    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [February 26, 1998]
    [Pages 295-298]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Technology '98 Conference in San Francisco
    February 26, 1998

        Thank you very much. I also want to thank whoever turned the lights
    on. [Laughter] When Sandy and I first came
    out, you were all in the dark, and the lights were very bright. And I
    thought there was something rather anomalous about my coming to a high-
    tech conference and you being in the dark. [Laughter]
        Actually, I had to fight with the Vice President to see who would get to come here today. Here's a guy who
    lives and breathes to talk about teraflops and gigabytes. But I pulled
    rank. [Laughter] And so here we are.
        Thank you, Sandy, for your leadership
    and your kind remarks, and thank you for your friendship and your wise
    counsel. I'm very grateful.
        I am delighted to be here. In many ways, I think my trip here today
    would be sort of like a President going to Pennsylvania in the 1890's to
    see the people who first struck oil, or transformed iron ore into steel,
    the people who built our great industrial-revolution America, for you
    have mined the myriad possibilities of the silicon chip and, likewise,
    have transformed America.
        For those of us, like Congresswoman Pelosi
    and others who serve in the National Government, it's a very interesting
    challenge trying to assess where we are, where we're going, make the
    right decisions, and do it in a way that enables us to make the most of
    all this change while being true to our most fundamental values.
        These are good times for America. Sandy talked about it. We are
    almost now up to 15 million new jobs in the last year and one month. We
    have the lowest unemployment in 24 years; the lowest crime rate in 24
    years; the lowest welfare rolls in 27 years; the lowest inflation in 30
    years; we're about to have our first balanced budget in 30 years; the
    highest homeownership in the history of America. These are good times.
        The economic strategy that we have embraced, to balance the budget
    but to invest more in our people and their future and to trade more
    around the world, is working. But I think everyone who has studied this
    economy believes that at the dawn of a new century the strength of our
    economy, the health and prosperity of our people, indeed, the very
    security of our Nation will depend more than ever on the scientific and
    technological revolution that so many of you have helped to set in
    motion.
        Today, over 4 million Americans work in technology-related
    industries, earning 70 percent above average incomes. There are 70 new
    companies a week that start here in northern California alone in high-
    tech areas. There are new industries, biotechnology, super computers.
    But some of the most profound revolutions have occurred in old
    industries. Indeed, a great deal of information technology research and
    development is taking place in real estate, in services, in wholesale
    and retail trade, in construction, in transportation. The Ford Taurus
    that you drive today has more computer power than the Apollo 11 did that
    Neil Armstrong took to the Moon. It's an interesting time.
        I came today to talk about what we can do to build on this progress
    by, in particular, promoting and expanding the fastest growing social
    and economic community in history: the Internet. Ten years ago, it was
    still the province of scientists, an obscure project developed by the
    Defense Department. Five years ago, the World Wide Web barely existed; I
    think there were about 50 sites. Today, there are 1 1/2 million new
    webpages created every day, 65,000 every hour. This phenomenon has
    absolutely staggering possibilities to democratize, to empower people
    all over the world. It could make it possible for every child with
    access to a computer to stretch a hand across a keyboard, to reach every
    book ever written, every painting ever painted, every symphony ever
    composed.

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        The next big step in our economic transformation, it seems to me, is
    the full development of this remarkable device and the electronic
    commerce it makes possible. One of the things that I have focused on
    very much lately is with the unemployment rate at 4.7 percent and the
    inflation rate very low and stable, the question arises from all
    conventional economic analysis, can we continue to grow robustly without
    new inflation? The answer is, if we're productive enough and we have
    enough technological advances, we probably can.
        The second thing is, can we grow and finally extend the benefits of
    this explosion of enterprise to the isolated communities and people who
    have not yet felt this remarkable economic upsurge, the inner-city
    neighborhoods, the remote rural areas? I am convinced that the answer to
    both those questions can be yes if, but only if, we maximize wisely the
    potential of our technological revolution.
        A new study, soon to be released by our working group on electronic
    commerce, documents the remarkable growth of the Internet. Within a
    single year Amazon.com, an on-line bookstore, increased its sales nearly
    10 times selling 6 1/2 million books in 1997. In a year's time, Internet
    airline ticket sales nearly tripled and is expected to grow sixfold, to
    $5 billion a year, by the year 2000. By 2002, electronic commerce
    between businesses in the United States alone will exceed $300 billion.
    And of course, as with everything on the Internet, that is just the
    beginning.
        This explosion of real commerce has the potential to increase our
    prosperity, to create more jobs, to improve the lives of our people, and
    to reach into areas that have not yet felt prosperity. But it raises new
    and serious issues as well: How can we further its growth and foster its
    magnificent freedom without allowing it to be used as a tax haven that
    drains funds our States and cities need to educate our children and make
    our streets safe?
        Thirty thousand separate taxing authorities in the United States--
    I'll say that again, there are 30,000 separate taxing authorities in the
    United States--all struggling to come to grips with this phenomenon,
    with only their existing old tax methods to apply to a very new world.
    There should be no special breaks for the Internet, but we can't allow
    unfair taxation to weight it down and stunt the development of the most
    promising new economic opportunity in decades.
        I think America should adopt a moratorium on discriminatory taxation
    so that a bipartisan commission of elected officials, business leaders,
    consumers, and representatives of the Treasury Department can carefully
    study the matter and come to a resolution. Therefore, I support the
    ``Internet Tax Freedom Act'' now before Congress, because it takes into
    account the rights of consumers, the needs of businesses, and the
    overall effect of taxation on the development of Internet commerce. The
    legislation does not prevent State and local governments from applying
    existing taxes to electronic commerce, as long as there is no
    discrimination between an Internet transaction and a traditional one. It
    does give us time to work through what is a very, very complex issue.
        I'm committed to listening to the concerns of the Governors, the
    mayors, other officials and businesses, and to achieve a consensus that
    will establish rules that are progrowth, nondiscriminatory, but will
    provide appropriate revenues our communities need to meet vital public
    purposes. I think this legislation will have the support of both
    parties. And I look forward to working with many of you to pass it and,
    along the way, to reach a greater consensus in our Nation about how to
    go forward from here.
        To ensure that electronic commerce can flourish across international
    borders, I've also asked the Secretary of the Treasury to work with our
    international trading partners to block new or discriminatory taxes on
    global electronic commerce. Already, we've fought off a bit tax, a tax
    on every unit of data consumers download from the Internet. And we're
    working with the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development to
    prevent such discrimination and streamline tax administration in
    cyberspace.
        There are other ways our Nation must work to harness the potential
    of the Internet. We want to work with you to meet our goal of connecting
    every classroom and library in America to the Internet by the year 2000.
    Just this morning in Washington, Vice President Gore announced that we have now connected nearly 80 percent of
    our schools to the Internet; more than twice as many as were connected
    in 1994 when we had the first NetDay here in California under the
    leadership of many of you in this room. He also announced new private
    and nonprofit efforts to connect underserved communities to 21st century
    technology, bringing us closer to ensuring that a child from the poorest

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    inner city, the most isolated rural area, or the most affluent suburbs
    all will have the same access to the same universe of knowledge in the
    same real time.
        We want to work with you to make certain that cyberspace is a
    healthy place for our children in a way that does not overregulate the
    Internet or stifle the growth of electronic commerce. We will work with
    you to make sure that consumer protections and laws that promote
    competition remain strong in the new economy at the dawn of the new
    century, just as we built competition into the old economy at the turn
    of the last century.
        We will work with you to make sure that the Internet never becomes a
    vehicle for tax evasion or money laundering. We will work with you to
    build a new Internet that operates up to a thousand times faster than it
    does today. My balanced budget includes $110 million to develop the next
    generation Internet in partnership with leading U.S. high-tech companies
    and universities. Today I'm pleased to announce new National Science
    Foundation grants that will connect 29 more universities to help create
    the next generation Internet, bringing the total now to 92. And we will
    work with you in every way we can to lift our eyes to the remarkable
    potential of the Internet for learning, for the arts, as a means to
    spread our shared values.
        The First Lady and I launched the White House Millennium Program to
    help our Nation honor our past and imagine our future as we come to this
    new millennium. In the State of the Union Address, I announced a public-
    private partnership to preserve our historic treasures for future
    generations and to help make them more accessible to more Americans,
    including the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the
    Constitution, the Star-Spangled Banner. Putting our treasures on-line
    will help us to do just that. Our balanced budget will make 3 million
    objects from the Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives, and
    other collections available on the Internet by the year 2000. And
    together with the private sector, we'll help museums and libraries and
    communities all around our country to do the same thing.
        Two weeks ago, thanks to Sun Microsystems, we launched the first-
    ever cybercast from the White House, when historian Bernard
    Bailyn from Harvard gave the first in a
    series of our Millennium Lectures. We started this special program to
    bring some of our greatest thinkers, writers, historians, and scientists
    to the White House to talk about our Nation's history and our future at
    this pivotal time. Next week, the world-renowned physicist Stephen
    Hawking will be with us to talk about
    human knowledge in the 21st century and the innovations it will create.
    I hope you will join us on-line at www.whitehouse.gov. [Laughter] We'll
    be there. And this time, we will have the capacity not to shut down like
    we did last time.
        This is a truly exciting time to be an American. The qualities of
    the digital revolution, its dynamism, its curiosity, its flexibility,
    and its drive, they're at the core of our character and the legacy of
    our original revolution. By once again adding the fuel of interest to
    the fire of genius, as Abraham Lincoln once said, our country is leading
    the world to new heights of economic and human development.
        I ask you to think about these things together. The economic
    development is largely the means by which we seek to expand the quality
    of human life, not only for the people who directly participate in it
    but for those who benefit indirectly.
        As I think more and more about a new century and a new millennium, I
    also think more and more about how we began. All of you are here today
    committed to an incredible entrepreneurial way of life and work as the
    descendants of a group of people who came here believing that free
    people would nearly always get it right. They came fleeing societies
    where people like you, with good ideas in the 18th century, were subject
    to absolute, arbitrary, abusive government power. And they forged a
    Declaration of Independence, a Constitution, and a Bill of Rights based
    on the simple idea that freedom worked better and that people ought to
    be free to pursue happiness within the context of a more perfect Union.
        If you look at the whole history of this country, that's what it has
    been about. You think about every single period of change and crisis,
    whether it was the Civil War, the industrial revolution, the civil
    rights era, or the present information age, and the advances have come
    when we have deepened the meaning of freedom and expanded it to more
    people, widened the circle of opportunity and prosperity, and found a
    way across all of our myriad diversities to be a stronger, more united
    nation.
        That is really what you are a part of, to a degree that would have
    been unimaginable to

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    the people who founded this Nation. But I believe it would make them
    very, very proud.
        Thank you for what you do and for what, together, we will do to make
    our country stronger in this new era. Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:30 a.m. in the ballroom at the Ritz
    Carlton Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Sandy Robertson, chairman,
    Robertson Stevens.