[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

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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

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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.