    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
    [April 16, 1999]
    [Pages 563-569]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 563]]

    Remarks at a Majority 2000 Luncheon in Dearborn, Michigan
    April 16, 1999

        Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your warm
    welcome. I want to thank all of those who have spoken and been
    introduced. This is, because of the operation going on in Kosovo--and I
    know that all Americans are proud of what our young people in uniform
    are doing there--it is an unusual moment for me to be here, but a very
    important moment for Americans to reexamine what it means to be a good
    citizen on the edge of the new century.
        There are a lot of things I'd like to say, but the first thing I
    want you to do is to hear me. I am here--you know, I won't be a
    candidate in 2000. I wish I could be, but I can't. [Laughter] And I'm
    here because I care about my country's future. I am profoundly grateful
    to the people of Michigan for having given Al Gore and me a chance to
    serve twice by their votes in the elections of 1992 and 1996, profoundly
    grateful to the Members of this delegation who have all been introduced,
    Mr. Dingell and Mr. Bonior and Debbie--thank you for
    running for the Senate.
        You can't beat anybody with no one; people have to show up and run.
    And Debbie could stay in Congress and have a
    good time and enjoy this and be a part of a majority, and she's taken a
    significant personal risk because she has a significant personal
    commitment to the future of this State and this Nation. And I appreciate
    it, and I know you do. And I think she has more than a significant
    chance to be victorious because of that.
        I was talking to the people at our table--it seemed like every time
    somebody from the Michigan delegation was introduced, I had some new or
    different thing to say, but it is an unusual House delegation, really
    unusually remarkable people, each with their own strengths. And I cannot
    say enough about Senator Carl Levin, who is off
    on our common mission of securing a just resolution to the problem in
    Kosovo.
        I also want to thank Senator Riegle and Frank Kelley and my good
    friend Jim Blanchard, my former
    colleagues in different ways over the years. I've been at this so long,
    Frank Kelley and I served together in the 1970's. [Laughter] I want to
    congratulate your new attorney general.
    I know she's doing a wonderful job. And Mayor Stanley, I'm glad to see you. And I can't say enough about
    Dennis Archer, and I want to say that I
    admire the effort you are making to reform your schools. And I believe
    you will succeed. Let me tell you something: One thing I've learned in
    this business over a long period of time, having spent countless hours
    in our Nation's schools: All of our kids can learn, and all of our
    schools can succeed, but someone has to be in charge. Change has to be
    possible; expectations have to be high. There have to be clear
    standards, and then there has to be support. And I want the rest of you
    to support it.
        I've heard a lot of people say today, ``I'm so glad that we're
    making these changes in our school systems.'' If you want the kids to be
    held to higher standards, then you have to support them. And if you have
    to raise the funds for more after-school programs or summer school
    programs or whatever it takes, you have to support them. So you have
    made a commitment now to change the way you're going to run your
    schools. Nothing is more important. I want you to support the mayor and
    make sure he has what he needs to get the job done for the children.
        I want to thank the leaders of the Michigan House and Senate for
    being here. I have enjoyed my opportunities to be with the legislature
    and to speak to the legislature recently.
        And I want to thank Patrick Kennedy
    for going around the country and trying to make sure we can run a race.
    Last time, in 1998, when the party of the President gained seats in the
    House of Representatives in a midterm election, in the sixth year of a
    Presidency, for the first time since 1822--1822--when we lost no seats
    in the Senate, and it was projected that we would lose five or six, we
    were outspent by over $100 million. And still these fine people, with a
    lot of your help, achieved that result. Thanks to the efforts of Dick
    Gephardt and Patrick Kennedy and a lot of other people, that won't happen this
    time, I don't believe, and I'm really grateful to them.
        And finally let me say, I think you could see from what has been
    said by all these people

    [[Page 564]]

    about each other, we have a real commitment to each other personally and
    a commitment to our shared agenda, and I think that is a very good
    thing.
        I admire Dick Gephardt and David
    Bonior enormously, not only because of
    the positions they take, not only because they stuck up for me when I
    was down as well as when I was up, but because they are truly good human
    beings. They're the kind of people you would be proud to live next door
    to, the kind of people you'd be proud to have raise your children if
    something terrible happened to you, the kind of people you would trust
    with your life's possessions if you had to turn your back and go away
    and do something else for an extended period of time. And they're the
    kind of people that ought to be directing the Congress into the 21st
    century.
        And I want to say something to all of you today in the midst of what
    is a difficult period. I want to tell you how this business in Kosovo
    fits with all the other things that we'd rather be here talking about
    today, with Social Security or education of our children or all the rest
    of it, and why it is an appropriate thing for us to be here today to
    talk about our responsibilities as citizens, which includes making
    choices about candidates, supporting them, and showing up and being
    counted.
        Now, in 1992 when I ran for President, I spent a great deal of time
    in Michigan, partly because one of my secrets was that an enormous
    number of people who live in Michigan came from Arkansas. [Laughter]
    It's one of the benefits of a depressed southern economy after World War
    II, is that I got elected President 40 years later because Michigan and
    Illinois were full of people from my home State.
        But I knew that this State, with all of its diversity, with its
    traditional industrial economy, its emerging high-tech economy, its
    magnificent agricultural economy, its big cities and small towns, really
    carried the future of America in its life. And I came here, and I said
    to the people, ``Look, here's the deal. Things aren't going very well,
    and if we keep doing the same thing over and over again, we're going to
    keep getting the same results. And I believe that we need to imagine
    what we want America to look like in the 21st century. I know what I
    want it to look like. I want a country where there is opportunity for
    every responsible citizen. I want a country where we're part of one
    community across all the lines that divide us. And I want us to build a
    world where there is more peace and freedom, more security, and more
    harmony. And we're going to have to change some things to do that. We're
    going to have to stop talking about how terrible the deficit is and do
    something about it. We're going to have to stop talking about how we
    wish our schools were better and invest not only money but the right
    kind of policies. We're going to have to stop talking about how we wish
    people weren't trapped in a lifetime of welfare dependency and say that
    able-bodied people have to move off, but we're not going to punish their
    children, and we're going to give them the education and training and
    support they need,'' and on and on and on. I said, ``You know, we're
    going to take a different policy.''
        And a lot of it was controversial. And frankly, one of the reasons
    I'm here today is that the Democrats might not be in the minority today
    if we hadn't had to go all alone to reduce the deficit while we
    increased our investment in education. But it led to the balanced
    budget; it led to lower interest rates, which was a huge, huge income
    increase to people who benefited from those lower interest rates; it's
    given us record high homeownership in America. Millions of people have
    refinanced their homes and saved a lot of money.
        There have been more businesses, more jobs, and for the last 2
    years, finally, for the first time in over two decades, incomes are
    rising for all economic groups in the country. We have the lowest
    African-American, the lowest Hispanic poverty ever recorded since we
    have been keeping statistics and the lowest unemployment rate among
    African-Americans and Hispanics recorded since we have been keeping
    statistics, the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years.
        And this is important. This is important. Now, we also have the
    first balanced budget in a generation, 2 years of surpluses now, the
    lowest crime rate in 30 years. We've genuinely opened the doors of
    college to everybody with tax credits and better loans and work-study
    programs and scholarships, the Pell grants. We've got 90 percent of our
    children immunized for the first time in our history against basic
    childhood illnesses. The air and the water are cleaner. We've
    increased--we've tripled the number of toxic waste dumps we've cleaned
    up. All these things have flowed from a few very tough decisions.
    Welfare rolls cut nearly in half.

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        Our country has been a force for peace and freedom from Northern
    Ireland to the Middle East. We have reached out in partnership to
    democracies all over the world. We are joining in an international fight
    against terrorism and the spread of chemical and biological weapons. We
    have tried to hope for the best and work for the best in the new century
    and prepare for any eventuality.
        And this country is in a better place than it was 6 years ago. And
    because of our success, we have heavier responsibilities to ourselves
    and to others. But none of that would have happened--none of it--if it
    hadn't been for the people in this room that I came here to support
    today.
        There are very few things that a President can do that the Congress
    does not either have to support on the front end or that the Congress
    cannot stop on the back end. And Dick talked about playing offense and
    defense. It isn't right that we have to play defense all the time; we
    ought to be working together from the beginning. But when we work
    together at the end of every budget year, we get to play a little
    offense, because if the President says, ``I'm not going to sign this
    budget, and I'm not going to sign these laws,'' and they say, ``I'll
    stick with him,'' then we get to play offense.
        But it would be so much better--the point I want to make to the
    American people is these folks were right. We now have evidence; we have
    6 years of evidence. We were right to put 100,000 police on the street.
    We were right to drive the deficit down and give us a surplus. We were
    right to do these things.
        And I ask the American people, when these Democrats go back into the
    field for the 2000 election for the House races and the Senate races, to
    look at the record of the last 6 years. And I will always accord the
    Republicans the credit they deserve when we have done things together.
    But the driving force--the driving force--and the way we came out with
    the economy, with our crime policy, with our education policy, so many
    other policies, and the foreign policy we have pursued, came out of
    these Democrats in the Congress who stayed with me and supported my
    ideas. And I think they deserve the support of the American people
    because they're doing the right thing.
        And let me be quite specific here and, again, keep the pledge I made
    at the beginning of the talk. What's all this got to do with what we're
    doing in Kosovo? The country is working again. And we have now, I would
    say, both the opportunity and the obligation to say, ``Okay, we've got
    things going right again. Now what do we have to do to have the kind of
    America and the kind of world we want for our children in this new
    century? What are the big challenges?'' You might ask yourself that when
    you leave here. What do you think they are?
        Here are what I consider to be the big five, if you will, and what I
    hope the 2000 elections will be about, unless we can resolve more of
    them between now and then, which we're working to do.
        Number one, we must deal with the aging of America. The number of
    folks over 65 will double by 2030. There will only be two people working
    for every one person drawing Social Security. The older I get, the
    better that problem looks. [Laughter] This is a very high-class problem
    faced by all wealthy societies. But unless you deal with it in a
    responsible way, you run the risk that when all of us baby boomers
    retire, we impose big burdens on our kids and their ability to raise our
    grandkids. And instead, there is an enormous opportunity here for those
    of us--anybody that lives to be 65 now has already got a life expectancy
    of about 82 years, if you get to be 65 in decent health. So this is an
    enormous opportunity, but we have to re-think our whole way of dealing
    with these things.
        Number two, we have to do more to balance work and family, both
    because there are more single-parent households and there are far more
    households in which both parents are working, where there are two
    parents. But there is no more important job in the world than raising
    children right.
        And we have to admit that while America has done a lot of things
    better than other countries--we have generated more jobs; we've got
    lower unemployment; we've done great--we have not done enough to balance
    work and family. And too many parents, every day in this country, have
    to make decisions about health care, about child care, about time off
    work, all kinds of challenges that, in my judgment, we could alleviate
    and still have a very strong economy, indeed, strengthen our economy if
    we did it in the right way.
        Number three, we need to have an economy that leaves no one behind,
    nobody responsible enough to work. I am encouraged that finally

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    all income groups have their incomes rising. I'm encouraged that there
    are cities like Detroit where the unemployment rate has gone down. But
    you know as well as I do that in most of the big urban areas of this
    country there are still huge parts of the cities where there has been no
    new investment and where unemployment is still high. There are many
    medium-sized industrial cities that have had more trouble changing their
    economy than the larger cities have. There are many small towns and
    rural areas in my home State and many other places, from Appalachia to
    the Mississippi Delta to south Texas, where there are problems.
        You want to know how we're going to keep the economy growing with
    low inflation? Get more investment in the underdeveloped areas of
    America. That's our biggest untapped market.
        Number four, we have to have a way of continuing to improve the
    environment and continuing to grow the economy. Our administration has
    spent, I think, probably more time and effort trying to pursue both
    these goals and reconcile them, not always to the satisfaction of
    everybody in this room or this country, but we have really made an
    effort. Why? Because I think if the country ever gets in a position
    where we really are making a choice between whether we're going to
    preserve the global environment or have our kids breathe clean air or
    drink safe water and seeing our economy grow, we're going to be in a
    terrible position.
        The developments in technology have given us more and more
    opportunities to find ways to both improve the economy and the
    environment. But I think--I predict to you that it will be a huge
    challenge for our country and our world for the next 20 to 30 years.
        And the fifth thing is that we have to learn how to reconcile unity
    and diversity at home and around the world.
        Now, what does that mean in practical terms? On the aging in
    America, we've got a plan. We, the Democrats, have a plan. Set aside 62
    percent of the surplus to make sure Social Security will be all right
    until 2055. And make some other modest changes in the Social Security
    program that will enable us to lift the earnings limit on people on
    Social Security, so those who want to work will be able to do so and
    contribute to our country, and that will enable us to do something for
    the elderly women who are living alone. Their poverty rate is twice the
    regular poverty rate.
        On Medicare, set aside 15 percent of the surplus, run the Medicare
    Trust Fund out at least 20 years, and finally begin to provide a
    prescription drug benefit to seniors on Medicare. It will cost money in
    the short run. It will save lives and save money in the long run because
    it will keep more people out of hospitals, more people out of
    procedures, and it will improve the quality of life. It will keep more
    people well. So that's our program. We also have a tax credit for long-
    term care. I think this is very, very important.
        Finally, we have what I think is the right sort of tax cut. Our USA
    accounts would basically give tax credits and matching funds for about
    12 percent of the surplus to working families to set up their own
    pensions.
        When Social Security was started, it was always assumed that you
    would have Social Security, and then people would get a pension at work,
    and then they would have some private savings. Well, today, a lot of
    people live on just Social Security. More and more pensions are shifting
    from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans. And the
    personal savings rate in America is way down.
        So what we propose to do is to say to people: Families with incomes
    up to $80,000, you can get a tax credit and some matching funds from the
    Government to set up a private savings plan for your retirement; up to
    $100,000, you can get tax credits but not matching funds; over $100,000,
    if you have no present private pension fund, you can still qualify.
        We haven't tried to start a class war here, but you should know that
    fewer than one-third of the tax benefits associated with retirement in
    America go to people with incomes of under $100,000. Fewer than 7
    percent of the tax benefits of retirement savings go to people with
    incomes of $50,000 a year or less.
        So wouldn't it be good, with the stock market having done what it's
    done, gone from 3,200 to 10,000 in the last 6 years--I think it would be
    better if more Americans owned a share of our national wealth. I think
    it would be better if more working families had some personal savings to
    go along with their retirement savings and Social Security and whatever
    they get from a pension plan. And this would be a good thing. That's our
    program for the aging of America.
        When it comes to balancing work and family, we want to do more for
    child care. We want to pass the Patients' Bill of Rights and do more

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    for health care access. We want to broaden the family and medical leave
    law some, so that more people are covered by it. It's been immensely
    successful. I think still today more ordinary citizens come up to me on
    the street, after all this time, and mention an experience they had, a
    positive experience because of the family and medical leave law, than
    any other thing we have done, and that's the first bill I signed as
    President in early 1993.
        In terms of leaving no one behind, what's the most important thing
    we can do? Build 21st century schools everywhere, as you're trying to do
    here in Detroit; smaller class sizes with our 100,000 new teachers;
    modernize school buildings; hook up all the classrooms to the Internet
    and help all the schools take advantage of it; give more school
    districts the ability to have after-school and summer school programs.
        I believe we should have a national change in our policy and end
    social promotion and require States to turn around failing schools, as
    Detroit has now taken on the responsibility of doing. But I do not
    believe children should be branded failures when the system fails them.
    I do not believe that.
        What else can we do to leave no one behind? We can recognize what I
    just said: A lot of places still haven't really fully participated in
    the economy. And I have asked the Congress to adopt what I call a 21st
    century markets initiative to provide for loan guarantees and tax
    credits to people who will invest in high unemployment areas in America.
    The same sort of benefits we now give people to invest in low income
    countries overseas. All I say--I'm for that, by the way. I want us to be
    good neighbors to Central America. I want them to be good democracies. I
    don't want us to have problems in the future. They should have a good
    life. They should be good markets. They can buy our products.
        But I say, why shouldn't we have the same incentives for people to
    invest in the low income areas of America where people are dying to go
    to work, dying to start businesses and capable of contributing to our
    future. We should be for that.
        We have a whole livability agenda that the Vice President and I
    worked up that I think has enormous support, grassroots support among
    communities in the country to help balance the environment and the
    economy.
        But finally, let me say what I started to say. I've worked hard, as
    Dick Gephardt said, on this whole issue of race in America. And you
    remember after the Oklahoma City bombings and there was all this talk
    about paramilitary operations in America, and I came to Michigan and
    gave a speech about it, talked about it. I grew up in the segregated
    South. I grew up with people who were taught not to like people who were
    different from them.
        And if you think about it, it is the oldest negative force in human
    society. You go back to prehistorical times; people fought each other
    because they were in different tribes and they were afraid of
    difference. And sometimes there is a rational basis for it. But in the
    world we live in, the forces of global economy bringing us closer
    together, the technological opportunities to share the future with
    people beyond our immediate reach increasing, our diversity--the
    diversity you have just here in Detroit in Wayne County--I remember the
    first time, I think, when Ed McNamara had
    me out to the airport dedication--I think it's the first time
    Dennis or Ed, one told me you had over 140
    languages spoken in this county. This is an incredible gift for the
    future. But it is a gift only if we make a virtue of it.
        Now, how do you make a virtue of it? Let's take what's going on in
    Kosovo. We have Albanian-Americans here, and we have some Serbian-
    Americans outside demonstrating against us, right? It's okay. That's
    America. We don't tell people they have to shut up in this country. They
    can speak their piece and do their thing and be there. But what we have
    to find is a way to respect our diversity and lift it up and still say
    what unites us underneath is more important.
        And that's what they have to find a way to do in the Balkans, too.
    And our quarrel there is not with the people of Serbia. Because of the
    state-run media, most of them don't have any idea what their people did
    in Kosovo. Most of them don't have a clue about the ethnic cleansing. I
    mean, people walking around on the street in Belgrade--they don't know,
    because they have a state-run media, they don't have a free press. So
    they think it's some political disagreement, and we're just trying to
    keep their country down.
        I have no quarrel with them. The Serbs were our allies in World War
    II. My quarrel is with Mr. Milosevic and
    his policies. He has sought

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    to establish the principle that the most important thing in the Balkans
    is having a Greater Serbia. And if you have to kill the Bosnian Muslims
    and the Croats in Bosnia and the Croats in the Krajina, and then if you
    have to clean out all of Kosovo and run all the Albanians into Albania
    and Macedonia and crush them, most of them Muslim but not all of them,
    that's okay. I don't think it's okay. I don't think it's okay.
        What I want you to think about is, look what we've tried to do in
    the Middle East. We have tried to be a fair and honest interlocutor in
    bringing the Palestinians and the Israelis together. We have worked
    hard, and we have a bill before the Congress now to try to help our
    friends in Jordan to stabilize their economy and keep being a force for
    peace.
        In Northern Ireland, we've tried to help the Catholics and the
    Protestants put aside three decades of conflict. Why? Because in a
    global economy--and Lord knows that if the American people hadn't
    learned anything in the 20th century, it's that sooner or later, if the
    world goes haywire, we get pulled into it--World War I, World War II,
    Korea, Vietnam. So, increasingly, we have done things to try to get
    involved to stop things from happening.
        Now, this war in Bosnia went a long along time. It went on nearly 3
    years before we really got the coalition together among the allies to
    try to go in and stop it. And by that time, there were over 2 million
    refugees and about 250,000 people had been killed, lost their lives.
        Now, we've had a few thousand people killed and a million-plus
    refugees in Kosovo. And what I have tried to say to the American people
    is, this is not some crusade America went off on its own. We've got all
    of our NATO Allies, 19 countries, all believing that this is something
    that needs to be contained and reversed--not because we have a quarrel
    with the Serbian people. And I want to point out, I said, I made it
    absolutely clear that we would not go in there even in a peaceful
    environment unless it was absolutely clear that our charge in Kosovo was
    to return all the refugees to their rightful homes and their
    neighborhoods and their communities, under conditions of peace, and then
    have a secure environment that would also protect the Serb minority
    within Kosovo.
        What I'm trying to do is to establish a principle here that we have
    to resolve our differences by force of argument, not by force of arms.
    And you cannot tell somebody you love the land but you hate the people
    that inhabit it because of their ethnic, their racial, or their
    religious affiliation.
        And if you think about the world we want our kids to live in, and if
    you think about how we want it to be free of war, free of conflict,
    there is no way to get there--no way--unless our historic alliance with
    Europe includes a Europe that is undivided, democratic, and at peace,
    and unless we are standing for the principle that we're not afraid of
    people that are different, not just in terms of racial or religious or
    ethnic differences but in terms of political opinions.
        We don't have to be afraid. All we need is a system that gives
    people a legitimate way to express their grievances, to fight their
    political battles, and limits the ability of people to oppress each
    other. And I believe we've done the right thing there.
        I cannot tell you how strongly I think that we would feel, no matter
    what apprehensions you may have in the moment--and I'm quite confident
    of the ultimate success of our mission--but no matter how many
    apprehensions you have, ask yourself how you would feel today if I were
    up here giving this speech, after what we did in Bosnia, after what we
    stood for in the Middle East and Northern Ireland, after all the work
    we've done in America to get people to live together across racial and
    religious lines, after the work we've done to end employment
    discrimination and to stand against hate crimes, and all the things this
    administration has stood for and this party has stood for and our people
    have stood for--how would you feel if I had come here to give this
    speech today and the headlines were full of all those people being
    killed and all those people being thrown out of the country, and we were
    having to explain to people why we couldn't lift a finger to do anything
    about it?
        So life is full of hard decisions, and sometimes the most important
    things in life are difficult. This has been a difficult period for Dick
    Gephardt and for Dave Bonior and for John Dingell.
    For all of us it's been so frustrating these last 6 years, going through
    this position where we've had to fight so many rearguard actions. But
    they have grown stronger and deeper and wiser and more determined.
        And this is what I want for our country in this moment. We must
    always keep our hearts and our ears open. We must always be open

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    to the possibility of constructive resolution. But I think that we ought
    to say, ``Look, the 21st century world we want to be a place where
    people live free of this sort of madness, of hating each other because
    of their differences.'' And we have to be free of it in America because
    we will be the most diverse democracy in the world.
        That is what is at stake. And that's why it's good that we're all
    here today. Because, in the end, the political leadership of the country
    cannot go where the people will not travel. That's what a democracy is.
    So it matters what you believe. It matters whether you will support
    candidates. It matters which candidates you support.
        And all I can say to you is, I am profoundly grateful to you because
    you and the people of Michigan have been good to me and to my family and
    to my Vice President, to our administration. You have been good to the
    Members of Congress that are here. And we have tried in turn to do
    things that were good for America and good for Michigan.
        We face big challenges. But if you look at the record of the last 6
    years, two things should come forth: Number one, you should be very
    optimistic about the future; but number two, you should be willing to
    make tough decisions and be firmly in the camp of those who are
    committed to what is truly in the best interest of the children of this
    State and this country. They I have come to stand with today, and I'm
    very proud to be here with them and with you.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:15 p.m. in the ballroom at the Fairlane
    Club. In his remarks, he referred to Representative Debbie Stabenow;
    former Senator Donald W. Riegle, Jr.; former State Attorney General
    Frank J. Kelley; former Gov. James J. Blanchard; State Attorney General
    Jennifer M. Granholm; Mayor Stanley Woodrow of Flint, MI; Mayor Dennis
    W. Archer of Detroit, MI; Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, chairman,
    Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; Wayne County Executive
    Edward H. McNamara; and President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal
    Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).