[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book II)]
[October 30, 1998]
[Pages 1925-1929]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the Clergy in Jamaica, New York
October 30, 1998

    Thank you so much. Please be seated. Dr. Walker, Dr. Forbes, 
``Reverend'' McCall--[laughter]--he was doing pretty good, wasn't he? 
Bishop Quick; Reverend Sharpton; my good friend Congressman Schumer and 
his wife, Iris, and their daughter, Jessica; I think Congressman Towns 
is here. President Fernando Ferrer, the Bronx Borough president; 
Virginia Fields, I think, may be here, the Manhattan Borough president; 
Judith Hope, our State chair. I'd like to thank the St. Paul Community 
Baptist Church Choir for singing Red Foley's old hymn for me. Thank you 
very much; it was quite wonderful.
    When I was a little boy, I used to listen to Mahalia Jackson sing 
that song. And when I was a young man and living in England, I went to 
the Royal Albert Hall in London to hear Mahalia Jackson sing, not long 
before she died. It was 29 years ago, and it was an amazing thing. She 
was singing ``Precious Lord.'' At the end of her concert, there were all 
these young people like me there--but most of them weren't like me, most 
of them were British; they didn't grow up listening to all this, you 
know. And these kids stormed the stage at the end, almost like she was a 
rock star. They were five and six deep, screaming for her to keep 
singing.
    And you reminded me of all that just a moment ago, and I thank you 
for that. Weren't they wonderful? [Applause] They were great. Thank you.
    Let me say to all of you, I thank Carl McCall for his leadership and 
for what he said. I have tried to be a friend to all Americans, without 
regard to race or income or religion or standing in life. I am grateful 
that in an economy in which we have the lowest unemployment rate in 28 
years that the African-American poverty rate is the lowest we have ever 
measured. I am grateful that the tax credit that Congressman Schumer 
helped me pass in 1993, the earned-income tax credit, cutting the taxes 
of lower income working people, when put with the minimum wage, has 
lifted over one million African-Americans out of poverty through their 
own efforts of work.
    I am grateful to have had the chance to double the number of small-
business loans to African-Americans and dramatically increase support 
for historically black colleges; to have had the largest number of 
African-Americans serving in the Cabinet in my 2 administrations, by 
far, than any President, and 54--54--Federal judges.
    I say all that to make this point--maybe not as well as Dr. Forbes 
did. I don't seek any credit for that. It was an honor for me to do. It 
was something I wanted to do. It was a desire born of the life I have 
lived and the people I have known and the things I have seen that I like 
and the things I have seen that I deplored and the potential of people 
too long untapped that I was determined to do what I could to lift up. 
But it all happened because of the American system of democracy.
    Yesterday, all over America, all kinds of people were watching John 
Glenn go up in space at 77 years old--kind of made us all think we

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had something to look forward to--[laughter]--77 years old. But you may 
not have thought of this if you were sitting in front of your television 
watching that: How did he get up in space? Oh yes, a rocket took him, 
all right. He got up in space because the Congress of the United States 
and the President of the United States, over time, but especially in 
these last 6 years when we had such budget problems, supported a mission 
for the United States in space and believed that mission ought to have 
benefits for us here on Earth, whether it's learning about the 
environmental challenges we face or making advances in health care and 
prevention of health problems. In other words, at bottom, it was a 
citizen's decision. So if you voted for a Member of Congress who 
supported the changes we made in the space program but didn't want to 
shut it down, wanted to keep it going, then you had your hand on John 
Glenn when he went up in space yesterday. Now, that's what I want you to 
think about.
    A week ago today, I was in the White House with the Prime Minister 
of Israel and the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority announcing the 
next move forward in the Middle East peace process. And I'm very 
grateful for the nice things people said about the role that I played, 
but it was my job. It's what you hired me to do. And I wanted to do it 
because of what I know about what is going on, my heartbreak over the 
loss and my hope over the potential of the region which is the home to 
all three of the world's great monotheistic religions. But what I want 
you to know is that if you liked that last Friday and it made you feel 
good about your country, pushing for peace, if you supported me, then 
you were part of that peace process.
    And today we announced we had another good quarter of economic 
growth, and I outlined what I was going to try to do to help these 
countries in trouble around the world, because they buy our things. We 
live in a world anymore where it is not just our neighbors that have to 
do well, down the block, if we want to do well. Our neighbors around the 
world need to do well. If we want to bring opportunity back into the 
neighborhoods of New York City where it hasn't happened yet, we have to 
have some place that would be matched up with us as partners. So if they 
do well in the Caribbean, if they do well in Latin America, if we have 
closer relations with Africa, it actually will help us also to build up 
our own people--a lesson that those who study the Bible will not be 
surprised turned out to be true. But if you liked all that, if you 
supported me and my economic policies, you had a hand in it. It was your 
prosperity.
    I think of all the things Carl McCall has done as comptroller that 
no comptroller ever did before, all the people he tried to help--loans 
to 300 New York businesses, thousands of new jobs, millions available to 
women- and minority-owned businesses. Nobody ever did that before. In a 
real sense, it wasn't just him doing that. You did that. He's your hired 
hand, just like I am. We have nothing that the people of New York and 
the United States don't give us under the constitutions under which we 
labor.
    Mr. Schumer wants to be a Senator. New York has had some great 
Senators: Robert Wagner--so many years ago--the whole framework of our 
labor laws protecting the dignity of working people in the workplace; 
Herbert Lehman; Jacob Javits, a great Republican Senator; Senator 
Moynihan; Robert Kennedy. New York should have a Senator who can be very 
much in the mix of what needs to be done today and tomorrow, all the 
specific things, but also can help to lead the State and the Nation with 
a vision. He's that kind of person. I know him well, and I want you to 
help him.
    And if you think about this election, it's about choices--clear 
choices. And if you vote and if the people you know and love vote, and 
the things you want to have happen, happen, then it's not just those of 
us whom you elect doing it. It's you doing it. It's being Americans in 
the best sense and being rewarded in the highest sense.
    You know, we got some things done, some important things done, at 
the end of this last congressional session, but it's hard for 8 days of 
progress to overcome 8 months of partisanship. And if you look ahead, 
we've got the largest number of children in our schools we've ever had, 
for finally we've got more kids in school than when I was there in the 
baby boom generation--taking a big burden off our generation, I might 
add.
    But as a result--and more and more of these children are immigrant 
children. They come from families whose first language is not English. 
And more and more they find themselves in these great big classrooms 
where the teachers can't give them the individual attention

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they need. And we know now that the most important factor in having 
enduring learning gains for children, particularly if they're poor 
children, is to be in a small class in the early grades with a good 
teacher who can individually help them get off to a good start. So we 
said, we want 100,000 teachers in the early grades to take class size 
down to an average of 18 in the early grades.
    And then we've got all these wonderful old school buildings in New 
York with a lot of rooms and floors that aren't usable and that can't be 
hooked up to computers and things. And then we've got, in Florida and 
California, all these kids showing up and no buildings for them to be 
in. They're out in trailers out in the backyard somewhere, sometimes 
meeting in broom closets, literally. So we said we want to build or 
remodel 5,000 schools, because if you're going to hire the teachers and 
you've got the kids there anyway, they need someplace to meet. And this 
Congress said, ``No, no, no, we don't believe in that.'' But we believe 
in that. If we had a little more balance, just a few more Democrats, we 
could get 5,000 more schools for America. That's what this issue is.
    One hundred sixty million Americans are in managed care, and we may 
well have more in the future. A lot of seniors want to be in managed 
care programs for Medicare because then they get a prescription drug 
benefit. It's a big issue.
    I have never been opposed to the managed care concept because when I 
became President, the inflation rate in health care costs was 3 times as 
high as the inflation rate in the economy, and it was bankrupting 
businesses and individual senior citizens, and it threatened to consume 
the country. So we had to have a better management of the money we were 
putting into health care.
    But no management system should be allowed to swallow up the purpose 
of the endeavor. And today you've got people--heartbreaking people--who 
were denied the care they should have gotten because insurance company 
bureaucrats or accountants said, ``No, you can't have it.'' You have 
people who get hurt in an accident, and instead of going to the nearest 
hospital emergency room, they're carted halfway across town through a 
bunch of red lights and waiting because that's the one covered in their 
plan. You have people in a plan, and their employer changes plans when 
it expires, but the worker may be pregnant or the worker's spouse may be 
undergoing chemotherapy--to be told to change doctors in the middle of 
one of those streams.
    You ever had anybody in your family on chemotherapy? I have. You 
know, it's a scary thing. And families try to pull together, and they 
want to make light of it. We made a lot of jokes in my family when my 
mother was on chemotherapy. Was she going to lose her hair or not? If 
she did, would the wig look better than her hair? You know, you try to 
make them laugh. But the truth is, you're scared to death. And you 
wonder if the person you love is going to get so sick they won't be able 
to eat anymore. And then in the middle of that, if somebody had told us, 
``I'm sorry. We changed carriers. Now you have to change doctors,'' I 
don't know what I would have done. But it happens. And I could give you 
a lot of other examples.
    So we had this Patients' Bill of Rights. We said, look, we had 43 of 
these HMO's saying, ``Mr. President, you're right.'' We had a national 
commission of all kinds of people recommending this Patients' Bill of 
Rights. And we tried to pass it into law because it's not fair for some 
HMO's to do it and others not, and then the people that aren't behaving 
well to get rewarded by getting more customers who are healthy with 
lower prices.
    So we said, okay, everybody ought to--we're going to have a simple 
bill of rights for every patient. First of all, if your doctor tells you 
you ought to see a specialist, you can see one. Secondly, if you get 
hurt, you ought to go to the nearest emergency room. Thirdly, if you're 
having treatment that's serious, you ought to be able to finish it, even 
if your employer changes health care providers. Fourthly, your medical 
records ought to be kept private and not invaded. Finally, in essence, 
health care decisions ultimately should be made by health care 
professionals and patients, not by accountants. That's what we say.
    Now--[applause]--you like that? If we had just a little more balance 
in the Congress, a few more Democrats, we wouldn't get beat on that 
Patients' Bill of Rights. If we had a few more people like Chuck Schumer 
in the House and in the Senate, we could give the American people a 
Patients' Bill of Rights.
    And the same thing is true on Social Security. You've heard all this 
debate about saving Social

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Security. Well, if you're on Social Security, relax, you're okay. What 
we're talking about is the baby boomers are moving to retirement. When 
they all retire, there will only be two people working for every one 
person drawing Social Security. The Trust Fund will be out of money in 
2032, and we'll be into the Trust Fund in about 20 years. And if we make 
a few little changes now, modest changes, we can change and save this 
system in ways that we can all live with, and Social Security will be 
there.
    That's why I say, look, we waited 29 years to balance the books. 
I've worked for 6 years on it. And before the ink is even dry, the black 
ink, the leaders in the other party, they want to give it back in a tax 
cut before we save Social Security. Now it may be popular, but it's not 
right. It's not right--it is not right. We owe it to the next generation 
to make sure the baby boom generation can retire in dignity without 
having to put a whopping tax increase on their children and undermine 
their children's ability to raise their grandchildren.
    You know, I grew up with a bunch of people who were mostly middle 
class folks at home. A lot of them didn't go to college, out there 
working for a living. They could use any kind of tax cut they could get. 
They liked the ones we've provided already for child care and for 
education. And they'd like some more. But I don't know anybody my age 
that is not plagued with the notion that because we're such a large 
generation, our retirement will put unconscionable burdens on our 
children and our grandchildren.
    Now, that's what this whole ``save Social Security'' thing is about. 
The pastors here who look after the flock and think about the 
generation, who work all the time at getting all of us, your sheep, to 
think about the long run and not just what's in front of our nose--this 
is an issue that you can feel deeply. And this election is not an 
ordinary election because this is a generational thing. We have a few 
more people like Congressman Schumer in the Senate and the House--give a 
little more balance to this thing--we can save Social Security for the 
21st century.
    So again I say to you, people like Carl McCall and Chuck Schumer, Ed 
Towns, our whole ticket, none of them get there by accident. And when 
they get there and do good things, we're not doing it alone. Every good 
thing I ever did, you had a hand in if you helped me be President. The 
mistakes were my fault. The good stuff you had a hand in. Don't you 
forget about it. And that is true of Carl McCall; that is true of Chuck 
Schumer; that is true of every public official.
    Somebody asked me the other day, ``How did you ever get those folks 
to agree at the Wye Plantation after 8 days?'' I said I was determined 
to be the last one standing. [Laughter] We were up for 39 hours. I 
didn't do that in college; I'm too old to do it now. [Laughter] I kept 
thinking of all those Scripture verses, you know, ``Let us not grow 
weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose 
heart.'' I kept thinking, well, ``They who wait upon the Lord will mount 
up with wings--[laughter]--run and not grow weary; walk and faint not.'' 
I almost got to the end of that verse before we got peace the other day. 
[Laughter]
    Now, on Tuesday the people that we need to be there, a lot of them 
will be tired. A lot of them will be hassled. A lot of them don't make 
much money. A lot of them have enough trouble just figuring out how to 
get the kids to child care or school and get back and forth from work 
and get the kids home and ever have everybody in one piece by dinner 
time. And America is one of the countries--still--votes on a work day. 
It's a real hassle for them. A lot of them depend on mass transit to get 
back and forth to work, and the voting place is not on the same bus line 
or the same subway route. It's a hassle. Just remember, everybody that 
doesn't show can't gripe Wednesday morning. And everybody that does show 
is then a part of every good thing that flows from their decision if 
they're in the majority.
    I want you to think about how you want to feel Wednesday morning. 
And I want you to think about it. If you felt good during the Middle 
East peace process, if you felt good when John Glenn went up into space, 
if you felt good when I was able to tell you we were going to get 
100,000 new teachers, if you felt good when I talked about those 54 
Federal judges, if you believe in your heart that you have been a part 
of my Presidency--and I tell you, you have; I wouldn't be here without 
you--then I ask you this one thing: Realize that this, too, is an 
important election; that it is not an ordinary time, it is therefore not 
an ordinary election; that what happens, all these people who will win 
races on Tuesday, will be a direct result

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not only of how you vote but, even more importantly, whether you vote.
    You will come in contact with thousands of people between now and 
then. And when the Scripture said that we are all admonished to render 
unto Caesar those things which are Caesar's--well, I'm not Caesar, and 
we're not a dictatorship or an empire, but you know what the Bible 
means. It's more today. When that Scripture was written, all that meant 
was, pay your taxes. Nobody had a vote--nobody had a vote. Today you've 
got the vote. You can actually be in the driver's seat. There is no 
Caesar without you--[laughter]--unless you sit it out.
    Our adversaries, they think a whole bunch of you will stay home. 
They know it's going to be a hassle. They know it will be an effort. But 
you just remember every good thing that you've felt good about in the 
last 6 years. And you think about how you want to feel Wednesday 
morning.
    We need to reelect Carl McCall, and all America needs to know about 
Carl McCall, not just New York. All America needs to know about Carl. We 
need to send Chuck Schumer to the Senate because all America, and not 
just New York, needs that. We need to get that balance back in our 
Congress so we can do some of these things that we can't get done now. 
But it all depends on you. It all depends on you.
    I am more grateful than you will ever know for the friendship and 
the support of the people of New York, to me, to my wife, to my Vice 
President, to our administration; for the friendship and support of the 
African-American community, and especially the clergy. But the thing 
about this kind of work is, you never get to stop--you never get to 
stop.
    In the last week we've had a lot to celebrate. You had your hand on 
John Glenn's shoulder. You had your prayers answered about the continued 
process of peace. You can think about your children's future with 
100,000 more teachers. But there are huge fights out there left to 
fight--huge. And we need you.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 4:45 p.m. in Ballrooms B and C at the 
Ramada Plaza Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to human rights activist 
Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, pastor, Canaan Baptist Church of Christ; Rev. 
James Forbes, pastor, Riverside Church; H. Carl McCall, New York State 
comptroller; Bishop Norman Quick, pastor, Childs Memorial Temple, Church 
of God in Christ; civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton; Prime Minister 
Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel; and Chairman Yasser Arafat of the 
Palestinian Authority.