden the base of the Democratic Party--not just the financial
    base but also the political base of the party--bringing people in and
    giving them a voice and giving them a chance to be heard and bringing in
    new areas of expertise that have made a real difference to us. And so I
    thank you for that.
        I was sitting here tonight wondering what I ought to say. One of you
    gave me this little cup of coffee with my name on it--a little cup. If
    this is the case, we won't have any small coffees at the White House.
    [Laughter] I thought that was pretty funny. [Laughter] Another one of
    you in the line said that your 96-year-old grandmother said to tell the
    President that he and that young man are doing a good job. I said,
    ``Who's the young man?'' And she said, ``Al Gore.'' [Laughter] That
    really hurt. [Laughter]
        Today I did two things that embody what I hope the next 3 years will
    be about, namely, taking advantage of these good times: first balanced
    budget in a generation and the lowest unemployment, the lowest crime
    rate in 24 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 27 years, highest
    homeownership in history, lowest inflation in 30 years--these good
    times, taking advantage of them and preparing for the long-term
    prosperity and success of the American people, and trying to advance the
    cause of peace and freedom and prosperity throughout the world.
        I started the day by going out to a high school in suburban Maryland
    and meeting with two dozen other people, including the superintendent of
    schools in New York City, the mayor of Los Angeles, the Governors of
    West Virginia and Maryland, and any number of other experts who came
    together to sit and talk with me--educational experts--about a big part
    of one of our country's most profound challenges, and that is the low
    level of performance of our high school seniors on international math
    and science tests.
        One example of the general problem, which is as follows: Everybody
    in this country and everybody in the world with an informed opinion
    would tell you that the United States is fortunate enough to have the
    best system of higher education in the world. No one with an informed
    opinion would assert that we have the best system of elementary and
    secondary education in the world. And yet we have a lot of wonderful
    people out there giving their careers to teaching. And we have example
    after example after example of schools that are succeeding against all
    the odds.
        Now, this school that I visited in Maryland today had white and
    African-American and Hispanic and Indian and Pakistani students and
    Arab-American students. It was an amazing--a lot of Asian-American
    students--it was an amazing myriad of our country just up the road in
    Maryland. And they have quite high levels of performance in math and
    science. So I went there to talk about it. And two of the people on the
    panel were the teacher, a Japanese-American physics teacher; and a
    student, a Hispanic, a young woman who was a student there. And we
    talked about what we could do to improve math and science education. And
    I talked about our plans to hook up every classroom and library in every
    school in America to the Internet by the year 2000. When we started in
    '94 only 34 percent of the schools were hooked up; today 75 percent of
    the schools are hooked up. That's not every classroom in every school,
    but at least we've got some hookups to the Internet in 75 percent of the
    schools in America now. So we're moving.
        We talked about the plan to certify 100,000 master teachers, to make
    absolutely sure that they are academically well qualified to the highest
    degree, and then to get those people paid more, so we can put one master
    teacher in every school building in America to try to change the culture
    of learning and the standards of learning. We talked about the need to
    give

    [[Page 388]]

    teachers who are in the work force the ability to go back and train, get
    higher levels of training.
        This is the only country in the world where you have large numbers
    of people teaching math and science courses that they did not major in
    or minor in in college, simply because of the shortage that exists. And
    if we don't do something, it's likely to get worse. There are over
    350,000 vacancies in information technology today in America, with an
    average starting salary of $48,000 a year. The average salary of all
    teachers, including the most senior, in America, in the wealthiest
    school district--the average salary is not close to $48,000 a year. So
    this is a formidable challenge.
        But the good news is, I had two dozen really smart Americans from
    all walks of life there in this wonderful American school. And we were
    working on it, and we believe we can do something about it. We know we
    have to have more courses offered; we know we have to train the teachers
    better; we know we have to find more funds for these shortage areas. But
    I also told the students, with whom I spoke later--and I actually didn't
    get booed when I said it--that I thought they should be required to take
    chemistry and physics and calculus and trigonometry, and that they would
    all need it--and that we had opened the doors to college to everyone
    with the balanced budget plan, with the HOPE scholarships, and all the
    other incentives, they needed to have to do this.
        And once I assured the seniors that didn't mean they had to stay
    another year in high school--[laughter]--I got a pretty high level of
    support for this proposition. I think part of it is sibling malice: they
    liked the idea that their younger brothers and sisters might have a
    bigger burden than they did. [Laughter] But seriously, it was a very
    good thing. And I thought, this is what we ought to be doing. While we
    have the national self-confidence and the emotional room, we ought to be
    thinking about these big problems down the road, and we ought to be
    moving on them.
        And tonight before I came over here, I began--true to my dear
    ancestors, I began what will be about a 30-hour marathon effort to close
    as many gaps as I can in the Irish peace process, because all the major
    players in the Irish peace process are coming to America for St.
    Patrick's Day, which will be tomorrow. And it's very good--my Cassidy
    relatives in Ireland sent my daughter an Irish cross, my wife an Irish
    pin, sent me green cufflinks to wear tomorrow and two green ties. I have
    to chide them; the two green ties were made in Italy, but they're
    beautiful nonetheless. [Laughter]
        And I thought to myself, this is what we ought to be doing. Because
    the United States is fortunate that, at the end of the cold war, we
    don't feel our security immediately threatened, we need to be able to
    stand up for the long term. We need to imagine what Europe can be like
    if the Irish are at peace, what Europe can be like if the Bosnian peace
    process works, what Europe can be like if the difficulties in Kosovo are
    not allowed to engulf the Balkans in a new controversy. And we have the
    capacity to affect this.
        Hillary and I are leaving on Sunday to go to Africa. It will be the
    first time an American President, a serving American President, has ever
    made a tour of sub-Saharan Africa. President Carter and President Reagan
    made brief stops in one country. No American President has been to these
    five countries where I'm going, in the way I'm going. The House of
    Representatives, in a bipartisan fashion passed the Africa Trade
    Initiative a few days ago, and I hope the Senate will pass it soon. A
    big part of our future will be caught up in what happens in Africa. If
    Africa succeeds in developing stable market-oriented democracies, then
    it's a big market opportunity for the United States. If Africa should
    become convulsed again in a whole round of political turmoil, civil war,
    economic degradation, there will be consequences that we will feel here.
        So I thought to myself, as we were preparing for that today, this is
    what we ought to be doing. I met last week, late last week, with the
    Medicare Commission. We are now meeting for a year. We've got a
    Commission that I've appointed, along with congressional leaders, to try
    to look at the long-run health and viability of the Medicare program.
    Tomorrow Senator Moynihan and I and
    others are going to announce his support for our Medicare legislation to
    let people between the ages of 55 and 65 who don't have health insurance
    buy into Medicare if they can do it without burdening the Trust Fund.
    These are the kinds of things we ought to be doing.
        I say this just to tell you that there is a direct connection
    between your support through this Business Council of our party and what

    [[Page 389]]

    we are doing that will change the lives of the future of the American
    people. That's what you have to understand.
        Lois Capps just won this great race in
    California--unbelievable victory. Now, in Washington, people tend to see
    every victory or defeat in great national terms. I basically spent
    enough time out there in the country to know that that's almost always
    wrong. It's against my self-interest to say it, probably, but it's
    wrong. She won because she's a magnificent person, because her late
    husband was a wonderful man, because she ran a great grassroots
    campaign. But the important thing is that the issues she ran on and won
    on are the issues that were embodied in the State of the Union or the
    issues that are embodied in the message of our party and the future
    we're trying to build for America. Don't squander the surplus until you
    save Social Security first, pass the Patients' Bill of Rights, focus on
    education, focus on the environment, focus on the long-run challenges of
    the country. That's what we are doing here. That's what you are a part
    of. That's what we want you to be a part of.
        So when you go home tonight, you ought to ask yourself--and make
    sure you can give an answer--why did I go to that dinner tonight? Why
    did I write that check? You should know that because of your support,
    your country is stronger; we're moving in the right direction; and we're
    thinking about tomorrow.
        Thank you very much. God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:05 p.m. in the ballroom at the Sheraton
    Carlton Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to C. Thomas Hendrickson,
    chair, Democratic Business Council; Steve Grossman, national chair,
    Leonard Barrack, national finance chair, and Terence McAuliffe, former
    national finance chair, Democratic National Committee; Rudy Crew,
    chancellor, New York City public schools; Mayor Richard Riordan of Los
    Angeles; Gov. Cecil H. Underwood of West Virginia; Gov. Parris N.
    Glendening of Maryland; and Representative Lois Capps, widow of the late
    Representative Walter H. Capps.