[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book II)]
[October 24, 1998]
[Pages 1864-1869]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Dinner for Senator Barbara Boxer in Los Angeles
October 24, 1998

    You know, I only wish we knew how Barbra really feels about all of 
this. [Laughter] It's so hard when people hold back like that. 
[Laughter] Thank you. And thank you, Bob and Carole, for opening your 
beautiful home and leaving it open day after day after day--[laughter]--
while I carried on at the Wye River. Thank you, Carole, for that 
wonderful set of songs. We were sitting there singing those songs with 
you, and I said, ``You know, every time Carole King opens her mouth, you 
can make 30 years of my life vanish.'' [Laughter]
    I am glad to be here with Senator Boxer and Stu and Doug and Nicole 
and Tony and my nephew, Zach. Hillary is very jealous of me being here 
tonight. I talked to her just before I came out. This is the third talk 
I've made, and I've started with the same story, but it's true, so I'm 
going to say it again. A true story you can tell more than once. 
[Laughter] So I want to tell another true story.
    Every time I give a talk, my staff prepares a little card like this. 
At the top it says, ``Barbra Streisand, Carole King, Bob Daly, Carole 
Bayer Sager.'' And it has little notes: ``I'm glad to be here to support 
Senator Barbara Boxer for the Senate.'' [Laughter] And it says why I'm 
for her here. [Laughter] Barbara says the list is way too short. 
[Laughter] And then before I do it, I make out little notes like this in 
my handwriting. And at my age, in dilapidated condition, I can't read it 
anyway, so I have no idea what I said. [Laughter]
    So before I got off the plane--I swear, before I got off the plane, 
my staff said, ``When you were at this Middle East peace thing, every 
night you got home at 2 or 3 in the morning, and then the last night you 
didn't come home at all.'' I was up for 39 hours before I went to bed 
last night. I didn't even do that in college. [Laughter]
    So they said, ``Read this card--[laughter]--because the press is 
listening in, and Lord only knows what you'll say.'' [Laughter] So I 
talked to Hillary; she said, ``Read the card; read the card.'' 
[Laughter] But I'm not going to read the card. [Laughter]
    Anyway, I want to say just a couple of things about Barbara Boxer 
and then a couple of things about where we are right now and what's at 
stake. First of all, apart from our relationship by marriage and our 
deep friendship, I care a lot about her. And you should know that I see 
people in Washington in ways that their constituents often don't. I see 
Senators when they're mad--at me, sometimes. I see Senators when they 
call and want me to do things, and sometimes I can't do it. I see the 
tough votes and easy shots and just the whole thing.
    This woman has a good mind, a good heart, a fierce spirit, and she 
would make you proud every day if you could see her as I do. And I'll 
also tell you that of all the members of the California delegation--this 
is no disrespect to the others--she has called me more than any other 
member of the California delegation on issues relating specifically to 
California. Sometimes it gets to the point where I hear she's calling me 
again, I just say, ``Whatever she wants, just tell her, yes; I'm tired 
of dealing with her. Just tell her, yes; I'm tired of dealing with 
her.'' [Laughter]
    So I think she has earned the right to be reelected. But she made a 
couple of points I'd like to reinforce. In August of '93, when I'd been 
through a rocky 8 months, a lot of controversy, and I knew our ability 
to really get this economy going again rested on the capacity of the 
Congress to vote for an economic plan I gave them to slash the deficit 
but keep investing in education and children and the environment and 
research; and that it would require

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a lot of controversial choices, but that if we didn't do it and it 
wasn't enough of a cut in the deficit, we'd never get the interest rates 
down; we'd never get the economy going again.
    Now, at the time we did that, the stock market was at about 3200; 
interest rates were much higher; the unemployment rate was a whole lot 
higher; and the budget passed by a single vote in the Senate and in the 
House--one vote. So it is literally true that if in the last 6 years 
California had been represented by her opponent, we wouldn't have had 
the economic recovery to the extent we have, and I might not be here 
giving this talk tonight. [Laughter] So I think that's important to 
remember.
    She voted to ban assault weapons. She voted for the Brady bill. She 
voted--which has kept a quarter of a million people with criminal 
histories and mental health problems from buying handguns. Lord knows 
how many lives we saved. Roughly 15 million Americans have taken 
advantage of the family and medical leave law, which says you can take 
some time off when a baby is born or a parent is sick without losing 
your job. I mean, she's done things that have made a difference to the 
life of the country. This last budget--you heard them talking about it--
all those funds for after-school programs wouldn't be in that budget if 
it weren't for Barbara Boxer.
    Let me just give you an example of what this means, just one. During 
all the years I served as Governor--I think most of you know Hillary is 
from Chicago, and we used to spend a lot of time in Illinois. And the 
Chicago school system had a reputation for being the worst big-city 
school system in the country. Every year it got shut down. They had a 
teacher strike in Chicago every year whether they wanted one or not, 
even whether the teachers wanted one. They--just sort of automatic--and 
they changed the whole way of governing the school system.
    The teachers basically are a part of the governance of the school 
system now. There hasn't been a strike in years. And the schools all 
have parent councils and lots of other changes have been made. Chicago--
big-city school system--ended social promotion. If you don't pass a 
test, you can't go on to the next grade. But they didn't declare 
children failures because the system failed them. Instead, they 
guaranteed summer school to all the kids that don't do well.
    The summer school is now the sixth biggest school system in the 
United States--the summer school. And there are now in Chicago alone 
40,000 children that eat 3 meals a day in the school system. Well, guess 
what's happened? Learning has gone way up. The dropout has gone way 
down. The juvenile crime rate has plummeted. That's what this after-
school program means. And she did it, and she deserves the credit for 
it.
    Now, let's talk a little bit about what the stakes are. First of 
all, in spite of the fact that the country is doing well economically, 
and that a lot of our social problems are abating, and we have, 
fortunately, been able to advance the cause of peace around the world 
and to become, I think, much more capable of dealing with the world as 
it's going to be, from Africa to China, to Bosnia and Kosovo, to 
Northern Ireland and the Middle East, we've got a lot of challenges at 
home and abroad. And this next Congress will have a lot to do with what 
21st century America looks like for a long time.
    I want to mention two or three things. Barbara mentioned the 
Patients' Bill of Rights. This is a huge deal. A hundred sixty million 
Americans are in managed care, and I support it. I always say this. You 
know, I was never against managed care in the beginning. A lot of people 
don't remember this, but in 1993, when I became President, the inflation 
rate in health care costs was 3 times the inflation rate in the economy 
as a whole. You have to manage any system that's taking that much money 
up. It's irresponsible to think otherwise. It will consume the economy.
    On the other hand, no management technique or device can ever be 
allowed to consume the fundamental purpose of the endeavor, whatever it 
is. If you make movies or CD's, you want to do them as efficiently as 
possible; you don't want to do them in a way that you have a low quality 
CD or a lousy movie. If you run a grocery store, you want to run it as 
efficiently as possible; but you don't want to run it with bad milk or 
rotten fruit. You can save money a lot of ways; any endeavor that you're 
doing, you can save money. But if you undermine the purpose of the 
endeavor, you have thwarted the very reason you're trying to be more 
efficient.
    That's what's going on here. You've got people who are out there 
dying, because their doctors say they need to have certain procedures or 
certain specialists, and it has to be approved

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by a managed care company, and the first person that gets it is a 
modestly paid accountant, a claims reviewer.
    And put yourself in the position of the claims reviewer--we're 
talking about 160 million Americans now--suppose instead of being an 
Academy Award winning actor, you're a claims reviewer for an HMO. 
[Laughter] Now, wait a minute. What do you know? You know you're making 
a modest salary; you'd like a bonus at Christmastime; you'd like to have 
your job next year; you'd like to get a promotion someday. And all day 
long you're reviewing claims, and they're always the same thing, you 
know. The doctor says, ``Well, so-and-so ought to see a specialist,'' or 
``so-and-so ought to have this procedure that may be experimental,'' and 
all this. What do you know about your job? You know one thing: You will 
never get in trouble for saying no.
    I want you to understand this from a human point of view. You won't 
get in trouble if you say no. Why? Because if you make a mistake, they 
can always appeal the decision. And at the next level or maybe one more 
level removed, there will be a doctor there. And the doctor can 
ultimately, you say, make the right decision.
    Some of the biggest damage being done to the quality of health care 
in America today is being done on the way up the appeals ladder, when 
ultimately a doctor will say, ``Okay, yeah, this person should have the 
bone marrow transplant'' or whatever, you name it, or should see the 
plastic surgeon instead of just a general surgeon. But by then it's too 
late to do the thing that was recommended in the first place. Now, this 
is how this really works out there.
    Now, if we had to pay a modest amount more, all of us, just a 
modest--believe me, it's a modest amount; we're talking small bucks 
here--more, to have the benefits of a managed system, but a system where 
the purpose was protected so that if your doctor says you ought to be 
able to see a specialist or you ought to have a certain procedure or if 
you get in an accident, you ought to be able to go to the nearest 
emergency room, not one all the way across town because it's the one 
that's covered; or if you're pregnant or getting chemotherapy and your 
employer changes health care providers, you ought to be able to keep 
your doctor until you finish a treatment, and you ought to be able to 
keep your medical records private throughout--I think the American 
people would like that kind of system. And we didn't do that this time 
because I didn't have enough people in the Congress who agreed with me 
and Barbara Boxer. This is a big deal, and it will only get bigger. This 
is huge.
    On the education, we fought and we fought and we finally got the 
funds for the 100,000 teachers. And if we keep funding this, we'll get 
100,000 teachers in the next few years, and that will enable us, because 
we're targeting them at the youngest children, to take average class 
size down to 18. Now, here's why this is a big deal. This is the first 
year--the last 2 years--the first time we've had more kids in school 
than the baby boom generation. But unlike the baby boomers, there is no 
arc where it ends after 18 years. It looks like it's going to keep on 
going, because so many of our young children are immigrants, and we 
continue to bring immigrants in, and they're younger people and have 
children.
    Now, I was in a little town in Florida the other day--2 months ago--
a little town that had a grade school with 12 trailers out back for 
classrooms. I've been in big cities all across this country with 
beautiful old school buildings where whole floors were shut down because 
they were in such disrepair. So what we didn't pass this time was a tax 
cut paid for in our budget that would have helped school districts to 
build or repair 5,000 schools. If you're going to hire the teachers, 
they have to have some place to teach. If you want a smaller classroom, 
there has to be more classrooms. I mean, this is not rocket science 
here. But it's a huge issue.
    If you're going to say, ``Okay, end social promotion, give the kids 
after-school, give the kids summer school, have smaller classes, bring 
excellence in education back''--then you send a huge signal to 
children--a huge signal--by the buildings that they attend school in. We 
have people--there are teachers in this country today conducting classes 
in broom closets. That's how bad it is. So we've got to win that. That's 
a big issue.
    The next Congress--this year we saved off this ill-advised election-
year tax cut with the first surplus we've had in 29 years so we could 
reform Social Security. Now, when all us baby boomers get in the 
retirement system, there will only be two people drawing for every one 
person--two people working for every one person drawing Social Security. 
To most of us, it won't make any difference. I've got a better pension

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than most Americans will have. Most Americans don't have a big pension. 
So we're trying to make it easier for them to save. But today, half the 
seniors in this country are living above the poverty line only because 
of Social Security.
    Now, we've got to change the system. The system we have now will not 
support itself when there are only two people working for every one 
person drawing. It simply won't. Now, if we start now, we take this 
surplus and some portion of the surpluses we expect in the years ahead 
and make modest reforms, we can extend the life of Social Security so 
that the baby boomers can retire in dignity without bankrupting their 
kids. If we squander the money now or just avoid the tough decisions 
now, we'll have some really tough decisions to make in a few years. And 
there will only be two choices. We can either lower the standard of 
living of retirees, which will kill our consciences, or we can maintain 
the standard of living with a broken system by raising taxes on our kids 
in a way that undermines their ability to raise our grandkids. This is a 
huge issue.
    And one reason you ought to vote for her is because she will vote, 
A, to change it, but she'll do it in a way that is humane and decent. 
And she won't throw all this money away that you've worked so hard to 
get us out of debt in--with.
    One other issue--I'll just mention one other. There are lots of 
them, but one other--I've had two people at these events tonight come up 
and mention it to me. We have a lot at stake in America in the success 
of the global economy. No country has benefited more, and no State has 
done better in the last 6 years than California, because of our ability 
to trade with Asia, our ability to trade with Latin America. Now, you 
all know there are a lot of troubles out there. Some of it's just pure 
growing pains, and nobody has good times all the time. Some of it's just 
the cycle of things. But a lot of it is the direct result of the fact 
that in addition to global trade and global investment, the global flow 
of money has grown so rapidly and in such sweeping volumes. Now over one 
trillion dollars a day crosses national borders--over a trillion dollars 
a day--a lot of it in highly leveraged instruments where people only put 
up a small percentage of what it is they're investing. A vast amount of 
funds cross national borders every day just betting for and against 
national currencies.
    This is all, frankly, necessary. If you want to have high volumes of 
investment, if you want to have high volumes of trade, if you want to 
have high volumes of travel, if you want all that, you've got to have 
some way of moving money around.
    But the system that has--we have modified over the last 50 years is 
not adequate to keep the global economy growing and going without 
running the risk of the kind of boom/bust cycles that used to afflict 
countries before the Great Depression. After the Great Depression, the 
United States, Europe, Japan, every country figured out how to avoid it 
ever happening again. It's never happened. We have not had another Great 
Depression, have we? We had some stiff recessions. We had some bad 
times. But never did the wheel run off.
    What we have to do is to devise a system for the global financial 
movement that will get the benefit of this money moving around without 
the risk of total collapse that you see affecting some of the countries 
in Asia and elsewhere. Now, it's not an easy thing. I think it's 
inconceivable we'll be able to do all that without having somebody help 
in Congress.
    So these are just some things I want you to think about. These are 
big issues. There are some other things that are easier to understand. I 
tried to get the Congress this year to raise the minimum wage. Why? 
Because the minimum wage is 5 bucks and 15 cents an hour, and you can't 
raise a family on it. And when you've got low unemployment and low 
inflation and the rest of us are doing pretty well, that's the time when 
you ought to raise it.
    I tried to pass legislation to protect children from the dangers of 
tobacco. Why? Because it's the biggest public health problem in the 
country for kids. And it's a huge issue. I tried to pass campaign 
finance reform so you wouldn't have to go to so many of these dinners 
every year. [Laughter] And, you know, there are a lot of things to be 
done.
    Now, the last thing I want to say is this--what Barbra said. I want 
you to focus on this, just because--and I want to thank Barbra Streisand 
because she said she's going on the Internet to try to get people to 
vote. It is generally accepted now that our agenda this year is the 
winning agenda; that the American people support what we're trying to 
do; they believe in this; that they believe that we ought to be a force 
for peace and freedom around the world.

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They support us stopping another Bosnia from happening in Kosovo. They 
support us being involved in the peace process in Ireland and in the 
Middle East. They support these domestic agenda items that--saving 
Social Security and more classrooms and the Patients' Bill of Rights.
    The difficulty is that almost without exception when you have an 
election for Congress and you don't have an election for President, you 
get a big drop in the turnout. And a lot of our folks don't go--lower 
income working women that have a big enough hassle every day to figure 
out how to get the kids to child care, to school, and get to work; or 
inner-city residents who have to ride a bus to work every day, and the 
polling place is not on the bus route coming home. And just a lot of 
things happen. And a lot of people just don't think it's that big a 
deal. I'm telling you, this is a big deal. It is a big deal.
    And so what I would like to ask you to do is to think about what you 
could do between now and a week from Tuesday. Is there an interview you 
could do? Is there--who do you come in contact with? Everybody you come 
in contact with at work or socializing or in any other way, that you 
could tell--this is a big deal, and they need to show up.
    This election, in its potential significance, is like a Presidential 
election because these issues will shape the way we live for a long time 
to come. And we don't live in a dictatorship. So the President doesn't 
call all the shots. A lot of this has to be done by Congress and the 
President working together. Now, I just can't tell you how important it 
is.
    But let me ask you to think about this when I close. The most 
heartbreaking thing that's happened in the last several days in America, 
I think, that's really seared the heart of the country, was the death of 
that young man out in Wyoming. And I called to talk to his parents and 
his brother--hard to think of what to say. And it moved us all because 
you see the picture of this fine looking young guy, this intelligent, 
vital young man with his whole life before him. And it appears that he 
was taken out by people who thought he didn't belong. So it offended our 
common sense of humanity.
    You all stood up and clapped for me, and I appreciated that, over 
this Middle East peace thing. But, you know, I felt lucky to be doing 
that. I loved it, even the ugly parts, the tough parts, and the long 
nights. That's what I hired on to do. That's why I ran for President. 
That's the kind of thing I wanted to do. I felt so fortunate to have 
been given the chance to do that.
    And I might add, it's easier for the honest broker than it is for 
the parties. You see--I think Mr. Netanyahu has gotten some unfair 
criticism in this country for being too tough in the negotiating. If 
you've been watching the news today of what he's facing in Israel, you 
see that he has to bear the consequences of the commitments he made. 
Now, he made a good deal for his country. It will increase their 
security. It is a very good deal. But he's got a hill to climb to sell 
it to the people that are part of his coalition.
    I think Mr. Arafat made a good deal for the Palestinians. It will 
help them with land. It will help them with the economy. But I'll 
guarantee you, there are people who don't want peace who will try to 
take him out over it.
    But why did you like that so much? Why did you stand up and clap? I 
mean, think about it. Why did you do that? Because you know these folks 
have been fighting each other a long time. And you know Netanyahu and 
Arafat, they're both real strong-willed, hard-headed guys, right, and 
they're not supposed to get along.
    And you think about the wreckage all of that estrangement has 
wrought. And you think, God, maybe it will be different now. And here 
are these people who reached across this divide and decided they'd hold 
hands and jump off this high dive together. And it makes you feel 
bigger, doesn't it? It makes you feel more alive. It gives you energy. 
It gives you hope. It sort of chips away all those layers of cynicism 
that we carry around encrusted on us all the time. Why? Because it's 
just the opposite of the murder of young Mr. Shepard. It reaffirms our 
common humanity. That's why we like it.
    Now, what's that got to do with this election and Barbara Boxer? 
I'll tell you what. I made a decision to run for President in 1991 
because I thought that we were not doing what we should do to prepare 
for this new century; because I wanted everybody to have an opportunity 
to live up to the fullest of their God-given abilities; because I wanted 
our country to be a better force for peace and freedom and prosperity 
for other people, as well ourselves; because I wanted America to be one 
community across all these various lines that

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divide us and all the crazy ways we're cut up; and because I thought 
Washington was a place where people were more interested in politics and 
power than in people and progress. And I thought the rhetoric coming out 
of there sounded like a broken record that gave me a headache. And I 
have done my best for 6 years to reconcile the American people to each 
other, to move this country forward, to bring it together, to make the 
world a better place.
    In all that, I have succeeded more than I have succeeded in changing 
the dominant rhetoric and modus operandi of Washington. But Lord knows I 
have tried. And if we had a few more people like Barbara Boxer, then we 
could produce more days in Washington which would make you feel the way 
you did when you saw Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chairman Arafat up 
there saying, ``Oh Lord, I don't know if I can do this, but I'm going to 
take a big leap and try.''
    I'm telling you, if you look at the people in this room, you will 
come in contact with tens of thousands of people, directly or 
indirectly, maybe millions if you do the Net, between now and election 
day. I thank you for your money. We'll put it up on the air. But you can 
have an even bigger impact if you don't let one person go without 
looking them in the eye and telling them their country needs them to 
show up on November 3d.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 10 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to entertainer Barbra Streisand, who introduced the 
President; dinner hosts Robert A. Daly and Carole Bayer Sager; singer 
Carole King; Senator Boxer's husband, Stuart, their son, Doug, their 
daughter, Nicole, and son-in-law, Tony Rodham, and their grandson, 
Zachary Rodham; murder victim Matthew Shepard's parents, Dennis and 
Judy, and his brother, Logan; Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of 
Israel; and Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority.