    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
    [January 20, 1999]
    [Pages 72-77]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Western New York Community in Buffalo
    January 20, 1999

        Thank you very much. I think you got so excited that you melted the
    snow for a mile around this arena. Let me ask you, have you ever seen
    the Vice President so fired up in your
    life? [Laughter] I want you to know that just before we came in here, we
    went off into a little room, and he had a quick hit of buffalo wings and
    Flutie Flakes; that's what he did.
        I want to thank the Mayor and Dennis
    Gorski and Connie Eve and the whole Eve family. Eric worked
    for us for a long time, then decided to go out and get rich. We forgive
    him. I want to thank all the community heroes who are here. I want to
    thank Reverend Smith for that magnificent
    invocation which I will remember all my life. I want to thank our
    wonderful friend Congressman John LaFalce,
    one of the most outstanding Members in the House of Representatives, a
    truly wonderful human being. And I am delighted that Pat and his son, Martin, are
    here with us today.
        I think you could see that Tipper and Al and Hillary and I, we're
    sort of like a big family. We like going places together. And I love it,
    because now I don't have to talk about 90 percent of the issues anymore
    because they already covered them, which was really good. We work
    together, and we have tried to model what we want America to do.
        You know, no one has ever spoken as passionately and consistently
    for the cause of mental health as well as Tipper Gore has done. I think it's fair to say that at least no
    one since Eleanor Roosevelt has done as much with the Office of First
    Lady as Hillary has done. And I am
    grateful for that. And I am quite confident that in the entire history
    of the United States no Vice President has had remotely the
    responsibility and had the positive impact on the people of the United
    States that Al Gore has had. And I am very
    grateful to him.

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        Now, we are here today in this magnificent arena--and I've just got
    to say one thing about that Vice President.
    He compared me to the goalie for the Sabres. I was flattered, but I
    thought--you know, he kept talking about how I was swatting away those
    flying hockey pucks in Washington. I was flattered, but I thought, I
    just wish one day they would give me a mask and a few pads when I dodge
    that stuff.
        Anyway, we're delighted to be here. We're here because we are
    grateful to New York, to western New York, to Erie County, to Buffalo,
    grateful for the support we received in 1992, grateful for the support
    we received in 1996, and even more grateful for the fact that this
    community every day is trying to live and work in the way we want
    America to live and work in the 21st century.
        I know that many of you heard my speech last night. I know that you
    have listened to the previous speakers. I only want to speak to you
    about one of the issues, and that is how we're going to meet the
    challenge of the aging of America, because that affects all of us, not
    just the old but the very young as well. And I want everyone to
    understand exactly what I was trying to say last night and why.
        But let me make the bigger point. It was, as has already been said,
    6 years ago today at noon that I took the oath of office as President.
    And it seems impossible to me that those 6 years have flown by. They
    have been, to put it mildly, quite eventful. But I am very, very
    grateful that we had the chance to serve, grateful for your support,
    grateful the state of the Union is strong.
        But I want you to focus on this: You know as well as I do the world
    is changing rapidly. You know this community and its economic base and
    the nature of its society bears not all that much resemblance to the way
    it looked 30 years ago in terms of how people make a living, what the
    diversity of the population is, how we relate to each other, and where
    we imagine we're going in the future.
        So I believe that we can't afford just to sit around and pat
    ourselves on the back and say, ``Isn't it great? We've got the longest
    peacetime expansion in history. Isn't it great? We've got the lowest
    peacetime unemployment since 1957. Isn't it great that we've got the
    lowest welfare rolls in 29 years, that all the social problems, all of
    them, virtually, are getting better?'' That's fine.
        But the real issue is, what are we going to do with this? Do we
    seriously believe the crime rate is low enough? Do we believe the
    schools are good enough? Do we believe all our kids are getting an
    education? Do we really believe that the rate of drug use among our
    young people is low enough? Do we believe all these things? I don't
    think so.
        So what I want to say to you is, we ought to be focused on two big
    things: number one, bringing the opportunities that the last 3 years
    have brought to most of America to the rest of America. Just like, last
    night, I said--we put before the American people last night a plan to
    develop more communities by putting more private capital in the
    neighborhoods that haven't received it.
        Now, let me ask you something. If we've got the lowest unemployment
    rate in 29 years and the lowest in peacetime in 41 years, how are we
    supposed to keep growing the economy without inflation? We have to find
    new markets. Now, if a lot of the world beyond our borders is in
    recession, where are we going to find the new markets? I'll tell you
    where: in the urban neighborhoods and the rural counties where the
    unemployment rate is still twice the national average.
        And I want to emphasize just one of the suggestions I made last
    night, that we ought to have an American private investment company, or
    a series of them, that would provide guarantees from the National
    Government to get private capital into urban and rural areas where there
    has been underinvestment--$15 billion of it. You know we have today--we
    have an Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Why shouldn't we have
    an ``American Private Investment Corporation'' when our most important
    markets are here at home?
        I want to say just this one thing about Senator Schumer. The Vice President mentioned him, but before I
    came here he reminded me, he said, ``When you go to Buffalo, you have
    got to tell the people that I pledged to them I would bring more jobs
    and more opportunity to western New York. And you tell them I'm going to
    be your very best partner.'' So I have kept my word to Senator Schumer.
        Now, let me give you some other examples, though. There are people
    in our midst who have not fully participated, even in areas which are
    doing well. And I'll just give you a couple of

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    examples; one of them has been mentioned already. We have millions of
    Americans in the work force that do not read very well. Many of them are
    first-generation immigrants, and their first language is not English. I
    know Mrs. LaFalce has been very involved in
    the adult literacy program. I asked last night for a huge increase in
    Federal support to have a national campaign for adult literacy, to make
    sure all of our workers can read well enough to keep the jobs they've
    got, get better jobs, and if they lose their jobs, get new jobs. And I
    think that's very, very important.
        Now, your other Senator, Senator Moynihan, is the cosponsor of a bill that is very important to
    me because I have worked hard, since I was a young Governor, to try to
    give people with disabilities the ability to live up to the maximum
    amount of independence and self-fulfillment that was possible. And one
    of the problems we have today is that people with disabilities that have
    high medical bills cannot afford to go to work, even if they are capable
    of working, because under the present law you lose the Government
    support for your medical insurance if you take a job. So Senator
    Moynihan is one of the cosponsors of a bill that says, if a disabled
    person is able to go to work, we will let them keep their health
    insurance so they can be healthy and at work. And that's good for us. So
    that's the first thing we need to do.
        The second thing we need to do is to deal with the large long-term
    challenges of America. The previous members of our team have talked
    about the long-term environmental challenges, the long-term health care
    challenges, the long-term education challenges, the long-term community
    development challenges. I want to talk about the aging of America. And I
    was pleased when I read a lot of the stories today about my speech last
    night. I thought they were very good stories, but the implication was
    that I was speaking to the seniors. That's not true. The aging of
    America affects everybody.
        Why? First of all, the seniors today, by and large, have no sweat
    unless they live to be 120 years, because--old--because Social Security
    is fine now, and we have the system that we need. But when we baby
    boomers retire, there will be a senior boom. In 30 years, the number of
    senior citizens, people over 65, in America is going to double. Now,
    that just doesn't affect those of us who hope to live that long. That
    affects all of our children and all of our grandchildren and society at
    large.
        How will we manage this? We have a lot of responsibilities. We've
    got to work harder to stay in better shape and be healthier so we try to
    minimize the burden of our health care bills on the rest of you. It will
    be very important. There are a lot of implications to this.
        But I want you to know that--I grew up in a middle class home in a
    middle class community where half of my high school classmates, or more,
    didn't go on to college. And I still keep up with a lot of them, and
    most of them have very modest incomes. But every single one of us,
    without regard to our income or background, are obsessed with the notion
    that our aging should not put an unbearable burden on our children and
    their ability to raise our grandchildren. This is an issue for all
    Americans.
        Now, here's the problem. Social Security alone keeps half the
    seniors in America today out of poverty. So it's real important. But
    Social Security is not enough for the vast majority of our seniors to
    have a comfortable life and maintain the lifestyle they had before they
    started drawing Social Security.
        Medicare is subject to the same pressures that Social Security is in
    its cost as more and more people retire, live longer, and use more
    medical care. So the trick is, how do you preserve Social Security; how
    do you preserve Medicare; how do you give seniors the ability to have
    other sources of income; and how do you do it in a way that's fair to
    their kids and their grandkids; and how do we get it done by the time
    the baby boomers start retiring? That is the issue. So, you see, it's
    not just a seniors issue. It's an issue for all Americans.
        Now, we're going to have a big argument about this. And we should,
    and I hope it will be a good debate. But I believe, since we have--as
    the Vice President said--this $70 billion surplus from last year and a
    bigger one coming this year, since it's projected that over a 25-year
    period we will average substantial surpluses on an annual basis--now,
    they'll go up and down with the economy, but the point is we have no
    permanent deficit anymore, the natural condition is a surplus, okay--so
    the question is, what do we do with it?
        We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right. But I
    think--here's the problem. If you don't spend it right, here's what's
    going to happen. In 2013--that's just 14 years

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    away--the taxes people pay on their payroll for Social Security will no
    longer cover the monthly checks. So we have to get into the Social
    Security Trust Fund, the savings account. By 2032, it will be gone.
    After that, if we haven't done something, we can only pay a little over
    70 percent of the benefits. By then, the cost of living will be higher,
    and it will be devastating.
        Even before that, by 2010, the Medicare fund will run out of money.
    Why? Because the fastest growing group of people--this is a high-class
    problem; this is a high-class problem; we should be so lucky to have
    only problems like this--the fastest growing group of people in America
    are people over 80. And I hope to be one some day, and so do you, right?
    And so does--I hope every child in this audience will live to be over
    80. The kids in this audience actually will have a life expectancy of
    about 85 years if medical science keeps advancing.
        But the older you get, the more you need a doctor, or the more you
    need drugs, or the more you need something just to kind of get through
    the day. I'm finding that out already. [Laughter] Everything kind of
    hurts when it's cold, and you've got to stretch your legs more. So
    that's going to happen by 2010.
        So what I said last night is not as popular as what others can tell
    you. Others can say, ``We've got this surplus now. I just want a big tax
    cut. I'll give it back to you. You'll figure out what to do with it.''
    But I believe if we save 60 percent of this surplus for Social Security,
    here's what we can do. We can make the Trust Fund all right to 2055. We
    can protect Social Security for 55 years. We have a list of other
    options that are all a little controversial, but if we can get the
    Republicans and Democrats to hold hands, we could do it. It wouldn't
    hurt anybody very much. They're really good things for the program over
    the long run.
        And if we did that, we could protect Social Security for 75 years,
    and we could reduce the poverty rate among elderly women on Social
    Security. They're twice as likely to be poor. And we could remove the
    earnings test which now limits what seniors on Social Security can earn
    for themselves. So I think that's a good use of the surplus that will
    help our parents, our children, our grandchildren.
        Now, same thing with Medicare. If we just save one-sixth--one in
    every $6--of this surplus for 15 years and set it aside for Medicare,
    then we save Medicare to 2020. Then if we can get the Republicans and
    Democrats together--and in March we're going to have a report from a
    bipartisan commission that will start the debate--we can make a few
    other changes, save it till 2020, and begin to provide for prescription
    drugs. It's the single biggest need that senior citizens on Medicare
    have.
        Now, let me tell you what else you'll get. You're going to have
    everybody say that Government doesn't know how to spend this money.
    Look, folks, Social Security and Medicare work. I'm not talking about
    spending this money; I'm talking about saving it.
        Now, here's what I think about it. This is the other thing I want
    you to understand. If we save three-quarters of this surplus for 15
    years only, to solve Social Security and solve Medicare well into the
    21st century, what else will happen? We will, by holding this money--
    we've got to do something with it. What do you do with this money? You
    buy back the privately held debt. We will be reducing the debt of the
    country. We will take the debt of America in relationship to the size of
    our economy, the level of debt held by the public, to its lowest level
    since before World War I in 1917.
        Now, why should that matter to you? You say, ``Fine, Mr. President,
    give me the money. I'd rather have a new car. I don't care about World
    War I. Why does that matter?'' Here's why it should matter to you. If we
    keep driving the debt down, then you will keep interest rates down; you
    will keep home mortgage rates low; you will keep credit card interest
    rates low; you will keep the interest rates that you pay on your car
    payments low; you will keep more investment coming in to Buffalo and
    Erie County; you will have more jobs here. And that's something we have
    to do together. It will protect us.
        You see all this financial upheaval around the world. That's because
    these countries, their budgets are out of balance, and if people run off
    with their money, they have to put their interest rates through the roof
    just to get the money to come back. If we start paying down on our debt
    a little bit--which I remind you, we quadrupled the debt, quadrupled the
    debt between 1981 and 1993--if we just started paying down on it a
    little bit, saving this money, protecting Social Security and Medicare,
    then you would be somewhat more protected from these global economic
    events, and long after I'm gone from the White House, you would

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    have stable interest rates, affordable lives, and the knowledge that
    investment would come into Buffalo and Erie County to build a better
    future. So I hope you will support what I have advocated last night.
        Now, let me just say two other things I think we ought to do to deal
    with the aging of America that help not just the elderly but the rest of
    us. Number one, Social Security was never intended to be the sole source
    of income. Even when President Roosevelt signed it, he said we need more
    pensions; we need more private savings. But a lot of people retire today
    and don't have any.
        And a lot of you young people today--I don't know how many people--
    young people I talk to, in their twenties or late teens or even up to
    their early thirties, who say, ``You know, this is not going to be
    enough.'' Last night I proposed setting aside more than 10 percent of
    the surplus to actually give people an incentive to save, a targeted tax
    cut to say, if you will set up this universal savings account, a USA
    account, the Government will give you, in effect, a tax cut; we will
    match the money in your savings account; and you can invest it however
    you want for your own retirement.
        And if you have--now, this is very important. And very low income
    working people who have great difficulty saving, it takes every penny
    they've got to put clothes on their kids' back and pay the utility bills
    and the rent and make the car payment. We have a provision in our plan
    to give extra help for those least able to save. I want every American
    to have a savings account and to have a part of this country's wealth.
    If everybody was a part of the wealth, you would see the income gap
    shrinking instead of growing, and that's what this is about. This is a
    good way to have a tax cut, because it's a tax cut that benefits you
    today and tomorrow and 10 years from now and 30 years from now.
        So let me also say, when you hear the tax cut debate, remember,
    we've got tax cuts in our plan, a $1,000 tax credit--that's a $1,000 tax
    cut for long-term care for seniors, for disabled people, for ailing
    people, or the families that care for them. That's one of the biggest
    problems families have today. And with the aging of America, it will get
    bigger and bigger. We ought to support and give people a tax cut for
    long-term care.
        We ought to have tax cuts for child care including, as was said
    earlier, for people who provide care by being stay-at-home parents for
    very young children. We ought to have these tax cuts. We ought to give
    people tax incentives to deal with our environmental problems. Every one
    of the tax cuts that are in my budget we have paid for so we can keep
    the budget balanced, keep the surplus coming, and deal with the long-
    term problems.
        So I'm sorry if I made the atmosphere too serious. We've had a lot
    of fun today. But I want you to think about this. We cannot afford to
    squander this moment. When have we ever had this many resources, this
    many things going right at one time in this country? It has been a long,
    long time. We have to make the most of it. We have to look at the long-
    term challenges facing America.
        So I ask you to think about this. I ask you to talk to your friends
    and neighbors about it. When people come out and disagree with my
    approach, listen to them and sit down and have a discussion about it.
    But you just remember this: We've been in debt for 30 years. And for the
    12 years before I became President, we were so deep in debt, we couldn't
    even think about the kind of money we've invested in Buffalo for police
    on the streets, to help more housing projects, people have houses, to
    deal--all the things that have been done. And we are out of debt now,
    but we have a big responsibility now to think about the long-term
    challenges.
        This country is going to change in a breathtaking way. We're on the
    verge of finding cures or preventions for diseases from Alzheimer's to
    Parkinson's to arthritis to all kinds of cancers. I think it will
    happen, probably in my lifetime. There are children here in this
    audience who, either they or their contemporaries, will be walking not
    on the Moon but on Mars. This world is going to change.
        And we have to do our very best to prepare. So I will say again, it
    may sound good if somebody says, ``This is your surplus, and we ought to
    give it back to you.'' But you ought to ask yourself, what's America
    going to look like 10, 20, 30 years from now? How are all the families
    going to deal with the retirement of the baby boom generation? How are
    we going to deal with our responsibilities for the medical care of our
    parents through Medicare? And can we keep interest rates low and the
    economy going?
        If you like this improving economy, what I'm trying to do is to give
    you a way that will maximize the chances that we will have a strong

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    economy for the next 10 to 15 to 20 years and prepare for the aging of
    the baby boomers. I hope you will support it.
        I thank you for one of the great days of my Presidency here. God
    bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:04 p.m. at the Marine Midland Arena. In
    his remarks, he referred to Mayor Anthony M. Masiello of Buffalo; Erie
    County Executive Dennis T. Gorski; Constance Eve, chairperson and
    founder, Women for Human Rights and Dignity, Inc., and her son, Eric;
    Rev. Bennett W. Smith, who delivered the invocation; and Patricia
    LaFalce, wife of Representative John J. LaFalce, and their son, Martin.
    The transcript released by the Office of the Press Secretary also
    included the remarks of Vice President Al Gore.