    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
    [June 28, 1999]
    [Pages 1029-1033]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Luncheon in Westport
    June 28, 1999

        Thank you very much. Diane, you can
    give a speech for me anytime. [Laughter] That was really wonderful,
    congratulations, thank you.
        I want to thank all of you for being here. Let me also join
    Joe and Beth in
    thanking Fran and Sandra for being so wonderful to us. I thank Martha and Ronni and the others who
    helped to make this a success. I also want to say a special word of
    thanks to Fran and Sandra for being so wonderful to Hillary as well. It really means a lot to me, and I
    thank you for that.
        You know, I always love to come back to Connecticut, and only a fool
    would not love to come to Westport. [Laughter] I'm very happy to see
    Barbara Kennelly; and my old classmate
    Dick Blumenthal, who has been so good to
    me; and Denise, we're very pleased for
    your success, congratulations. And Congressman Gejdenson, thank you for being so brave in tough election after
    tough election. You're always there to do the right thing any way, and I
    admire you so much.
        And Senator Dodd, congratulations on
    having the good sense to marry Jackie;
    we're proud of you. No matter how much you may like Chris Dodd, if you
    have not gotten to know his wife, your estimation will go way up when
    you do--[laughter]--and we're really happy for you. And Jessye, thank you for coming; Cicely,
    thank you for coming.
        And I would like to say a special thank you to Connecticut for being
    so good to me and to Al Gore through two elections now. I don't feel
    that I'm on a victory lap or a final lap or--you know, I expect people
    to--they're beginning to talk to me as if I'm--there is a sort of ring
    of eulogy about all of this. [Laughter]
        As far as I can tell, I'm reasonably healthy; I still show up. I
    told Fran when--you've got to watch Joe Andrew, you know, as being a party chair. He hasn't been a party
    chair as long as Ed Marcus, but he's
    learned to stretch the truth creatively. He said that I got up earlier
    and went to bed later than anybody else. And I told Fran, I said, ``Now, the second half of that statement is
    true.'' [Laughter] I do work late. I don't always beat everybody to the
    office.
        I'd like to tell you, first of all, why I'm here and, secondly, why
    I hope you're here. If anybody wants me to show up at one of these
    events 5 years from now or 10 years from now and my party is still doing
    what I believe is right for America, I'll be there then, too. The fact
    that I was given the opportunity at a pivotal point in our country's
    history to serve as President is important to me, but it is incidental
    to my prior and enduring commitment to the ideas and values that I think
    are necessary to make this country all it ought to be.
        You know, when you think back to the condition the country was in in
    1991 and 1992 when I was running, it's almost unimaginable that we are
    where we are today. This morning, before I left to fly up here, I was
    able to make an announcement that at what is called the midsession
    review, which is when we recalibrate our economic assumptions, we now
    know that our surplus this year will be $20 billion higher than we
    thought; it will be $142 billion next year. It will be $500 billion more
    than we thought it was going to be over 10 years, and

    [[Page 1030]]

    $1 trillion more over the next 15 years. That's an amazing thing.
        This year--you know, we have something called a unified budget,
    which means that we show a surplus even if we're spending more--like
    income and sales taxes and things--than we're taking in because of the
    Social Security taxes, because we're still taking in more than we're
    paying out. This year we will have a surplus without the Social Security
    revenues.
        What this means is, among other things, is that we really can save
    Social Security by investing a modest amount of it in something other
    than Government bonds. We can do something about elderly women, who are
    more poor than the rest of the elderly population. We can take the
    earnings limit off, because we need elderly people to work more, if they
    choose to do so--not if they're required to but if they choose to do
    so--as we have relatively fewer young people and relatively more older
    people. And now we can actually pay the debt of the country off and be
    entirely debt free by 2015--in 15 years this country can be out of debt.
    That's unbelievable.
        The debt of the country quadrupled in the 12 years before I took
    office--just 12 years. And there was no end in sight. The deficit was
    $290 billion when I took office. We'll have $142 billion surplus in the
    last year of my Presidency.
        Why should that matter to people? To those of you who are liberals
    and want the Government to spend money, why should you care if we're out
    of debt? Because if we get out of debt in a global economy, it means
    lower interest rates, lower home mortgages, lower business loans, lower
    college loans, lower car payment loans. It means more business
    investment. It means more money for wage increases. It means a more
    stable economy. It means the next time there is a world financial crisis
    like we had in Asia a couple of years ago, we'll be less affected by it,
    and it means there will be more money out there for poor countries to
    borrow at lower interest rates or be given, because we won't be taking
    any of it.
        In the global society, it is the socially responsible thing for the
    wealthy countries to be financially responsible. It is good for our
    people, but it is good for people around the world. And it is good for
    all income groups within our society. So I hope very much that we will
    be able to persuade the Republican majority in Congress to work with us
    to save Social Security, to reform Medicare, and to pay this debt off.
    It is something that no one could have thought imaginable just a few
    years ago.
        Tomorrow I'm going to reveal the details of our plan to strengthen
    Medicare and preserve it for at least another quarter century and add a
    prescription drug benefit which will be affordable, which can be
    managed. But this is a big problem. I told those of you who came to the
    airport to meet me that one of the most stunning facts of life, if
    you're over 65 today and you're on Medicare, is that the average senior
    citizen is now spending a higher percentage of his or her income, out of
    pocket, for health care than they were spending in 1965, before Medicare
    went in. Why? Overwhelmingly, because of prescription drugs.
        So if we can do something that is financially responsible to help
    our seniors deal with this burden, we ought to do so. We can now, and we
    should.
        Because of the size of the surplus, we'll be able to pay the debt
    off over the next 15 years, and at the same time create a trust fund for
    children and education of over $150 billion that we can use for after-
    school programs, to make sure all our kids have health insurance--for a
    whole host of other things that need to be done.
        Now, let me come back to the general point. I'm here not as a
    candidate, because I think it matters that the ideas and the values that
    we fought for be continued; because it's important to me that
    Sam and Chris
    and people like them are in the Congress. And it's important to me
    that--we know the Republicans will always have more money than we do.
    Today they'll be saying, ``Well, who cares if we pay the debt off. Let's
    have a bigger tax cut that will be skewed to most of you.'' Most of you
    would be better off, in the short run, being at a Republican fundraiser.
    [Laughter] You would be, and you know it. [Laughter]
        But on the other hand, if you look at the performance of the stock
    market, if you look at the fact that we've got the lowest unemployment
    rate in 30 years, the longest peacetime expansion in history, the
    highest surplus as a percentage of our economy since 1951, there's
    something to be said for moving us all forward together. And there's
    something to be said for looking to the long run, as well as the short
    run. Everyone has to balance doing what is most pleasing to everyone
    today and thinking about what is best for the country over the long run.

    [[Page 1031]]

        I've tried to take this country into the 21st century with certain
    basic ideas: that we could balance the budget and increase our
    investment in children and education, health care, and the environment;
    that we could grow the economy and continue to improve the environment--
    and we have. The air is cleaner. The water is cleaner. The food is
    safer. We've got 90 percent of our children immunized for the first time
    in history. We've set aside more land in preservation than any
    administration in the history of America, except those of the two
    Roosevelts.
        So because we had good ideas--not because Bill Clinton was President
    but because our ideas were right--I am glad I was given the chance to
    serve now. If my ability to speak, communicate, work hard, and take
    incoming fire had anything to do with those successes, I'm grateful.
        But the most important thing is that what we stand for now, as a
    party, is a new direction, a departure from where either party was in
    the seventies and eighties, and the kind of thing that we ought to
    embrace going into the 21st century. And we have evidence that it works.
        There are lots of issues up there in Washington that we're fighting
    for now. Sometimes we have agreement. We're going to agree on two things
    that I think are great. I'll give the Republicans a little pat on the
    back here. The Congress is going to overwhelmingly vote, apparently, to
    renew the disability on disabled Americans who go in the work force and
    lose their Medicaid coverage. And that can enable us to get hundreds of
    thousands of more workers to grow without inflation.
        There are a lot of disabled people who want to work, but their
    medical bills are $20,000, $30,000 a year, sometimes more, and they're
    paid by the Government. If they make X salary, anything much above
    poverty, they lose that Government health insurance. And that's bad for
    you, because they won't take the job, and we're still going to pay for
    their health care, as we should. So this way we pay for their health
    care just like we were, but they take a job. They earn money. They pay
    taxes just like you do. And it helps the economy go. It's a good thing.
        The other thing that there is apparently unanimous support on, at
    least in the House--and I'm thrilled about it; this is something that
    Hillary cares very much about--is
    continuing support for children who come out of foster care at the age
    of 18 and today are cut off all support--and even though they have no
    place to go, they have no adopted families, they have nothing. This is a
    huge problem in New York, a bigger problem in New York than anyplace
    else because New York has the largest number. But I told someone the
    other day, the first person besides my wife who ever mentioned this to
    me was my cousin who runs the HUD office in
    the little town in Arkansas where I was born, population 11,000 now. So
    this is a national problem.
        And here are two things where we agree. I'm hoping that we can get
    more of them to agree with us on some other things that are important.
    If you look at the Patients' Bill of Rights--the Republicans, on
    Medicare, want me to, in effect, force more people on Medicare into
    managed care, but they're against guaranteeing people in managed care
    the guarantees of the Patients' Bill of Rights.
        I'm not against managed care. I've always thought that we ought to
    manage the health system like every other system, as well as we possibly
    can. But every system should be managed to deliver its mission at the
    lowest possible cost, not to compromise the mission. The mission is to
    give people quality health care at the lowest possible cost.
        And if you need to see a specialist and you can't, that's bad. If
    you get hit in an accident in a big city and you have to pass three
    hospitals to get to the hospital with the emergency room that's in the
    plan, that's bad. If you work for a small business and they change their
    health care provider and your husband is in chemotherapy and it's a 6-
    month treatment and you're supposed to change providers in the middle of
    the treatment, that's bad. If the same thing happens and your wife is 6
    months pregnant and you're supposed to change your ob-gyn because
    there's a different one in your new health care plan, that's bad. All
    these things happen today. Why? If it takes you forever and a day to get
    a decision because of the layers and layers of appeals, so that finally
    you get the right decision but it's too late to save your life, that's
    bad.
        And that's why 200--200 organizations--the doctors, the nurses,
    health consumer groups, everybody, endorsed our Patients' Bill of
    Rights. There's one organization against it, the health insurers. And we
    have the votes to pass this, if the Republican leadership will give us a
    clean vote on it.

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        But it's a classic example of the difference in the two parties.
    We're not against managed care. If we said we're against change and they
    were for change and they didn't care what happened to people, that would
    be like an old-time debate--old-time. We say, okay, we're for managed
    care; we'd just like to have people protected.
        Same thing on this gun issue. This is a huge issue. Thirteen kids a
    day get shot and killed--13. That's a lot of kids. You say it's a big
    country--pretty small country if it's one of yours. And we had this
    horrible carnage at Littleton--the whole country up in arms. The Senate
    passes this range of modest gun restraint measures: getting rid of the
    big ammunition clips on assault weapons that come in from other
    countries; saying that if a juvenile commits a serious crime, they
    shouldn't be able to own a handgun when they turn 18; closing the gun
    show loophole; putting the child trigger locks on there. And on the gun
    show loophole, which was the most controversial, the Vice
    President broke the tie in the Senate.
        And we roll into the House, and there is this angst. So what
    happens? The NRA wants the vote put off, so they put off the vote until
    after the recess. And during the recess they wear everybody out, and
    they come back and deep-six stuff that is very modest. And their answer
    is, well, we should punish these boys because they broke the law, these
    dead boys.
        You know, how would you feel if I gave the following speech: ``I've
    served as President for 6\1/2\ years. I've done a searching inventory of
    my record, and I have decided that I have been deficient in standing up
    for the constitutional rights of America. In particular, we all have a
    constitutional right to travel, and I think it's absolutely terrible
    that you have to license your cars and have a drivers license and that
    we regulate travel in any way, shape, or form. It is an unconscionable
    burden, and we're going to get rid of all of it. We have 8-year-olds out
    there driving cars at 100 miles an hour, that's good. It's their
    constitutional right to do it.'' [Laughter]
        You're laughing. That's their position, isn't it? I mean, you would
    think--if a politician stood up and said that, you would think they had
    a screw loose. [Laughter] But this is a huge issue. Now, we're not
    talking about confiscating anybody's guns. We're not talking about
    interfering with anybody's hunting rights or sporting rights.
        When we passed the Brady bill--Chris and Sam will remember this--
    their argument against the Brady bill was, ``This won't do you any good,
    because no criminal ever goes to a gun store to buy a gun.'' You
    remember that? That was their big argument: ``They're not dumb enough to
    do that.'' Okay? Five years and 400,000 rejected sales later, with a 25-
    year low in the crime rate and violent crime down even more than
    nonviolent crime, they no longer can make that argument.
        But now we say, ``Okay, there are more and more people, since we're
    checking on them, who are buying guns at the gun shows and the flea
    markets. We'll give you that much, so let's go check them.'' They say,
    ``Oh, no, goodness, no, we couldn't do that.'' Or if the--``It's okay if
    it's over the counter at a gun show, but not if it's in the parking
    lot.''
        Now, you may have this image that there's a sort of a--maybe a
    convention center in Hartford where there's a gun show, and it's two
    blocks out to the parking lot, and you don't want to make the guy take
    the automatic check. That's not what goes on. Most of these gun shows,
    they're down little country roads, and you turn right, and you're in a
    little field. You know, you back up on both sides of the lane, and you
    open your trunk, and you get down your pickup. So if you're out in the
    parking lot, it means you're walking around to the front of the car.
    This is--this is just--it just doesn't make any sense.
        But what I want to tell you is, we have--I think the defining
    difference between the two parties today is no longer what they used to
    say about us. We proved we're more fiscally responsible than they are.
    We've got a more fiscally responsible program right here. We have proved
    that we can grow the economy. We've proved that we're for sensible
    defense spending. We've proved that we can do the things that we're
    supposed to do in foreign policy that--it's really almost, the most
    important thing is how we define community and what our mutual
    responsibilities are to one another.
        That's what the Patients' Bill of Rights is about. It's true. We'll
    have to pay out--you know, it'll be a buck or two a month. Our estimate
    is that the Federal health insurance program costs less than a dollar a
    month more, now that we have the protections of the Patients'

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    Bill of Rights. So that means that everybody that doesn't ever need the
    Patients' Bill of Rights--who's a Federal employee--is getting socked
    for about $10 a year. I think it's worth it. I think it's worth it as a
    part of our shared responsibility to protect people.
        So if you close this gun show loophole, 90-plus--95 percent, maybe
    more, of those people are honest as the day is long, and they'll have to
    hang around and wait for their background checks to be done. And
    sometimes it'll be a little bit of a pain--to increase the chances of
    saving 13 kids a day? I think it's worth it.
        This is really what's going on. It's no longer--it's not a question
    even about tax cuts. We're for tax cuts. The questions is, how big
    should they be; what are our other responsibilities; how should they be
    structured? And what I want you to understand is that these ideas
    matter.
        It matters whether we give out all this Federal money in education
    and tell the locals of the States, ``Just do whatever you want to with
    it,'' or whether we say, ``We think you ought to end social promotion
    but have mandatory summer schools for kids who fail. We shouldn't
    declare them fit. And we think we ought to have every school district
    that needs an after-school program ought to have one, and we're going to
    give you money to help you. It's our definition of community.'' It's not
    us telling them how to run the schools. This is what local research
    shows works.
        So when you leave here, I hope you will be able to tell people why
    you came today. And I hope you will be able to tell them why I'm doing
    this, even though I'm not running for reelection. I've spent my whole
    life believing that ideas matter. It really matters what America does
    collectively.
        And I have tried to get my party to change. We now have the smallest
    Federal Government since John Kennedy was President. We are not the
    party of defending every big Government program that was done yesterday.
    We are not the party that believes Government can do everything. We are
    the party that believes the Government has the responsibility to give
    people the tools and to create the conditions so that as a community we
    can go forward and everybody has a fair chance. And every one of these
    issues embodies that.
        So I thank you for being here. And I hope you'll come to more, and I
    hope you will stay with us. I'm grateful that I've had the chance to be
    President. And I'm nowhere near through. I've got a more ambitious
    agenda today than I did in my first year.
        But the most important thing is to keep this going. The next
    elections matter. The people matter. The ideas matter. This is a better
    country than it was in 1992. We tried it their way. This is a stronger,
    better country. And every time we've had a fight about whose ideas were
    right and whose were wrong--if you measure up to what was the impact of
    our economic plan, our crime bill, the insistence we made in welfare
    that we not get rid of the guarantees of health care and nutrition for
    our children, all of these things--our approach turned out to be right
    for America. And I want you to go out and tell people that. When they
    ask you why you came, tell them I gave a pretty good talk, but the most
    important thing was we are right for our children and the 21st century.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:15 p.m. at a private residence. In his
    remarks, he referred to First Selectman Diane Goss Farrell of Westport;
    Joseph J. Andrew, national chair, and Beth Dozoretz, national finance
    chair, Democratic National Committee; luncheon hosts Francine Goldstein
    and Sandra Wagenfeld; event cochairs Martha Aasen, delegate, State
    Democratic Central Committee, and Ronni Ginott, State chair, Women's
    Leadership Forum; former Representative Barbara B. Kennelly; State
    Attorney General Richard Blumenthal; State Treasurer Denise L. Nappier;
    Senator Christopher J. Dodd's wife, Jackie Marie Clegg; soprano Jessye
    Norman; actress Cicely Tyson; Edward L. Marcus, chair, Connecticut State
    Democratic Party; and Myra J. Irvin, section 8 rental assistance program
    manager, Hope, AR, Housing Authority.