    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [June 15, 1998]
    [Pages 966-968]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Presidential Scholars
    June 15, 1998

        Thank you very much. Welcome to the White House. I want to thank
    Bruce Reed for his service, and I want to
    thank him for making a joke about how young he looks and saving me the
    trouble of doing it. [Laughter]
        Secretary Shalala, Deputy Secretary of
    Education Smith, to the Commission on
    Presidential Scholars and its Chair, Stuart Moldaw, to the cosponsors, the corporate sponsors, as well as the
    families and teachers and friends of the scholars here today, and most
    of all to you scholars, welcome to the White House. I hope you have
    enjoyed the day so far. I want to begin by thanking the United States
    Marine Band, this year celebrating its 200th anniversary as the
    President's band, playing for you.
        The Presidential Scholars Award dates back to 1964 when President
    Johnson signed an Executive order, and I quote, ``to recognize the most
    precious resource of the United States--the brainpower of its young
    people.'' Today I look out across a group of young people whose
    brainpower could light up this entire city. Someday, many of you
    doubtless will light up this entire city. Already you have enriched your
    communities by your activities in music, art, athletics, and citizen
    service. I'm especially grateful to those of you who have helped to
    mentor or tutor children who need your help.
        As you look ahead to further academic success, let me say that I
    very much hope you will continue to pursue other interests as well,
    including community service. And I hope you will become increasingly
    involved as citizens in the great issues of today and tomorrow.
        We are going through a period of profound change. You are on the
    edge of a new century and a new millennium. We are very fortunate that
    this is such a good time for America. And every day I get up and give
    thanks for the fact that we have the lowest crime rate in 25 years, the
    lowest unemployment rate in 28 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 29
    years. We're about to have the first balanced budget and surplus in 29
    years, the lowest inflation in 32 years. We have the smallest Federal
    Government in 35 years, the highest homeownership in history. Inequality
    among different classes of working people is going down, and millions of
    children have been lifted out of poverty in the last 5 years. I am
    grateful for that.
        But in that kind of environment, where the American people feel
    great confidence and where your future looks so bright, it seems to me
    that as a people we have two different choices: We can do what people
    usually do in good times--we can relax and enjoy them; or we can do what
    we should do--we should recognize that things are changing dramatically
    in our country and in the world, that we still have enormous challenges
    facing us in this new century, and we should be bold and look ahead to
    the future, to your future, to the world your children will live in, and
    act now, when we have the prosperity, the security, and the confidence
    to act on the long-term challenges of the country. There are many.
        Next year I believe we have to reform Social Security and Medicare
    so that when we baby boomers retire, we don't bankrupt our children and
    undermine our children's ability to raise our grandchildren. I believe
    we have to make our public schools the best in the world, just like our
    colleges and universities are now. I believe we have to deal with the
    growing problems of crime and violence among children and families. I
    think we still have economic challenges in the inner cities and isolated
    rural areas. I

    [[Page 967]]

    believe we have to prove that we can grow the economy and improve the
    environment, not continue to destruct it. I believe we have serious
    challenges, long-term, if we want to be the world's leading force for
    peace and freedom in the world, as the recent nuclear tests in India and
    Pakistan indicate, as the continuing turmoil in Kosovo indicates, as all
    the ethnic and religious and racial strife in the rest of the world
    indicates.
        So we have these big challenges. And I have been hammering and
    hammering and hammering these last several months, here with the
    Congress and out in the country, that we owe you--our generation owes
    you our best efforts to deal with the long-term challenges of the
    country in these good times, not simply to relax and enjoy them, because
    nothing like this lasts forever. It is an opportunity, an opportunity to
    relax or to move forward. I think we have to more forward.
        I'd like to talk to you about one such issue today, because I think
    it is profoundly important to your future and to children coming along
    just behind you. And that is our obligation to curtail what has become a
    deadly epidemic of teenage smoking. In 1964, the very year President
    Johnson started the Presidential Scholars program--when, coincidentally,
    I was exactly your age, but unlike Bruce Reed, didn't win one--
    [laughter]--the U.S. Surgeon General presented the landmark report
    linking smoking and cancer. Today we're on the verge of making dramatic
    progress in our fight against teen smoking. We have a once-in-a-lifetime
    opportunity to pass comprehensive antismoking legislation that can save
    a million Americans from premature, painful, preventable deaths just
    over the next 5 years.
        Senator McCain and others have brought to
    the floor a principled and bipartisan proposal to protect children from
    tobacco. It raises the price of cigarettes by $1.10 a pack over the next
    5 years, the single most important step we can take to reduce teen
    smoking. It imposes tough penalties on tobacco companies if youth
    smoking doesn't decline by two-thirds over the next decade. It gives the
    Food and Drug Administration full authority over tobacco products. It
    provides for a nationwide counteradvertising campaign for prevention,
    for smoking cessation programs, and tough enforcement measures to stop
    retailers from selling cigarettes to minors, something that is illegal
    now in all 50 States, even though a huge percentage of people under 18
    but over 13 have tried cigarettes. It provides assistance to the tobacco
    farmers who have done nothing wrong. It funds a major increase in health
    research at the National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease
    Control. And it returns to States funds to reimburse them for the
    massive amount of money they have already spent in helping to deal with
    the effects of smoking-related diseases, to be spent on health care and
    child care.
        The McCain bill began as the strongest anti-youth-smoking
    legislation in history; it has been made stronger still. In the past
    week it has gained momentum as members of both parties offered
    amendments to fight teen drug use and to provide for tax relief for low
    and middle income families. I don't see how any Senator can now stand in
    the way of a bill that fights drugs, cuts taxes, and protects young
    people from a habit that kills.
        It's been almost exactly a year since the State attorneys general
    proposal for a settlement brought comprehensive legislation to our
    Congress, a month since the Senate began to consider the issue. I urge
    the Senate to act now. Every day the Senate delays plays into the hands
    of the tobacco industry, which wants desperately to kill this bill and
    which is spending millions and millions of dollars on an advertising
    campaign designed to convince the American people this is nothing more
    than a big government tax increase to create huge big government
    bureaucracies. It is absolutely false.
        I just came back from California and Oregon, and I traveled around a
    lot in automobiles and had the chance to hear some of the advertising
    being run by the tobacco companies. And I thought to myself, it's not
    true, but it sounds good. They basically say, ``Forget about the fact
    that we didn't tell the truth to the American people for years, about
    our efforts to recruit teenagers to smoke illegally, about our
    memorandum which called them replacement smokers. Forget about the fact
    that we covered up for years the fact that we knew that tobacco was
    addictive. Just channel your well-known hatred of Government and taxes
    against this bill.''
        And unfortunately, the Cancer Society, the Heart Association, the
    Lung Association, the people who stand with us on this legislation,
    don't have anything like the money that the tobacco companies have to
    put on ads that answer that.

    [[Page 968]]

        Those of us in politics know that unanswered ads can sometimes be
    fatal. Well, if they're fatal this year, they will be fatal to young
    children who continue to be seduced and sold illegally cigarettes that
    will shorten their lives.
        Remember that every year smoking-related illnesses cause more deaths
    than AIDS, alcohol, drugs, car accidents, fires, and murders combined.
    This is an important thing to do. So I ask you all, remember that 3,000
    young children start to smoke every day, illegally; 1,000 will have
    their lives shortened because of it. The delays must come to an end. I
    ask the American people to make their voices heard. I ask the United
    States Senate to think about the Presidential Scholars here and all the
    young people they represent and pass the McCain bill this week.
    [Applause] Thank you.
        I know many of the scholars here feel just as strongly as I do.
    Patrick LaRochelle from Signal Mountain,
    Tennessee, has been running 4\1/2\ minute miles. I never did that.
    [Laughter] He would sooner put on lead shoes than smoke a cigarette.
    Alex Blane, from Charlotte, North Carolina, has
    aunts and uncles and friends who have worked on tobacco farms. Yet every
    single one of them is adamant that smoking should be a habit young
    people never start.
        So I ask all of you whose communities look up to you: Help your
    young friends take a stand against peer pressure; help them take
    responsibility for their health in every way. At the national level we
    can and must make it more difficult from cigarette companies to market
    to teens. But to really cure our country of this significant public
    health challenge, we need the help of parents and siblings, teachers and
    coaches, and role models like you. The 21st century will be the time of
    greatest opportunity in all human history. I want every American young
    person to be able to enjoy it to the fullest.
        Congratulations, and God bless you. Good luck.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:40 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White
    House.