    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
    [March 3, 1999]
    [Pages 287-290]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Unity Meeting With Democratic Congressional Leaders
    March 3, 1999

        Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. This has been a wonderful
    morning for me. When I listened to Maureen Marshall and Edwin Beale and Michael
    Saylor speak, I was again confirmed in my
    conviction that our principal responsibility here is to give the
    American people the tools and create the conditions within which they
    can make the most of their own lives. And if we do that, they will do it
    every time. These 3 people represent more than 200 million Americans who
    deserve our best efforts.
        I want to thank Senator Daschle and
    Congressman Gephardt for their truly
    outstanding leadership, for their personal friendship, and for their
    honest commitment to the cause that we meet to discuss today.
        I thank the Vice President for being
    the best partner and friend, adviser and prodder any President could
    ever have. I can't believe he passed up a chance to remind us all today
    that in 1993, he cast the decisive vote on the budget plan, and whenever
    he votes, we win. [Laughter]
        You know the real, sort of political story out of this meeting today
    may be that we will have to retire that famous old Will Rogers quip, ``I
    don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat.'' The fact
    is we are organized, and we are united. And we are united around an
    agenda for America's future: to meet the long-term challenges of this
    country at the edge of a new century and new millennium; to build on
    what we have done for the last 6 years.
        The new agenda is rooted in the same ideals with which we began in
    1993, to bring opportunity to every American, to challenge every
    American to be a responsible citizen, and to build a community of all
    American citizens.
        When you look around at this Democratic caucus, the Members of the
    House and the Senate, as the speakers were speaking, I had the
    opportunity to just scan both sides of this wonderful room today. You
    all really do look like America. You think like America, and you reflect
    America. As perhaps the only one of you who is term-limited, and
    therefore, faces the prospect of making the most of this next 2 years
    and leaving the rest to you, I felt enormously good, not just for my
    party but for my country, to look at all of you, to know what I know
    about all of you, to know about your backgrounds and your perspectives
    and your experience and your commitment, and to see how in this caucus
    we

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    have bridged every divide of America that will help us to bring our
    country together and go forward. And I'm very proud to be here with you
    today.
        Let me say that when I ran for President in 1991 and 1992, I used to
    say something that seems almost strange today. I said one of the reasons
    that I left a job at home that I loved and undertook this campaign is
    that I didn't want to see my daughter's generation grow up to be the
    first generation of Americans not to do as well economically or in terms
    of quality of life as their parents had done. Nobody worries about that
    anymore, but we did then.
        And what we had before that was more than a decade in which the
    leaders of the other party talked tough but took the easy way out. We
    were unashamed to be compassionate, unashamed that we cared about those
    who needed a hand up in life. But we were unafraid, when it came down to
    it, to take the tough decisions that cost many of our fellow Democrats
    their seats in Congress but gave the American economy and the American
    people a new lease on the 21st century.
        So what we came here today to talk about builds on what has happened
    in the last 6 years. It builds on our way of approaching our political
    responsibilities here, to put people ahead of partisanship and common
    sense ahead of ideology. Now, we've already talked about how we turned
    the red ink to black--that that helped to produce the longest peacetime
    expansion in our history, the lowest peacetime unemployment since 1957.
        We ought to point out that we did it in a way that looked to the
    future, not only reducing the deficit but doubling our investment in
    education and training, putting 100,000 more police on our streets,
    making dramatic increases in medical research, immunizing 90 percent of
    our children from basic childhood diseases for the first time ever,
    providing millions and millions of people with the benefit of the family
    and medical leave law, and making our environment cleaner. We showed, in
    other words, that we could balance the budget and honor our common
    values as Americans.
        Now that, to use Senator Daschle's phrase, America is working again,
    the question is: What shall we do? And we're here to say that, as proud
    as we are of the record of the last 6 years, this is not a time to boast
    about the past but to fulfill our solemn duty to the next generation, to
    meet the long-term challenges our Nation faces.
        We're for stronger families, with our child care program and our
    after-school learning, for a strong, enforceable Patients' Bill of
    Rights, for the bipartisan legislation to help people with disabilities
    move into the workplace, for tax relief to help families provide long-
    term care, for an increase in the minimum wage and equal pay for men and
    women, and more free enterprise in our poorest inner-city and rural
    communities. We're for 50,000 more police on the street and better
    technology for police, especially in the areas where crime is still too
    high. We stand together to pass the Earth on to our children with our
    livability initiative for less traffic congestion and more green space.
    We stand together, as the Vice President has said, for strong, modern,
    more accountable schools, for giving teachers like Maureen the support
    they need to do even better.
        Last winter, as has already been said, we issued our call, for the
    first time, for 100,000 more highly trained teachers, to bring class
    size down in the early grades. And last fall the Republicans in Congress
    finally agreed to make a significant downpayment toward that goal. Now,
    in the next few days, the Senate will vote on whether to finish the job
    of hiring 100,000 new teachers to reduce class size. It will be our
    first big chance this year to prove to the American people that we are
    prepared to put people over party. Let's say politics stops at the
    schoolhouse door.
        Now, I'd also like to ask that politics stop and that the Republican
    majority in Congress stand with us in meeting the greatest challenge we
    face, the aging of America. Life expectancy is rising; the number of
    older Americans will double by the year 2030. There will be only two
    people working for one person drawing Social Security by that time. Even
    before then, because people over 80 are the fastest growing group of
    Americans as a percentage of our country, Medicare will run out of money
    within 9 years.
        Now, I particularly appreciated what Edwin Beale said about this
    being an issue facing younger as well as older Americans, and not only
    because younger Americans would like to know they will have health care
    in retirement, when they reach their retirement years, but also because
    the quality of life of the children of people on Medicare and Social
    Security and

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    their ability to raise their grandchildren will be directly dependent
    upon whether they had to take needed resources away from their own
    family to care for their parents in ways that previous generations have
    not. This is a big issue.
        But I want to say again--and I feel this with greater conviction as
    I grow older by the day--this is a high-class problem. We face this
    challenge because we're living longer. We face this challenge because of
    the fruits of the medical research that the Congress has funded. We
    should not be handwringing here. We should be embracing this with joy.
    This is the inevitable result of our efforts to not only lengthen life
    but to improve its quality. And because the Democrats took the lead so
    many years ago, first in Social Security and then in Medicare, we have a
    special responsibility to the American people to take the lead in
    resolving this.
        Now, let me restate clearly our principles and where I think we are
    in this debate now because how we resolve these issues will shape how we
    resolve the other issues in this session of Congress. First, we should
    devote 62 percent of the surplus for the next 15 years to saving Social
    Security, to guarantee the soundness of Social Security for the next 55
    years, and to enable us to make further choices, some of which will be
    difficult, to extend Social Security for 75 years, provide help for
    elderly women, too many of whom are in poverty, and lift the earnings
    limit on people on Social Security.
        Second, we should devote another 15 percent of the surplus to
    Medicare, to secure that vital program until the year 2020. And again, I
    believe we should go further, with broader reforms to strengthen and
    improve Medicare and to meet the greatest growing need of our seniors,
    affordable prescription drugs.
        If we do this, that will still leave funds for other investments or
    for tax reduction. I believe we should devote over $500 billion of this
    surplus to give working families tax relief, creating universal savings
    accounts, USA accounts, that will help all Americans share in the
    Nation's wealth and build nest eggs for retirement. If we do these
    things--saving Social Security, saving Medicare, empowering more
    Americans to save for their own retirement--we will fulfill our historic
    challenge to meet the difficulties and the opportunities of the aging of
    America in a way that provides a stronger economy and more stable
    families for our children.
        If we use the surplus to save Social Security and strengthen
    Medicare, we will for the next 15 years and beyond, be paying down the
    national debt, if we follow the proposal that we have made. We can
    reduce publicly held debt to its lowest level since 1917, before we
    moved into World War I.
        Let me say, for a Member of Congress what that means is, 15 years
    from now, Congress will be allocating only 2 cents of every tax dollar
    to pay interest on the debt, instead of the 13 cents you have to take
    off the top today, before you can pass another bill to do another thing.
    That means--and again, I was glad to hear Michael Saylor, who told that
    astonishing story of his company starting with $132 and winding up with
    1,000 employees and hundreds of millions of dollars of wealth that have
    been created. You remember what he said? He said what they need from
    Government is a responsible set of rational decisions that keep interest
    rates low and the economy strong. That is the most important thing. And
    if we do this, we will drive down interest rates for the next 15 to 20
    years. We could actually have our country completely out of debt, under
    this policy, in 18 years. And in a world in which the economy of other
    countries is obviously troubled at the moment and in which future events
    are not predictable, we know one thing for sure: If we pay down this
    debt and things are troubled beyond our borders, we'll do a lot better
    and interest rates will be a lot lower than they otherwise would have
    been. If things go well in the global economy, because of our efforts
    and others, we will do even better than we otherwise would have done.
        And we know that the success of the American economy has reinforced
    the budget decisions made in 1993. We have got to keep this going. So I
    say, take care of Social Security; take care of Medicare; pay down the
    debt; keep the economy going. These things are the most important things
    we can do for our children in the 21st century.
        Now, let me say where I think we are now. I have, frankly, been
    gratified to see the Republican leaders have quickly joined us in
    supporting the first idea, dedicating 62 percent of the surplus to save
    Social Security. At least, I believe the word they used was ``setting
    aside'' 62 percent of the surplus, and I'll come back to that in a
    moment. I've been further encouraged to see some of the Republicans
    backing

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    away from the irresponsible across-the-board tax cut that is too costly,
    in favor of standing with us for targeted tax cuts benefiting mostly
    middle-class working families.
        Last week the majority leaders in Congress actually placed an ad in
    USA Today with a nice letter promising to save Social Security, to give
    our children the world's best schools, to target tax relief to the
    middle class. That was the most welcome news I've read in USA Today, in
    terms of progress, since the NBA strike ended. [Laughter] And I was
    encouraged by it.
        But I want to make it clear, there are still strong differences in
    our approach, and we must resolve them in a way that benefits the
    American people, in the Vice President's words, that benefit Republicans
    and independents and Democrats alike. We have to do what's right for the
    country.
        First, while the Republicans are joining me in talking about setting
    aside a substantial part of the surplus for debt reduction and,
    presumably, for Social Security--and we welcome that--they still have
    said nothing about how they would extend the life of Social Security and
    whether they would dedicate all 62 percent of this surplus for that
    purpose. And that is very important.
        Second, I ask the Republican majority to join us in devoting a
    portion--15 percent--of the surplus to save Medicare. Now, this is very
    important. They have not done that so far. And as you see from the
    difficulties of others who have struggled with these issues and the fact
    that health care costs are beginning to rise again, we cannot secure
    Medicare as a guarantee for our seniors with any reasonable set of
    reforms and keep it a recognizable, universal program, unless we also
    invest some more money in the program.
        You can talk to any hospital that's administering programs that have
    Medicare patients. You can talk to any doctor. You can talk to anybody
    who's dealt with this program. We must have more money. So I ask those--
    especially those who still maintain that somehow, out of the surplus,
    they can afford a very large across-the-board tax cut--where will they
    find the resources to extend the life of Medicare?
        I am not opposed to responsible reforms that enable us to secure
    Medicare for an even longer period and to begin to add this prescription
    drug benefit so that we can really help people who need it. But I'm
    telling you, we cannot deal with the Medicare problem without a greater
    investment of money.
        So, let's say, use the budget surplus to save Social Security, to
    save Medicare, to pay down the debt. Then we can have an honest and
    principled disagreement about how much and what kind of tax cut we need
    with the rest--about how much should go to education; how much should go
    to defense; how much should go to medical research. But the first and
    most important things are save Social Security, save Medicare, pay down
    the debt, secure the future of our children.
        Now, we stand today unified. We stand today well aware of the
    challenges before us. But we stand today beleaguered by beepers and
    message machines. [Laughter] This is my last line I want to say about
    this. Will Rogers also used to say something that we do not have to
    disregard. He used to say, and I quote, ``You've got to be an optimist
    to be a Democrat, and you've got to be humorous to stay one.''
    [Laughter]
        Well, I urge you, let's bring a new energy to this session of
    Congress. When we get really frustrated by what seems to be excessive
    partisanship, let's remember these three fine American citizens who
    talked to us today and the stories they told and the hundreds of
    millions of people they represent. Let's keep our optimism, our good
    cheer, our resolve, and our unity, to give them the 21st century they
    deserve.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:35 a.m. in the Thomas Jefferson
    Building, Library of Congress. In his remarks, he referred to Maureen
    Marshall, special education teacher, Springfield Estates Elementary
    School, Springfield, VA; Edwin Beale, graduate student, Tuskegee
    University; and Michael J. Saylor, founder, president, and chief
    executive officer, MicroStrategy, Inc. The transcript released by the
    Office of the Press Secretary also included the remarks of Vice
    President Al Gore, Senator Thomas A. Daschle, and Representative Richard
    A. Gephardt.