    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
    [February 2, 1999]
    [Pages 140-143]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Luncheon in Boston,
    Massachusetts
    February 2, 1999

        Thank you very much. Up to this point, I've had a great time here
    today. I could have listened to this go on forever. I want to say to all
    those here, to Elaine and to Alan and everyone who worked on this event; to Governor
    Romer and Len Barrack
    and all of those--to Joe Andrew and others
    who will carry on with the Democratic Party; to Joan Menard and Mayor Menino; and
    especially to Senator Kennedy, Senator
    Kerry, Congressmen Moakley and Meehan and
    McGovern and Tierney, Capuano, and the other
    members of the delegation, how profoundly grateful I am to be here; how
    grateful I am for every occasion in which I have come to Boston or the
    State of Massachusetts since 1991; for the kindness and support that you
    have given to me, to Hillary, to the Vice President, to all of us; for
    being the State which has consistently given the Clinton-Gore team the
    highest percentage of the popular vote; for sticking with the agenda
    that we have set forth for America and sending a magnificent
    congressional delegation. I am very grateful.
        This morning, Hillary asked me what I was going to do in Boston, and
    I said, ``Oh, I'm going up there to canonize Steve Grossman.''
    [Laughter] And she said, ``Bill, don't say that. That's the wrong
    religion.'' [Laughter] But that's basically what we've done. [Laughter]
    And every word deserved.
        When I met Steve many years ago, and he
    was running APEC and I was a young Governor trying to learn about the
    complexities of the Middle East, I never could have dreamed that I would
    become so heavily involved in the peace process there, that I would have
    the opportunity to do what we have been able to do, to move it forward.
        You know, when you think about the condition of the Democratic Party
    when Steve became chairman and you think
    about some of the difficulties we've faced in the Middle East--if you
    sort of assume that he helped give me the Presidency and I helped give
    him the Democratic Party, it's hard to imagine who got the better deal
    on some days. [Laughter] I think neither of us would trade the
    opportunity and the challenge for anything. And so, again, I just want
    to say thank you.
        Let me also say that there is another reason that we did as well as
    we did in 1998, and that is that we stood for something, for all the
    American people, and for all kinds of Americans. I just want to mention
    one other person who

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    is here; I can't resist. Her presence here, I understand, is a birthday
    present. And tomorrow Rosina Grattaroti
    will celebrate her 90th birthday. I'd like to ask her to stand up. Where
    are you? There she is. [Applause] Happy birthday. I asked Mayor Menino
    if he knew her; he said, ``Yes, she comes from an old Irish family in
    town.'' [Laughter]
        But let me say to all of you, in 1992 you gave me a chance to try to
    lead this country in a new direction, based on old values. I said over
    and over again--sometimes to suspicious audiences--that I wanted the
    Democratic Party to go back to its old values with new ideas; that our
    mission would always be to provide opportunity to all Americans, to call
    forth all citizens to a sense of responsibility, and to give us a real
    sense of community.
        I still think if there is one idea that sort of often divides us
    from our friends in the Republican Party, it is our passionate belief in
    community, the idea that we are interdependent, that none of us is
    better than any other, that we can never fulfill our complete destiny as
    individuals and families unless we live in a country which is giving
    everybody the chance to do it, and we're all working together. And
    increasingly, we know that to be true about the larger world beyond our
    borders.
        In 1996, because the country had done well, I asked the American
    people to give us a chance to finish the job and build our bridge to the
    21st century. And with Massachusetts leading the way, they did. In 1998,
    what did we say to the American people? What was the difference
    historically? This is not rocket science. Steve Grossman and all of our team, people like him all across America
    who followed his lead, went out and said, ``You cannot let this party be
    destroyed. We must rebuild it financially, and we must remember what we
    stand for.''
        And then we went to the American people in 1998, and we never did
    say, until after the election was over, ``Hey, did you know it's been
    since 1822 that the party of the President actually picked up seats in
    the House of Representatives in a 6th-year election? And wouldn't you
    like to make history?''
        That's not what we said. What did we say? ``Elect us. We will save
    Social Security first. We will pass the Patients' Bill of Rights. We'll
    be for world-class education. We'll keep our economy going. We'll keep
    pulling the American people together. We have an agenda that will build
    America for all the citizens who live here.'' That's what this is about.
        There is a lot of energy in our party today, because we have a
    mission for the American people; because we believe in opportunity and
    responsibility; because we believe, at root, in the idea of an American
    community; because we have never sought political power except to
    advance those ideals, not for ourselves but for others. And that is the
    secret that Steve Grossman brought to the
    United States, with all the other Democrats, that resulted in the
    election victories in '98.
        And it is now our obligation to fulfill the mandate we were given by
    the people. That's what the State of the Union Address was all about. So
    when you leave here today, grateful to Steve Grossman, what you should really be grateful for is that because
    of his labors, we have made it more likely that we will save Social
    Security and Medicare and that in the process of doing it we will lift
    from the children--the grandchildren of the baby boomers--an enormous
    financial burden, which will free them to pursue their own destinies;
    that we will do it by saving most of the surplus, and that will enable
    us to pay down the national debt.
        If anybody had come before you in 1992 and said, ``Vote for me for
    President; in a few years we'll be paying down the national debt,'' you
    would have given them a quick exit home. You'd have thought, that guy's
    been, you know, chewing on funny reeds or something. [Laughter] But we
    will--if this proposal is adopted--listen to this: In 1981 our national
    debt was 26 percent of our annual income. In 1992, when I took office,
    our national debt was 50 percent of our national income. It's now down
    to 44 and dropping fast.
        If our proposal for Social Security and Medicare is adopted, to save
    the surplus for those purposes and to buy into publicly held debt, it
    will go to its lowest point since 1917, before World War II, and we will
    be on our way to guaranteeing our children and our grandchildren a
    generation of low interest rates, strong economy, investment
    opportunities, education opportunities, and a brighter future for
    America in the 21st century. We ought to do this. That is what we were
    elected to do.
        The mayor and I and the many members of
    the congressional delegation, when we leave

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    here we are going to a school, because it symbolizes the future that we
    fought for. And I will say again what I said to you in the State of the
    Union Address: We should invest more money in education, but we should
    spend it more wisely. We should spend it on what we know works and stop
    financing what we know doesn't.
        We ought to say to all of our schools: We want to spend more money
    for better trained teachers. We want to hire 100,000 more teachers and
    make sure they're well trained. We want to build or modernize 5,000
    schools because we're tired of our kids going to schools where they
    spend all day in a housetrailer because it's so overcrowded, or they go
    to a school that's so broken down, we can't even hook it up to the
    Internet because the school won't take the connection.
        We want to say there ought to be certain rules in every school, no
    social promotion. But don't say the kids are failing when the system is
    failing them. That's why this budget triples funding for after-school
    and summer school programs that will lift student achievement and lift
    kids up and give them a chance to make the most of their own lives.
        We ought to say even though America is doing very well, there are
    still neighborhoods not very far from here that aren't doing so well.
    There are still people who haven't been part of this economic recovery.
    Four of our 10 largest cities have cut their unemployment rate in half
    since 1992, but there are still neighborhoods in almost every large city
    where the unemployment rate is high. There are rural areas in my part of
    the country, in the Mississippi Delta or in Appalachia or in south
    Texas, there are Native American communities which have felt almost no
    positive impact from this great wave of economic recovery.
        In the State of the Union Address I set forth a whole series of
    initiatives that could put $15 billion, not of Government money but
    private sector money into our inner cities and our rural areas to create
    businesses and jobs and hope. Now, this is the best economy we've had in
    a generation, maybe ever. We will never have a better time to bring the
    American dream to poor people who are willing to work hard. If we can't
    do it now, we will never do it, and we ought to do it now.
        We also were elected by a large and growing number of Americans of
    all ages who are concerned about environmental issues but do not wish to
    give up the promise of economic growth. We have proved that you can make
    the air and water cleaner, that you can preserve more land, that you can
    restore more brownfields in cities and still grow this economy. A big
    part of our agenda is a livability and lands legacy agenda to help
    cities deal with traffic problems--you never have them in Boston--
    [laughter]--to help them clean up more brownfields, to help save more
    city parks, and set aside more isolated, irreplaceable places all over
    America. This, too, is an important part of what it means to be an
    American--living in harmony with our natural environment and growing our
    economy.
        And finally, someone mentioned City Year earlier, and I noticed
    there was a smattering of applause. One of the proudest moments of my
    life was when, along with the pen that President Kennedy used to sign
    the bill creating the Peace Corps, we created AmeriCorps, the national
    service program. Senator Kennedy was there
    with me, other members of the delegation were. And since then there have
    been 100,000 young people, in only 4 years, serve in AmeriCorps.
        I went home to Arkansas last week to see the tornado damage. Both
    the communities I visited, there were young AmeriCorps kids there from
    New York, New Jersey, California, Colorado--believe me, they never would
    have gone there before--helping people, learning things, sharing their
    lives. There were kids that went to Ivy League schools and kids that
    dropped out of high school. There were kids who came from wealthy
    families and kids who came from families on welfare all working
    together, pulling this country together, doing something to make America
    a better place. It is the embodiment of what we believe our public and
    political life ought to be all about.
        So I say to you, I'm glad we won this election. I am grateful to
    Steve Grossman. But he would say to you--and
    I know he will say to you--we have to deliver. We have to deliver. We
    have to save Social Security and Medicare. We should pay down this debt.
    We should bring economic opportunity to other areas that haven't felt
    it. We should make world-class education the province of every American
    child. We can do these things. We can do it if we do it together.

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        Massachusetts, as much as any place, Boston, as much as any city in
    America, gave this administration the chance to bring that hope, that
    message, and that reality to the American people. I will never forget
    you. I will certainly never forget Steve Grossman. I am grateful. Now it's time to stand and deliver.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:05 p.m. in the Arlington Room at the Park
    Plaza Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to event cochairs Elaine
    Schuster and Alan D. Solomont; Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado, general
    chair, Leonard Barrack, national finance chair, Joseph J. Andrew,
    national chair-designate, and Steve Grossman, national chair, Democratic
    National Committee; Joan M. Menard, Massachusetts State Democratic Party
    chair; and Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston.