    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
    [March 23, 1999]
    [Pages 427-436]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Legislative Convention of the American Federation of
    State, County, and Municipal Employees
    March 23, 1999

        The President. I ought to be late more often. [Laughter] Well, let
    me thank you for the wonderful welcome. And Gerry, Bill, Glenn, Charles, Caryl, ladies and gentlemen, it was--it's hard to believe--
    it's been 7 years ago when I first began talking to Gerry and Bill and
    other members of your union. I spent about 5 minutes with Gerry McEntee,
    and I thought, boy, this is going to be a hard sell. [Laughter] But I
    also thought to myself, I believe this guy would be for me; he'd stick.
    And boy does he stick. [Laughter] I tell you.
        Even though I was a dues-paying member of AFSCME when I was
    Governor, I never--therefore, I knew who Gerry McEntee was, you know, and I sort of felt like I was getting my
    money's worth. [Laughter] There are a lot of things I didn't know--like,
    I never knew why green was the official color of AFSCME, until I saw the
    smile on McEntee's face on Saint Patrick's Day. [Laughter] And I
    realized that was not a democratically arrived-at decision. [Laughter]
    And being Irish, I liked it that way.
        In a way, public employees and the Irish are a lot alike. They're
    integral to everything that's

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    really important in our country, and both have had to fight real hard to
    get the necessary respect in the United States. And so I came here also
    to say thank you, thank you, thank you. I should be thanking you, not
    the other way around. All I did was what I told you I would do, but if
    you hadn't helped me, I wouldn't have been here in the first place. And
    I thank you.
        I would also like to remind you that we have almost 25 percent of
    the life of this administration still left, and it ought to be the best
    part for America if we do the right things.
        Now, you all know why I'm late today. I've been in a meeting with a
    very large number of Members of Congress in both Houses and both
    parties, including the leadership, to talk about the problem in Kosovo.
    And one of the Members who was there, a man from my part of the country,
    he said, ``You know, Mr. President, I support your policy, but most of
    my folks couldn't find Kosovo on a map. They don't know where it is, and
    they never thought about it before it appeared on CNN. And you need to
    tell people what you're doing there and why--why it's important to us.''
        So I need to talk about that today. But I also need to talk about
    the domestic issues that we're working on, about Social Security, about
    Medicare, about education. And so I would like to begin by going back to
    1992 and to try to ask you to do something that most of the time I can't
    persuade the American people to do, which is to think about our foreign
    policy and our domestic policy as two sides of the same coin in a world
    that is growing smaller and smaller and more and more interconnected.
        Most Americans think about politics in terms of putting bread on the
    table, educating their children, owning a home, being able to have
    health care, looking forward to a secure retirement, dealing maybe with
    environmental issues that are immediate and real, like clean air and
    clean water. And we're all that way about everything, even our own jobs.
    The further something gets away from us, the harder it is for us to
    imagine that it is directly important to us.
        But when I ran for President in 1992, one of the things I said over
    and over and over again was that in the 21st century the dividing line
    between foreign and domestic policy would blur. Now, I'd like to just
    take you back 7 years to what ideas I brought to this job, talk a little
    bit about this matter in Kosovo, and then move into the domestic issues
    that we're so concerned about that are being debated in the Congress
    now.
        I ran for President in 1991 and 1992 because I believed our country
    lacked a unifying vision and strategy for 21st century America. And I
    knew what I wanted America to look like and to be like. I wanted an
    America where the American dream was alive and well for every citizen
    responsible enough to work for it. With all of our increasing diversity
    in America, I wanted an America that really reaffirmed the idea of
    community, of belonging; the idea that none of us can pursue our
    individual destinies as fully on our own as we can when we want our
    neighbors to do well, too; and that there is some concrete benefit to
    the idea of community that goes beyond just feeling good about living in
    a country where you're not discriminated against because of some
    condition or predisposition or anything else that has nothing to do with
    the law and nothing to do with how your neighbors live their lives; and
    that what we have in common is more important than what divides us.
        I still believe that's going to be one of the major questions facing
    this country in the 21st century, which is why I devoted so much time to
    that initiative on race, and why I keep fighting for passage of the hate
    crimes legislation, the employment nondiscrimination legislation--all
    these things. Because I am telling you, you look all over the world--
    that's what Kosovo's about--look all over the world. People are still
    killing each other out of primitive urges because they think what is
    different about them is more important than what they have in common.
        So I wanted a country where opportunity was real for every
    responsible citizen. I wanted a country where community was real and we
    were growing closer together, not further apart. And I wanted America to
    be a leading force in the world for peace and freedom and prosperity in
    a world that was becoming more of a community, where we were sharing
    more burdens and responsibilities.
        And so I set to work. And at home, I had an economic policy that was
    partly domestic and partly foreign. The economic policy was: fix the
    budget, get the deficit down, get interest rates down, get investment
    up, create jobs, grow the economy, invest in education and technology,
    so everybody could be a part of it. And, since

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    we were only 4 percent of the world's population, with 22 percent of its
    income, we had to sell more around the world if we wanted to keep
    growing our economy. And we worked hard at that for 6 years now with, I
    think, nearly everybody would admit, reasonably good results, although
    we have more to do. And I'll say more about that in a minute.
        In foreign policy, what I wanted to do is to say, look, okay, the
    cold war is over, but we're more interconnected with all parts of the
    world than ever before. How are we going to create a world that is more
    peaceful, prosperous, and free?
        Now, one of the things that we had to do was to look at Europe. Why?
    Because the whole 20th century is, in large measure, the story of
    slaughter that started in Europe. World War I started in the Balkans--in
    Bosnia, next door to Kosovo. World War II engulfed the Balkans. The cold
    war saw the Balkans, where Kosovo is, at the edge of the Communist
    empire and the clash of Slavic civilization with European Muslims and
    others. Now, if we have learned anything after the cold war, and our
    memories of World War II, it is that if our country is going to be
    prosperous and secure, we need a Europe that is safe, secure, free,
    united, a good partner with us for trading--they're wealthy enough to
    buy our products--and someone who will share the burdens of taking care
    of the problems of the world.
        We're working hard to have that kind of Europe. I supported the
    union of the European countries, economically, the union of Germany. I
    supported very strongly the expansion of NATO. Next month we're going to
    have all these countries come here; we'll have the largest number of
    world leaders ever assembled in Washington, DC, next month for the 50th
    anniversary of the NATO summit. And we're bringing in Poland, Hungary,
    and the Czech Republic.
        And I supported the idea that the United States, Canada, and our
    European allies had to take on the new security challenges of Europe of
    the 21st century, including all these ethnic upheavals on their border.
    Why? Because if this domestic policy is going to work, we have to be
    free to pursue it. And if we're going to have a strong economic
    relationship that includes our ability to sell around the world, Europe
    has got to be a key. And if we want people to share our burdens of
    leadership with all the problems that will inevitably crop up, Europe
    needs to be our partner.
        Now, that's what this Kosovo thing is all about. And so I want to
    talk to you about Kosovo today, but just remember this: It's about our
    values. What if someone had listened to Winston Churchill and stood up
    to Adolph Hitler earlier? How many people's lives might have been saved?
    And how many American lives might have been saved? What if someone had
    been working on the powder keg that exploded World War I, which claimed
    more lives than World War II for most European countries. What would
    have happened? What if we had not been there in the cold war, when it
    cost Americans a lot of money to go over there and to say, okay, we're
    not going to let communism go any further--what do you think would have
    happened? And wouldn't we have been drawn into another war that would
    have been a shooting war? And wouldn't more Americans have died? And
    wouldn't it have cost even more?
        What I want you to think about--you may not know a great deal about
    Kosovo, and I'll try to talk a little about that today--but I want you
    to see this in terms of the big picture. I want our children to have a
    Europe--I want this young girl here to grow up in a world that is safer
    and more secure and more prosperous. To get that done, we need a Europe
    that is undivided, democratic, and free. I want us to live in a world
    where we get along with each other, with all of our differences, and
    where we don't have to worry about seeing scenes every night for the
    next 40 years of ethnic cleansing in some part of the world.
        I have worked against ethnic and religious warfare in Africa, in
    Asia, in the Middle East, in Northern Ireland. But today its most
    virulent manifestation is right there in Europe. So that is what I am
    trying to do here. I don't ask you to agree with every decision I make.
    I am responsible for it; if I turn out to be wrong, I bear the
    responsibility for that. But you have to understand what the big picture
    here is.
        There are three big obstacles to an undivided, democratic, free
    Europe that is totally secure. One is, we've got to build the right kind
    of partnership with Russia, and we've got to help them come back
    economically. They have kept their democracy alive. They are suffering
    terribly, economically. Some of it, of course, is like everybody else's
    problems. Some of it's their own doing, some of it beyond their control.

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    We've got a big stake in that. They've got 40,000 scientists that were
    part of their cold war arsenal. We'd like them to be doing peaceful,
    good things, not bartering their services to other countries to cause
    trouble. So it's in our immediate interest, and they could be great
    partners for us, economically and otherwise.
        The second is the problem of Greece and Turkey. Why should that
    matter to you, unless you're Greek or Turk? Because Turkey has been a
    moderate Muslim state, a buffer between the West and radical,
    revolutionary--and I think, perverted--theories of Islam that are
    bubbling up in the Middle East, which is right next door. And we've got
    a lot of difficulties working all that out. We've got to keep working
    until we get it done.
        And the third is all this turmoil in the Balkans, where all of it
    comes together. And I'll try to explain it, so you can understand what
    we're trying to do. But there is a humanitarian reason why I believe we
    need to take a stand there; there is a practical reason. If we don't do
    it now, we'll have to do it later. More people will die, and it will
    cost more money. And there is a long-term, strategic reason for the
    United States: Our children need a stable, free Europe.
        Okay. So let me just go through the facts. The leader of Serbia,
    after the cold war ended and Yugoslavia began to break up--keep in mind,
    Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, all these places were part of
    Yugoslavia. Tito dies; the cold war ends; Yugoslavia begins to break up.
    There are Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians, Montenegrins, and
    Hungarians, all kinds of different ethnic groups in what was the former
    Yugoslavia. They also--the Croats are basically Roman Catholic,
    predominantly. The Serbs are basically Orthodox Christian; they're part
    of the Greek and Russian and other Eastern Orthodox Churches. The
    Bosnians have all three ethnic groups, but there are a lot of Muslims in
    Bosnia; and the Kosovar Albanians are predominantly Muslim. And so there
    was a religious and ethnic difference there.
        Now, the source of the problem has been that the leader of
    Serbia has tried to dominate the former
    Yugoslavia by starting wars in Croatia and Bosnia in the last decade and
    stripping from Kosovo, which is legally a part of Serbia but
    constitutionally autonomous--it means they're entitled to self-
    government and to preserve their culture, their religion, their
    institutions. He sought to reassert his authority by starting wars in
    Croatia, wars with Bosnia, and repressing the autonomy of the Kosovars.
        Now, you know we had a lot of problems there over the last year, and
    there were all these refugees building up in Kosovo, just like you saw
    in Bosnia a few years ago--ethnic cleansing, people being driven out of
    their villages and their homes. You've been seeing it on television, if
    you've been watching, the houses being burned and all that.
        We negotiated a cease-fire last year--late last year--that saved
    thousands of people from starvation and freezing because they'd left
    their homes and they'd gone up into the mountains and the winter was
    coming. And we did it because we were not just the United States; it was
    we and our NATO Allies, and Russia supported us. And we said, ``Look,
    here's the deal.'' And NATO said, ``We'll use force if you don't do
    this.'' So they withdrew some of their security forces, and the thing
    calmed down, and we got some folks back in their homes. And we thought
    we were on the way to getting this solved.
        Then the tensions flared again recently--another 30,000 refugees,
    people being driven from their homes and villages. So we had this peace
    conference in Rambouillet, in France, just a few days ago, in March,
    that had the potential to end the fighting for good. But we had to get
    both sides to sign it. And like any fight, you know, nobody is totally
    pure and everybody has got their own axe to grind. But the Kosovar
    Albanians signed the agreement last week. They signed the agreement last
    week. Even though it doesn't give them everything they want--they wanted
    a referendum on their own independence, as opposed to autonomy, I think
    largely because even though they are afraid they may be too small and
    economically weak to be an independent country, they're afraid that the
    Serbs will never honor their autonomy. But they didn't get that. Even
    though their people are still being savaged, in violation of the
    agreement that Mr. Milosevic made, they
    still said a just peace is better than a long and unwinnable war.
        Milosevic, on the other hand, President Milosevic refused even to
    discuss key elements of the agreement. The Kosovars said yes to peace;
    Serbia put 40,000 troops and 300 tanks in and around Kosovo. Now, if
    you've been watching on the television, you know they've

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    now started rolling from village to village, predominantly in north
    central Kosovo, shelling civilians, torching their homes so they can't
    come back. In a number of villages, Serbian police have dragged the male
    members of Kosovar families from their homes, lined up fathers with
    sons, and shot them in cold blood.
        This is not a traditional war. It is a conflict between artillery
    and heavy weapons, on the one hand, against essentially a guerrilla war
    for independence. And when the guerrillas disappear, the Kosovar
    guerrillas, what the Serbian police and military do is come in and just
    take it out on defenseless people, whose representatives have already
    agreed to a peace. And let me say this: If we don't do something, they
    have 40,000 troops there, and a bigger offensive could start any moment.
        This is not the first time, let me remind you, this is not the first
    time we've faced this kind of choice. When President
    Milosevic started the war in Bosnia 7
    years ago, the world did not act quickly enough to stop him. Let's don't
    forget what happened: Innocent people were herded into concentration
    camps. Children were gunned down by snipers on their way to school.
    Soccer fields and parks were turned into cemeteries. A quarter of a
    million people--in a country with only 6 million population--were
    killed, and a couple of million refugees were created--not because of
    anything they had done but because of who they were and because of the
    thirst of Mr. Milosevic and his allies to dominate, indeed, to crush
    people who were of different ethnic and religious affiliations.
        Now, this was a genocide in the heart of Europe. It did not happen
    in 1945; it was going on in 1995.
        Now, at the time, a lot of people said, ``Well, there's nothing you
    can do about it, Mr. President. That's the way those people are. They've
    been fighting for hundreds of years.'' So I heard all that, and I
    actually started reading up on the history of that area. And I found out
    that in fact they had been fighting on and off for hundreds of years,
    but there was more off than on. And it was an insult to them to say that
    somehow they were intrinsically made to murder one another. That was the
    excuse used by countries and leaders for too long-- ``Well, they're just
    that way.''
        Gerry and I, that's what they said about us, about the Irish in
    Northern Ireland. They said, ``Oh, they've been arguing over things for
    600 years.'' And they have, but they're not arguing all the time.
        You just think about that. Every one of you who ever raised a child
    that misbehaved, think about if you just said, well, that's--they're
    just that way. Right? [Laughter] They're just that way. Well, if every
    parent said that, the jails would be 5 times as big as they are.
        Audience member. They already are. [Laughter]
        The President. They're too big because some people think they're
    just that way. That's not true. I just don't believe that.
        So you've got to decide what you believe. I don't believe that. And
    I know what happened in Bosnia. The United States and our allies, along
    with courageous people in Bosnia and in Croatia who refused to be
    subdued and fought back, found the unity and the will to stand up
    against the aggression, and we helped to end the war. And later, to make
    sure the peace would last, we agreed to send troops in, with our
    allies--including the Russians, Ukrainians, others. We've got people
    from all over Europe and the United States and Canada in Bosnia.
        And everybody said, oh, it was going to be just like Vietnam. It was
    going to be a bloody quagmire, even though there was a peace agreement.
    And now we've withdrawn 70 percent of our troops. And there are still
    difficulties, but we've preserved the peace, and the slaughter hasn't
    come back. And I think it was a good investment. And I hope the American
    people are proud of what they did to end the war in Bosnia. They should
    be.
        So what do we learn from Bosnia? We learned that if you don't stand
    up to brutality and the killing of innocent people, you invite the
    people who do it to do more of it. We learned that firmness can save
    lives and stop armies.
        Now, we have a chance to take the lessons we learned in Bosnia and
    put them to work in Kosovo before it's too late. But make no mistake
    about it, this is a country that already has a quarter of a million
    refugees. This is a country that's had 30,000 refugees since they
    stopped the peace talks just a few weeks ago. One in eight of the people
    who lives in this little country have already been run out of their
    homes.
        Now, I think if the American people don't know anything else about
    me, they know that

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    I don't like to use military force, and I do everything I can to avoid
    it. But if we have to do it, then that's part of the job, and I will do
    it.
        We have done everything we could do to solve this issue peacefully.
    Sunday, Secretary Albright dispatched
    Ambassador Dick Holbrooke to Belgrade
    to talk to President Milosevic one last
    time. I believe Mr. Holbrooke is on his way back, because I can tell you
    as of last night, as of this morning, as of an hour ago, we got nowhere.
    He is still denying his responsibility for the crisis, defying the
    international community, and destroying the lives of more people. Not
    just the United States but all our NATO Allies have warned him that he
    will have to honor the commitments he has made one more time. All this
    stuff he's doing is in violation of commitments he made to withdraw his
    forces. And we said if he didn't do it,
    we would have to take action. NATO is now united and prepared to carry
    out its warning. If President Milosevic is not willing to make peace, we
    are willing to limit his ability to make war on the Kosovars.
        What we are trying to do is to limit his ability to win a military victory and engage in
    ethnic cleansing and slaughter innocent people and to do everything we
    can to induce him to take this peace agreement, which is the only way in
    the wide world over the long run he's going to be able to keep Kosovo as
    an independent part of this country--or an autonomous part of this
    country.
        Now, I want to level with you. You've been very good. You've
    listened to me very closely. You've let me make my argument to you about
    why this is a humanitarian issue and why it is an issue that is in the
    personal interest of the United States.
        Now, let me tell you that this is like any other military action.
    There are risks in it, if we have to take this action. There are risks
    every time our young people get up and fly jet airplanes at very high
    speeds. Most of us could not begin to do that. Most of us don't even
    have the reflexes or the eyesight or the hearing, never mind the skills
    to do it. We lose a substantial number of our men and women in uniform
    every single year in training operations. It is inherently dangerous
    work. Plus, the Serbs have an air defense system, and it has a
    considerable capacity. There are risks to our pilots, and there are
    risks to people on the ground who themselves are innocent bystanders.
        But the dangers of acting must be weighed against the dangers of
    inaction. If we don't do anything after all the to-and-fro that's been
    said here, it will be interpreted by Mr. Milosevic as a license to continue to kill. There will be more
    massacres, more refugees, more victims, more people crying out for
    revenge. And they'll be spreading out to these nearby countries, where
    they have their own ethnic tensions. So instead of just this problem in
    Kosovo, you'll have the same sort of instability and tensions and the
    financial burden of refugees in the places around it.
        The firmness of our allies and ourselves now, I believe, is the only
    hope the people of Kosovo have to be able to live in their own country
    without having fear for their own lives. We asked them to accept peace
    on terms that were less than perfect, and they said yes. We said if they
    would do it, we would stick by them--not we the United States, we 19
    countries in NATO. We cannot run away from that commitment now.
        And we ought to consider what would happen if we and our allies were
    to stand aside and let innocent people be massacred at NATO's doorstep.
    That would discredit NATO because we didn't keep our word. But that's
    not important, except insofar as what it means to you. You've got to
    decide, my fellow Americans, if you agree with me that in the 21st
    century, that America, as the world's superpower, ought to be standing
    up against ethnic cleansing if we have the means to do it and we have
    allies who will help us do it in their neighborhood. And you have to
    decide whether you agree with me that we have a clear interest, after
    what we saw in World War I, World War II, in the cold war and all the
    people who died, in a Europe that is united, not divided; democratic,
    not dictatorial; and secure and at peace, not racked by ethnic
    cleansing--and if you believe that's good for us economically and
    politically, over and above the humanitarian issue.
        I do. I believe the case is clear. Especially when you remember--let
    me say one more time--if you go home and look at a map tonight, you
    ought to get down and look at it. This is a conflict with no natural
    boundaries. If it continues, it could spread to neighboring Albania,
    just to the south. Most of the Kosovars are Albanians. What if they
    flood Albania with

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    refugees? Albania has a Greek minority. What are they going to do? Are
    we going to recreate this all over again?
        Then it could put massive numbers of refugees in Macedonia, where
    you have both a Slavic majority and a Muslim minority; a country now
    with a President and a Prime
    Minister that have worked with us and
    taken our NATO troops in and worked with us, putting enormous pressure
    on them. Believe me, it could draw in even Greece and Turkey.
        So, apart from the humanitarian issue and apart from our interest in
    Kosovo, this thing has no natural boundaries. The whole Balkans area
    have all these people of different ethnic and religious groups, and if
    we just say, ``Well, that's just the way they are,'' then that's they
    way they'll be. And there's a good chance when this young woman is an
    adult, voting citizen of this country, that she will have to be worried
    still about whether the politicians are going to deal with innocent
    people getting killed in that part of the world. I would like to lift
    that burden from their generation because I think it is morally right
    and in the vital interest of the United States. And I hope you will
    support me.
        Now, I will say again, this is not a slam dunk. This is a difficult
    issue. This is a difficult decision. I believe that the position I have
    taken is the best of a lot of bad alternatives. But you didn't just hire
    me to make the easy decisions. And so I just would say to you--I ask you
    to talk to your friends and neighbors about this. I ask you literally to
    go get down an atlas and look at the map, pay a little closer attention
    to the news reports, think about the arguments that I've made. Think
    about whether you really agree with me. And say a prayer for the young
    men and women in uniform who are going to be there to do what I, as
    their Commander in Chief, order them to do.
        Now, let me go back to the point I started with, and I'll get to the
    domestic issues. We're living in a global society where there is no easy
    dividing line between what is foreign and what is domestic. I'll give
    you another issue, Social Security. You think, what in the world could
    be more of a domestic issue than Social Security? But the truth is,
    every wealthy country in the world is suffering the challenge of an
    aging crisis. Japan is facing it even more than we are, because their
    life expectancy is higher and their birthrate is lower and their
    immigration rate is much lower. A lot of the European countries are
    facing it, because their life expectancy is more or less the same and
    their birthrate is lower.
        So we're not the only country in the world facing this Social
    Security issue. And I would argue to you, my fellow Americans, that this
    is a high-class problem. I hear people wringing their hands about Social
    Security; I say, hallelujah, give me more of those problems! Why do we
    have this problem? Because we're living longer. The older I get, the
    better that looks. [Laughter]
        This is a high-class problem. But by 2030, we'll only have two
    people working for every one person drawing Social Security. And so,
    we've either got to put more money in the system, cut benefits, increase
    the rate of return on the investment we're making in Social Security, or
    do a combination of all three if we want to maintain a system that,
    today, keeps one-half of the people in this country over 65 out of
    poverty.
        And I would argue that we ought to start, since we have reduced the
    deficit, and we now have a surplus, and we are projected to have
    surpluses for the indefinite future--of course, it will go up or down
    with the condition of the economy, but the structural deficit has been
    eliminated. What I have said to the American people is that we ought to
    set aside the majority of this surplus, 62 percent of it, for the next
    15 years to stabilize Social Security. We can extend the life of the
    Trust Fund to about 2050 if you do that.
        If we invested just a small percentage of it in the stock market or
    other private sector options--just a small percent--through a completely
    independent body, insulated from politics, you could put another 5 years
    on it. And I'll guarantee you, every State, county, and local worker
    represented by AFSCME that has a retirement plan, that that pension fund
    is doing some investing in the private sector. They don't have it all in
    Government securities, and they've probably invested a whole lot more
    than I suggest in the private sector. And that's probably why your
    retirement funds are all in good shape, because the stock market has
    been doing well.
        Now, the stock market doesn't always do well historically throughout
    the country, but over any 30-year period, it always outperforms just 100
    percent guaranteed Government investments. So what I've tried to do is
    get a little bit of the best of both worlds.

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        Now, what we've tried to do with Social Security, historically, is
    to have 75 years of life on the Trust Fund, which is what I would like
    to do. I would also like to lift the earnings limitation because as
    people live longer, more and more people will want to work. If they pay
    in, they ought to be able to draw out, I think. And eventually that will
    bring money into Social Security. And I think we have got to provide
    greater benefits to elderly single women, who still have a poverty rate
    of over 18 percent, almost twice the overall poverty rate of the senior
    population. That's very, very important.
        So we need to get together in a decent, open, honest bipartisan
    fashion and figure out what other steps we need to take to close that
    gap. But believe me, you can't get there unless you first set aside 62
    percent of the surplus to save Social Security.
        The second thing I want to do is set aside 15 percent of the surplus
    for the next 15 years for Medicare. And again, there are a lot of those
    who don't want to do that. But keep in mind, you may not agree with
    everything I do, but at least I ought to have some credibility on this.
    We did have a $290 billion deficit when I took office, and we do have a
    $70 billion surplus now. You've got a big stake in this. A lot of the
    people that are members of your union deal with people who depend upon
    Medicare to survive. A lot of you have parents who depend upon Medicare
    to survive.
        Now, again, Medicare is falling victim to the aging of America,
    because the older you get the more you need some kind of health care,
    right? I mean, I have to stretch for 20 minutes or more just to get up
    and get around anymore. [Laughter] I mean, it's a big deal. The older
    you get--you do. We know that. And also modern medicine and technology--
    we're living longer. And if we really do finish this genome project by
    2000, 2001, unlock all the secrets of the human gene, you're going to
    see life expectancy go up exponentially.
        But anybody in this room today that's over 60 years old, is still in
    good health, and if you know that--if you don't know of any health
    problem you have, you have a life expectancy right now of over 80 years.
    The life expectancy in America today is over 76 years, and that includes
    everybody that gets killed by accidents, violence, early childhood
    disease, everything else. So again, this is a high-class problem, folks.
    This is not the end of the world. It's good news. We're living longer,
    and there are medical advances.
        But we cannot sustain Medicare; it's going to run out of money in
    2010 or a couple years after that, 2 or 3 years after that. We've done
    our best to manage it. We've added years to it. But we need to take it
    out for another decade or so. And we need also to make some provision
    for seniors on Medicare to get some help to buy prescription drugs.
        Now, again, that will be a costly program, although, you know, we
    have to ask people who can afford to pay to pay what they can afford to
    pay. But think about it over the long run. Over the long run, you can
    buy a lot of drugs in a year for what a week in a hospital costs you.
        So if we get the right kind of system in place and we don't
    encourage over-utilization, and we ask people to pay what they can
    afford to pay, but we help them, you'll get out of these horror stories
    where you've got seniors in America still making a choice between the
    food they eat and the drugs they need, without bankrupting the system.
        Now, there have been a lot of proposed reforms to Medicare. There
    was that Commission, you know, and they had different approaches and
    they didn't--issued a report--Senator Breaux's Commission. They had some pretty good ideas about making
    the system more competitive and all that. But my issue there is, I want
    a defined set of benefits, first of all. I want to make as much
    provision as we can for prescription drugs.
        And secondly, I don't want to do something that will, in effect,
    break down the system, because there is no set of reforms that will meet
    the financial needs of Medicare without putting some more money in it.
    I've not seen any; I have not seen any independent expert who says that.
    And since I don't think we should raise taxes when we have a surplus, we
    ought to dedicate 15 percent of the surplus to Medicare and make some
    reforms which would enable us to lengthen the life of Medicare and begin
    to deal with this prescription drug issue. And so I ask you to work with
    me on that.
        Now, there are some people who believe that these programs ought to
    be more privatized, who won't support the money for that reason. But
    there are some people--most of them in our party--who believe that since
    we've got this money, we don't have to make any changes in

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    the program. Both sides are wrong. So we're going to have to work
    together--and you all need to listen to me--we're going to have to work
    closely together.
        For example, I'm against raising the retirement age for Medicare to
    67 because--let me tell you why--because the fastest-growing group of
    people without health insurance are people between 55 and 65. And so I
    can't imagine why we would want to have more elderly people without
    health insurance.
        Now, I've offered Congress a proposal to help plug that gap a little
    bit, and I hope they'll take it this year. But that does not mean we can
    be against all reform. We have to be prepared to eat a few lemons, too.
    But we ought to do it with our goals in mind: preserving the integrity
    of Medicare, the guaranteed set of benefits; doing something on the
    prescription drugs that will really make a difference; and making sure
    that we have held together a program that has been a lifesaver for this
    country for 30 years.
        So that's what we've got to do. Now, let me just say one third thing
    about this. Again--and there's another--this is why I tell you all this
    foreign business and the domestic business are all related. If we put
    aside 62 percent for Social Security and 15 percent for Medicare, we can
    do it in a way that enables us to pay down the national debt for 15
    years.
        If we pay down the national debt, here's what will happen: Interest
    rates will be lower; more investment will come; there will be more jobs
    created; incomes will stay up; it will protect us from bad things that
    happen overseas and it will make it more likely that good things will
    happen overseas--because if we don't have to borrow this money for our
    own debt, then other people around the world will be able to get money
    at lower rates. They will grow more; they'll buy more of our products.
    And you'll be better off because in all your States and cities, people
    will be earning more money, paying more taxes, more money for AFSCME
    employees who work for the public--all this stuff is connected.
        All this is connected. You have to see the connection between what
    we do and what it impacts on us and how it impacts around the world. So
    I ask you to support that.
        Finally, I believe we should have a tax cut, but I think it ought to
    be targeted to middle income families and lower income working families.
    In my balanced budget, we've got tax cuts for child care, very
    important, substantial; for long-term care, to help people pay for long-
    term care expenses for their families, very important; for training
    costs and any number of other things. And then, in this balanced budget,
    I propose to set aside about 11 percent of the surplus to help people
    set up their own savings accounts so they can save for their retirement,
    and have the Government take this money and give it back to people, so
    over and above their Social Security and their retirement plans and
    their pensions, they can save more money for their future. Now, I think
    this is a good idea.
        Now, let me say we have some agreement and a lot of disagreement
    with the Republican majority on this. They have agreed we should invest
    more money in education, which I think is good, but we differ about how
    to spend it. They have agreed that they should set aside some money for
    Social Security, but they haven't agreed to do it in a way that will pay
    down the debt yet. They have not agreed to devote any of this surplus to
    Medicare, which I think is a terrible mistake.
        Now, they say I'm going to use the surplus so we don't have to make
    any of the hard choices on Medicare. I will say again, that is not true.
    You heard me tell you, we're going to have to get together and make some
    changes in the Medicare program. But we could make every change they
    propose and the thing would still not last very long unless we put some
    more investment in it. And every expert knows that.
        So, the third thing I want to say is, as usual, for the last, now
    more than 16 years, the bulwark of their plan is a large tax plan that
    disproportionately benefits people like me who don't need it, and that
    will explode, in the out-years--the very years that I want us to be
    paying that debt down, keeping interest rates down.
        You talk to any person who's made a lot of money in America in the
    last 6 years, and they'll tell you that they'd a lot rather have a
    growing stock market and low interest rates than a tax cut, because we
    already--not because everybody wouldn't like to have a tax cut. The
    people we ought to be focusing on cutting taxes for are the people that
    cannot pay their kid's way to college and take care of their parents who
    are sick and make ends meet. That's what we ought to be doing.
        So I say again, I'm somewhat encouraged by where we are with the
    Congress now, because there is a general feeling we're going to do

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    something about Social Security. But we ought to do it in a way that
    brings the debt down. We've got to do something about Medicare. We ought
    to have the right kind of tax cut, and it shouldn't be so big it keeps
    us from making the economy strong.
        I want to work with you on this. You've been good to me. You helped
    me get elected. We've done a lot of things together. And believe me, the
    25 percent of our time we've got left together, if we save Social
    Security and Medicare for the 21st century, if we agree to pay down the
    national debt, if we make a historic commitment to the education of our
    children, if we do something about long-term care, if we do something
    about child care, the best is yet to come.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:10 p.m. in the Presidential Suite of the
    Omni Shoreham Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Gerald W. McEntee,
    international president, William Lucy, international secretary-
    treasurer, Glenard S. Middleton, Sr., international vice president,
    Charles M. Loveless, legislative department director, and Caryl Yontz,
    legislative affairs specialist, American Federation of State, County,
    and Municipal Employees; President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal
    Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro); U.S. Special Envoy
    Richard C. Holbrooke; and President Kiro Gligorov and Prime Minister
    Ljubco Georgievski of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.