    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [February 9, 1998]
    [Pages 196-201]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at Georgetown University
    February 9, 1998

        Thank you very much. A special thanks to those of you who had to
    wait all night to get in. [Laughter] Hope you won't be disappointed.
    [Laughter]
        Mr. Vice President, Father
    O'Donovan, to all the groups here who are
    concerned with Social Security, especially to Congressman Penny and the Concord Coalition and John Rother and the AARP, I thank you all for being here.
        I thank Senator Bob Kerrey, who when he
    cast the decisive vote for our budget in 1993 said that he would do so
    only if I were also committed to dealing with the long-term structural
    problems of Social Security, to heal the deficit there as well. I thank
    Gene Sperling and the members of my staff
    who've worked with us on this. And thank you, Mannone Butler, for embodying what this struggle is all about.
    Weren't you proud of her? She did a great job, I think. [Applause] Thank
    you very much.
        When I first ran for President 6\1/2\ years ago now, I came to this
    hall to set out my vision

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    for 21st century America and a strategy for achieving it. Often in the
    years since, I have come back here to discuss our Nation's most
    demanding challenges. And on many occasions, but none more relevant than
    today, I have recalled the assertion of my freshman professor in the
    history of civilization course, Carroll Quigley, that the distinguishing
    characteristic of Western civilization in general and the United States
    of America in particular is what he called, ``future preference'': the
    idea that the future can be better than the present or the past; that
    each of us has a personal, moral responsibility to work to make it so,
    to plan for it, to work for it, to invest for it.
        There is no better example of that principle for the strength of
    America than the opportunity and the duty all of us as Americans have
    now to save Social Security for the 21st century. So today I return to
    discuss what we have to do to achieve that and why it is so important.
        You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in
    the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that
    they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security.
    [Laughter] And others may think that it's a long way off, as Mannone
    said, and the Vice President said he thought it was a long way off.
        A couple of days ago I went to New Mexico to visit our national
    labs; you may have seen the story. And our national labs at Los Alamos
    and Sandia and Lawrence Livermore, where we do a lot of the research
    that not only helps us to preserve the security of our smaller and
    smaller nuclear arsenal but helps us to deal with our environmental
    questions and a lot of other fascinating challenges of the future--but
    anyway--after I finished this, I had lunch with a few of my friends,
    including a man that I went to Georgetown with. And at the end of the
    lunch, he whipped out this photo and gave it to me, and we were sitting
    in a park together, about a week after I graduated in 1968. And I looked
    at that photo, and I said, ``My goodness, where did all the time go? It
    seems like it was yesterday to me.''
        I say that to make this point: It may seem a long way away from the
    time you now--where you are until you need retirement. It may seem a
    long way away before most of your parents need retirement, but it isn't.
    And great societies plan over long periods of time so that individual
    lives can flower and take root and take form. And that is what we have
    to do today.
        Social Security is a lot more than a line in the budget. It reflects
    some of our deepest values, the duties we owe to our parents, the duties
    we owe to each other when we're differently situated in life, the duties
    we owe to our children and our grandchildren. Indeed, it reflects our
    determination to move forward across the generations and across the
    income divides in our country, as one America.
        Social Security has been there for America's parents in the 20th
    century, and I am determined that we will have that kind of security for
    the American people in the 21st century. We are entering this new
    millennium, the new century, with restored confidence; the information
    age, a growing global economy, they're changing the way we live and
    work. And the scope and pace of change, well, it may seem commonplace to
    those of you who have grown up with it, but to people my age it is still
    truly astonishing. And I can tell you, it is without historical
    precedent.
        For a long time, our country failed to come to grips with those
    changes, and we paid the price in a stagnant economy and increasing
    inequality among our working families, in higher child poverty, in
    record welfare rolls, higher crime rates, other deepening social
    problems. Before the present era, we had only run budget deficits, and
    the deficit, I think, came to symbolize what was amiss with the way we
    were dealing with the changes in the world. We had only run budget
    deficits for sound economic reasons, either because there was some
    overwhelming need to invest or because there was a recession that
    required stimulation of the economy or because there was a national
    emergency like war. The idea that we would just simply have a structural
    deficit and run one year-in and year-out was unheard of. But that is
    exactly what has happened throughout your lifetime.
        And it got so bad in the 1980's that between 1981 and 1992 the total
    debt of the country was quadrupled--quadrupled--in a 12-year period,
    over and above the previous 200 years. That raised interest rates. It
    took more and more tax money away from investments in education, for
    example, or the environment to pay interest on the debt. It slowed
    economic growth, and it definitely compromised your future.

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        Five years ago I determined that we had to set a different course,
    to move past the debate that was then paralyzing Washington and,
    frankly, didn't have much to do with the real world, between those who
    said Government was the enemy, those who said Government was the
    solution, and as long as you can fight about something, then you don't
    have to get down to the nitty-gritty of dealing with the real problems.
        When the British Prime Minister was here last week, Tony
    Blair, we stressed that we both think, and many
    other leaders increasingly around the world are beginning to think, that
    this debate is fruitless and that there has to be a third way, that 21st
    century government, information age government, must be smaller, must be
    less bureaucratic, must be fiscally disciplined and focus on being a
    catalyst for new ideas and giving you and all other Americans the tools
    they need to make the most of their own lives.
        For 5 years we have reduced the size of the deficit, reduced the
    size of Government, dramatically reduced the budget deficit by over 90
    percent, but continued to invest in your future. And in very dramatic
    ways that's changed the experience of going to college.
        Student loans that are guaranteed by the Government have been made
    less expensive and easier to repay. There are hundreds of thousands of
    more Pell grant scholarships, 300,000 more work-study slots. AmeriCorps
    has allowed 100,000 young people to earn money for college while serving
    in their community. There are now tax-free IRA accounts for college
    education. Last year we enacted the HOPE scholarship, which is a $1,500
    tax credit for the first 2 years of college. And then there's a lifetime
    learning tax credit for junior and senior years, for graduate schools,
    and for adults who have to go back for further training. For the first
    time in history, while reducing the deficit by 90 percent, we can
    honestly say, ``If you're willing to work for it, whatever your
    circumstances, you can go on to college in the United States,'' and that
    is a very important achievement.
        Now, all of these things have worked together to give us the
    strongest economy in a generation, almost 15 million new jobs, the
    lowest unemployment rate in 24 years, the lowest inflation rate in 30
    years, the highest homeownership in history, average incomes rising
    again. I've submitted to Congress for 1999 the first balanced budget in
    30 years. All that is a remarkable achievement, but as I said, we have
    to be thinking about the future. And all of you know to a greater or
    lesser degree of specificity, every one of you know that the Social
    Security system is not sound for the long term, so that all of these
    achievements, the economic achievements, our increasing social coherence
    and cohesion, our increasing efforts to reduce poverty among our
    youngest children, all of them are threatened by the looming fiscal
    crisis in Social Security.
        Today I want to talk about what it is and how we propose to deal
    with it. And as the Vice President said, we should use the economic good
    times. That old saying that you don't wait for a rainy day to fix the
    roof is good for us today; it's very sunny outside. And on this sunny
    day, we should deal with Social Security.
        In very specific terms, we've got a great opportunity because it is
    projected that if we stay with the present budget plan, that taking
    account of the fact that we won't always have the greatest economic
    times as we've had now--there will be times when the economy will grow
    faster, times when it will grow slower, we may have recessions--but
    structurally, we have eliminated the deficit, so that over time we
    should have a balanced budget, and over time, most times we should be
    running a surplus now if we stay with the discipline we have now over
    the next couple of decades.
        Now, if that's so, it is now estimated that with normal ups and
    downs in economic growth, over the next 10 years, after 30 years of
    deficits, the United States will have a budget surplus of somewhere in
    the range of a trillion dollars in the aggregate over the next 10 years.
    I have said, before we spend a penny of that on new programs or tax
    cuts, we should save Social Security first. I think it should be the
    driving principle of this year's work in the United States Congress: Do
    not have a tax cut; do not have a spending program that deals with that
    surplus; save Social Security first.
        That is our obligation to you and, frankly, to ourselves. And let me
    explain that. This fiscal crisis in Social Security affects every
    generation. We now know that the Social Security Trust Fund is fine for
    another few decades. But if it gets in trouble and we don't deal with
    it, then it not only affects the generation of the baby boomers and
    whether they'll have enough to live on when they retire; it raises the
    question of whether they will have enough to live on

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    by unfairly burdening their children and, therefore, unfairly burdening
    their children's ability to raise their grandchildren. That would be
    unconscionable, especially since if you move now, we can do less and
    have a bigger impact, especially since we now have the budget surplus.
        Let me back up just a minute, mostly for the benefit of the young
    people in the audience, to talk a little bit about the importance of
    this effort. It's hard for even people in my generation to understand
    this, much less yours, but early in this century, to be old meant to be
    poor--to be old meant to be poor. The vast majority of people over 65 in
    America early in this century were living in poverty. Their reward for a
    lifetime of work, for doing right by their children, for helping with
    their grandchildren, unless their kids could take care of them, was
    living in poverty.
        If you ever have a chance, you ought to read some of the books that
    have the thousands of letters that older people sent to President
    Roosevelt, begging him, in the words of one typical letter writer, to
    eliminate, and I quote, ``the stark terror of penniless, helpless old
    age.'' That's what prompted President Roosevelt to launch the Social
    Security system in 1935, to create what he called the cornerstone of a
    civilized society.
        Now, for more than half a century, Social Security has been a
    dramatic success. If you just look at the first chart over here on the
    right, you will see that in 1959--I don't see as well as I once did--
    [laughter]--the poverty rate among seniors was still 35 percent. As
    recently as 1959, still over a third of seniors lived in poverty. By
    1979, it had dropped to 15.2 percent. By 1996, it had dropped to 10.8
    percent.
        To give you an idea of the profound success of the program over the
    last 30 years--as you know, there have been increasing number of
    children being raised in single-parent households, where the incomes are
    not so high--the child poverty rate in America is almost twice that. But
    no one can begrudge that. So the first thing we need to say is, Social
    Security has succeeded in ending the stark terror of a penniless old
    age. And that is a terrific achievement for the American society.
        Now, it's also known, however, that the changes that are underway
    today will place great stresses on the Social Security safety net. The
    baby boomers are getting gray. When my generation retires--and I'm the
    oldest of the baby boomers; I was born in 1946, so I'm 51--and the
    generation is normally held to run for the 18 years after that; that's
    normally what people mean when they talk about the baby boomers--it will
    dramatically change the ratio of workers to earners, aggravated by
    increasing early retirements and other things, offset by gradual
    increase in the Social Security retirement age enacted back in 1983. So
    if you look at that, that's the second chart here.
        In 1960 there were 5.1 Americans working for every one person
    drawing Social Security. In 1997 there's still 3.3 people working for
    every one person drawing Social Security. In 2030, the year after the
    Social Security Trust Fund supposedly will go broke unless we change
    something, at present projected retirement rates--that is, the presently
    projected retirement age and same rates--there will be two people
    working for every one person drawing Social Security.
        Now, if you look at that plus the present investment patterns of the
    funds of which are designed to secure 100 percent security and,
    therefore, get a somewhat lower return in return for 100 percent
    security for the investments, that's what will cause the problem. So if
    you look at the presently projected retirement and the presently
    projected returns, that will cause the problem.
        It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this,
    you realize this is not an episode from ``The X-Files,'' and you're not
    more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things. On the other
    hand, if you don't do anything, one of two things will happen: Either it
    will go broke, and you won't ever get it; or if we wait too long to fix
    it, the burden on society of taking care of our generation's Social
    Security obligations will lower your income and lower your ability to
    take care of your children to a degree most of us who are your parents
    think would be horribly wrong and unfair to you and unfair to the future
    prospects of the United States.
        So what's the bottom line? You can see it. Today, we're actually
    taking in a lot more money from Social Security taxes enacted in 1983
    than we're spending out. Because we've run deficits, none of that money
    has been saved for Social Security. Now, if you look at this little
    chart here, from 1999 forward we'll be able to save that money, or a lot
    of it, anyway. We'll be

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    able to save a lot of it that will go into pure surplus in the budget.
    It can be invested. But other things will have to be done, as well. That
    will not be enough. And if nothing is done by 2029, there will be a
    deficit in the Social Security Trust Fund, which will either require, if
    you just wait until then, a huge tax increase in the payroll tax or just
    about a 25 percent cut in Social Security benefits.
        And let me say today, Social Security--I want to put that in, too,
    because I want you all to start thinking about this--Social Security was
    conceived as giving a floor for life. It is not enough to sustain the
    standard of living of almost any retiree retiring today. So you also
    will have to make provisions for your own retirement savings, and you
    should start early when you go out and go to work, with a 401(k) plan or
    whatever.
        But this is what is going to happen unless we change. If we change
    now, we can make a big difference.
        I should also point out that Social Security also goes to the
    spouses of people when they're widowed. Social Security also goes to the
    disabled. There's a Social Security disability program. Cassandra
    Wilkins, who's here with us, who the Vice
    President recognized, ran the Social Security disability program for me
    when I was Governor. It's a very important program. But all of these
    things should be seen in terms of these economic realities.
        Now, again I say, if we act soon, less is more. If we can develop a
    consensus as a country to act soon, we can take relatively modest steps
    in any number of directions to run this 2029 number well out into the
    future in ways that will keep Social Security's role in providing some
    retirement security to people without unfairly burdening your generation
    and your ability to raise your children to do that. And I can tell you,
    I have had countless talks with baby boomers of all income groups, and I
    haven't found a single person in my generation who is not absolutely
    determined to fix this in a way that does not unfairly burden your
    generation. But we have to start now.
        We have to join together and face the facts. We have to rise above
    partisanship, just the way we did when we forged the historic balanced
    budget agreement. This is--as you can well see, this is reducible to
    stark mathematical terms. This need not become a partisan debate. Oh,
    there ought to be a debate, a good debate on what the best way to invest
    the funds are; there ought to be a good debate on what the best
    tradeoffs are between the changes that will have to be made. But it
    ought to be done with a view toward making America stronger and, again,
    preserving the ties that bind us across the generations.
        I have asked the American Association of Retired Persons, the AARP,
    a leading voice for older Americans, and the Concord Coalition, a
    leading voice for fiscal discipline, to organize a series of four
    nonpartisan regional forums this year. The Vice President and I will participate. I hope the Republican and
    Democratic leadership will also participate. I was encouraged that
    Speaker Gingrich said the other day that he
    felt we should save the surplus until we had fixed the Social Security
    first.
        The first forum, which will set out before the American people the
    full nature of the problem--essentially, what I'm doing with you today
    with a few more details--will be in Kansas City on April 7th. Then in
    subsequent ones we will hear from a variety of experts and average
    citizens across all ages. It is very important to me that this debate
    involve young people--very important--because you have a huge stake in
    it, and you need to imagine where you will be and what kind of
    investment patterns you think are fair for you and how you think this is
    going to play out over the next 20, 30, 40 years. We want people of all
    ages involved in this.
        This national call also will spread to every corner of the country,
    to every Member of Congress. There are other private groups which have
    to play a role. The Pew Charitable Trust has launched a vital public
    information campaign, Americans Discuss Social Security. On March 21st,
    I will help kick off the first of many of their townhall meetings and
    teleconferences.
        Now, when we go out across the country and share the information and
    get people's ideas, then, at the end of the year in December, I will
    convene a historic White House Conference on Social Security. And then,
    in a year, I will call together the Republican and Democratic leaders of
    the House and Senate to begin drafting comprehensive, bipartisan
    landmark legislation to save the Social Security system.
        This national effort will require the best of our people, and I
    think it will get the best of our people. It will ask us to plan for the
    future. It will ask us to be open to new ideas, not to be hidebound and
    believe that we can

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    see the future through the prism of the past, but it will ask us to hold
    on to the old values that lifted our senior citizens from the burden of
    abject poverty to the dignity of a deserved good, solid old age.
        Keep in mind, most of you who are sitting out here can look forward
    to a life expectancy well into your eighties. Most of you, by the time
    you get to be my age, if you live to be my age, your life expectancy
    will probably be by then 90 or more. We're going to have to rethink this
    whole thing. But we have to do it with a view towards preserving the
    principles and the integrity of our society, binding us together across
    the generations and across the income divides.
        We can do this. President Roosevelt often called us to the spirit of
    bold, persistent experimentation. We will have to do that. But he also
    reminded us that our greatest challenges we can only meet as one Nation.
    And we must remember that. With our increasing diversity, in the way we
    work and live, in our racial and ethnic and other backgrounds, religious
    backgrounds, we still have to be, when it comes to treating people with
    dignity, in fulfilling our obligations to one another, one Nation.
        Acting today for the future is in some ways the oldest of American
    traditions. It's what Thomas Jefferson did when he purchased the
    Louisiana Territory and sent Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition.
    It's what Abraham Lincoln did when, at the height of the Civil War, he
    and the Congress took the time to establish a system of land grant
    colleges, which revolutionized the future of America. It's what we
    Americans did when, in the depths of the Depression, when people were
    only concerned about the moment, and 25 percent of the American people
    were out of work, our Congress and our President still took the time to
    establish a Social Security system that could only take flower and have
    full impact long after they were gone.
        That is what we do when we do best, what Professor Quigley called
    ``future preference.'' What I prefer is a future in which my generation
    can retire, those who are not as fortunate as me can retire in dignity,
    but we can do it in a way that does not burden you and your ability to
    raise our grandchildren, because I believe the best days of this country
    lie ahead of us if we fulfill our responsibilities today for tomorrow.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:53 a.m. in Gaston Hall. In his remarks,
    he referred to Father Leo J. O'Donovan, president, Georgetown
    University; former Congressman Timothy J. Penny, board member, Concord
    Coalition; John Rother, director of legislation and public policy,
    American Association of Retired Persons (AARP); and Mannone Butler,
    Georgetown Law School student, who introduced the President. A portion
    of these remarks could not be verified because the tape was incomplete.