[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
[February 4, 1999]
[Pages 162-167]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks on Presenting the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards
February 4, 1999
The President. Thank you very much. I must say I always love coming
to this; this is the fifth time I have participated in the Baldrige
Awards in the 6 years I have--this is the seventh year of my
Presidency--I've done this five times. And I like it because this group
is always so restrained, laid back, unexpressive, you know. [Laughter]
Amazing.
I want to thank Secretary Daley for his
truly outstanding service. And this is the first time he's told me he
intended to stay the whole 2 years; I appreciate that. [Laughter]
I want to thank Roger Ackerman, who is
genuinely devoted to the Baldrige Awards. And I thank all of those who
are responsible for the program. We're glad to have Tish
Baldrige here today. I thank Barry
Rogstad, Bob Jones, Ernie Deavenport. I
thank the National Institute for Standards and Technology.
I want to also thank my Adviser for Science and Technology, Dr. Neal
Lane, who is here; and Congressman Jay
Inslee from Washington State, who came to wave
the flag for Boeing. And I congratulate Boeing Airlift and Tanker, Solar
Turbines, and Caterpillar and Texas Nameplate, all of you, for your
great recognition today.
Kosovo
Let me say to all of you--I have to ask your indulgence for a
moment. This is the only opportunity I will have to be before the press
for the rest of the day, and I know that you have been following the
events in the Balkans and Kosovo and the work we're doing there to try
to promote peace and avert another ethnic slaughter in the former
Yugoslavia. And Secretary Albright's
going to say something about this later today, but I need to take just a
minute or two to speak not only to you but through you, to the American
people about this subject.
We have worked for years to restore peace in the former Yugoslavia.
Three years ago--I am very proud of the role the United States played in
ending the war in Bosnia with our NATO allies, with Russia, and other
allies--we sent 28,000 troops to that country, then. There are fewer
than 7,000 today, and we are continuing our drawdown. But the peace
process has taken hold.
I just came from the annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast that
Congress sponsors, something I never thought I'd live long enough to
see: the Prime Minister of the Serbian Republic within Bosnia--you know, there's a Serbian Republic,
and then there is the other republic, which is basically made up of the
Croatians and the Muslims--the head of the Serbian Republic came to the
Prayer Breakfast and looked at me, after all the battles we've fought,
and he said, ``You know, we wouldn't be at peace today if it weren't for
the United States.'' And it could have--[applause].
But I would like to say to all of you, to the American people, what
I said to the American people 3 years ago. The Balkans are an explosive
area. They touch other difficult areas. And unless we can contain and
ultimately defuse the ethnic hatreds in that region, they could embroil
us, ultimately, in a much larger conflict with much more human loss.
Now, the biggest remaining danger to our objective of peace and
stability in Europe has been the fighting in Kosovo. Unlike Bosnia,
Kosovo is actually still legally a part of Serbia. But it is supposed to
be autonomous under their law. Interestingly enough, Kosovo, which is
primarily made of Albanian natives, is where the fighting in the former
Yugoslavia began over a decade ago. We have an interest in seeing that
that is where it ends.
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If it continues, almost certainly it will draw in the neighboring
countries of Albania and Macedonia. Both of their Prime Ministers came here
today to meet with me and urge me to have the United States help to stop
this war. It could potentially involve our NATO allies Greece and
Turkey. It could spark tensions again in Bosnia and undo what we just
spent 3 years trying to do.
Certainly, if this conflict continues we'll see another massive
humanitarian crisis; there will be more atrocities, more refugees
crossing borders, more people crying out for justice, and more people
seeking revenge.
Our experience in the Balkans, and specifically in Bosnia, which all
of you will remember, teaches us a sobering lesson: Where you have these
smoldering ethnic hatreds, where you know they can get out of hand and
destabilize millions and millions of other people, violence begets
violence. If you don't oppose the violence, it just gets worse and worse
and worse, until finally you do oppose it at a much, much higher price,
under more dangerous conditions. Therefore, the time to stop this
conflict in Kosovo is now, before it spreads, and when it can be
contained at an acceptable cost.
We have agreed with our allies on a strategy that we believe can
bring peace and to back that strategy with the threat of force by NATO.
If a settlement--and it's a big if--if a settlement is reached, a NATO
presence on the ground in Kosovo could prove essential in giving both
sides the confidence they need to pull back from their fights. If that
happens, we are seriously considering the possibility of our
participation in such a force. We are discussing it now with Congress
and our allies. No decision has been reached.
Our willingness to contribute troops will depend upon a number of
things, and I'd like to outline them:
Number one, a strong and effective peace agreement: If both parties
haven't committed to stop killing each other, there's no point in our
sending Americans and other NATO forces and other allied forces into a
situation where we can't succeed.
Number two, the parties must demonstrate a commitment to
implementing the agreement and to cooperating with NATO and any other
people who go in with us.
Number three, we have to have a permissive security environment,
with the withdrawal of enough Serbian security forces and an agreement
restricting the weapons of the Kosovar paramilitaries.
And finally, we have to have a well-defined NATO mission with a
clear exit strategy. Our European allies and partners will have to
contribute a substantial majority of the troops. But NATO is a
partnership, and they have a right to expect the United States, which
has been the leader of NATO for 50 years now, to be a part of that. For
now, we don't have to reach that question because the peace talks will
begin on Saturday in France.
I would like to give a message, I believe, on behalf of all
Americans, to both sides. For the Kosovar Albanians, I'd like to say
that this is a chance not just to stop your people from getting killed
but take control of your destiny, where your rights, your faith, and
your culture are respected and you have the autonomy you have been
promised by law.
For the Serbs, this is a chance to prove Kosovo can remain part of
your country while regaining its autonomy and peace. For the people of
both communities, this is a chance to stop wasting your energies and
your lives on a useless war and to start conserving them for building a
more open and prosperous future for your children. I hope that the
people will take this chance. The United States will do what we can to
support them.
Thank you very much.
Baldrige Awards
I do love the Baldrige Awards. I love it when all the employees are
up there cheering. I think people ought to like what they do. Do you
ever think about how many fewer problems we'd have in this country if
everybody was happy at work every day? [Laughter] You laugh, but you
think about it. How would you feel if you came here and you didn't feel
like waiving those handkerchiefs?
You know, it's a great joy for me and for Secretary Daley--he alluded to this--to have had the opportunity to
serve our country at a time when we got out of debt and we went into
surpluses and we drove interest rates down and we had all this new
investment and all these new jobs. And now we've got the longest
peacetime expansion in history and the lowest peacetime unemployment
rate since 1957 and the lowest minority unemployment rate among African-
Americans and Hispanics ever recorded,
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since we started doing that in '72, and wages rising at twice the rate
of inflation and the highest homeownership in history, and for the first
time, even in our cities, there are more homeowners than renters--never
happened before.
It's wonderful for us to have been a part of that. But we know that
what we in Government do is to create the conditions in which all of you
create those jobs and create that economic activity. In fact, one of the
things that I'm proudest of is that the Government's share of this
economic expansion has been lower than any previous one since World War
II. We have a smaller Federal Government than we've had at any time
since President Kennedy was here. And I see every day fresh evidence
that it is not only the changes in the direction of the Government, it
has been changes in the direction of American business that has brought
America back.
Boeing Airlift and Tanker, Texas Nameplate, Solar Turbines, you're
showing the world that you can enhance competitiveness and make
companies better places to work. You're showing the world that you can
be good at what you do and happy while you do it. The employees are true
stakeholders in the progress, not only of their companies but of our
country, with new ideas and sharing in results.
I was particularly impressed to hear about how the winning companies
helped employees enhance their skills, because that is a particular
obsession of mine--that many have provided on-site GED and English-as-a-
second-language classes, reimbursed for college in advanced degrees,
even paid for books. We have worked very hard to create a system in
America of lifetime learning, but companies have to be a big part of it.
I'd also like to thank one of our honorees, Dale
Crownover for going back to college at the
age of 42 to get his degree and setting a good example for his
employees.
Now, as I said, you have brought America back, you and companies
like you. When the Baldrige Awards started, our country was having
difficulty in the international marketplace, and the vision of the
Baldrige Awards was to show that there were American companies who were
operating at world-class levels, and they ought to be honored, and then
they ought to be emulated. And I think that you can take a great deal of
pride in knowing that both those things have happened.
I heard a remarkable statistic--I hope it's true, because I'm fixing
to say it. [Laughter] Normally, when somebody digs up a fact for me,
it's so. Listen to this: Stock in companies that have won Baldrige
Awards has surged at nearly 3 times the pace of the S&P 500 as a whole.
Now, when you consider the fact that the stock market has nearly
tripled since January of '93, the fact that the stock in the companies
winning the Baldrige Award has gone up 3 times faster than the S&P
index, I think that's pretty darned impressive. And it shows you that if
we can--one of the things that I hope always comes out of these Baldrige
Awards, I hope that they'll be in business publications and in
newspapers and on television stations all over America, and I keep
hoping that all of you get hit on, then, all year long, after you get
off this stage, from people wanting to know how you did what, because I
hope that everybody will be out there trying to follow your lead and
figure out how to do better, as you have done.
Because in spite of the fact that we have the lowest unemployment
rate in peacetime since Boeing introduced the 707 in 1957, we know that
the world is changing rapidly. And as every businessperson knows, once
you slow down, the competition catches up. So this is not a time for
America, with its prosperity, to slow down. It's a time to bear down and
look at the long-term challenges facing us in the 21st century.
I would just like to briefly mention three points. Our economic
success as a nation has come from a commitment to fiscal discipline,
investing in our people, and expanding our markets. And I believe we
have a great deal more to do in all areas. And let me just briefly say,
in the State of the Union Address, I made what I expect to be an
increasingly controversial proposal. I said, ``We've got the first
surplus in 30 years now. We project that we will average big surpluses
over the next 25 years. I recommend that for 15 of those 25 years, we
actually save almost 80 percent of the surplus and save it because when
the baby boomers become the senior boom when we all retire, there will
only be about two people working for every one person drawing Social
Security.''
Audience member. [Inaudible] [Laughter]
The President. And--did you laugh at me or what you said? [Laughter]
Listen, as one of
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them, I don't think it's too funny, myself. [Laughter]
And the Social Security payroll tax will not be sufficient to cover
Social Security payments by 2013. By 2032, the Trust Fund will run out
of money. Meanwhile, we're all living longer and depending more on
sophisticated technology, so Medicare is projected to not cover its
costs by 2010.
Now, I believe we can debate within the Congress, within the
Democrats and Republicans, exactly how we're going to fix Medicare and
how we're going to fix Social Security, but I know one thing: You're not
going to fix big, sweeping demographic changes like this without some
money. And so what I propose to do is to save this portion of the
surplus, about a little over 60 percent for Social Security, 15 percent
for Medicare for 15 years, and while we're doing it, to buy back the
public debt with the money we're saving, because we don't need to spend
it right now.
Now, if we do that, we will not only be able to save Social Security
and Medicare in a way that will prevent the baby boomers from putting an
impossible burden on our children and our grandchildren, which I can
tell you as the oldest of the baby boomers is something that my
generation constantly worries about, that when we all retire the cost of
our retirement will be too burdensome on our children and their ability
to raise our grandchildren. It will not only do that. It will enable us
to pay down our debt.
Now, if anybody had ever told you 5 or 6 years ago we'd even have a
conversation about paying down the debt, you'd probably thought they had
slipped a gasket. But I'd like to tell you why it's important. We just
presented a budget to Congress. Before we do anything with that budget,
we have to pay interest on the national debt. The national debt
quadrupled between 1981 and 1993. When I took office, it was taking over
14 cents of every dollar just to pay interest. Every time you pay a
dollar in tax to the Federal Government, before we can spend it on the
United States military--including the Army Band who were magnificent
today--before we can spend it on education, before we can spend it on
the environment, before we can spend it on health care, before we can
spend it on a tax cut, before we can do anything with it, we had to take
over 14 cents on the dollar and pay interest on the debt. And they told
me, my economists, that it wouldn't be anytime until we'd be up to over
20 cents on the tax dollar in interest.
Now, if you save this much money for 15 years, it will take our
public debt from 50 percent, where it was when I took office, of our
annual income, down to 7 percent of our annual income. It will be the
lowest it's been since 1917, just before we entered World War I. And it
will take debt service down to 2 cents on the dollar. And then our
successors, the people that are up here running the show 15 years from
now, they can do whatever they want with that 11 cents. They can give it
back to you in a tax cut. They can invest it in education. They can
invest it in whatever else we need. They can make sure we keep
modernizing our military. They can do whatever is the right thing then.
But I know it is the right thing to prepare for the retirement of the
baby boomers and to stabilize these programs and to get this debt down.
There's something else I'd like to say. A lot of you compete in
international markets. On the way in today--just today--Roger and I were talking about the difficulty of--and
Secretary Daley--we were talking about the
importance of trying to keep these Asian markets open, with all this
financial turmoil over there and their not having enough money. You
know, Secretary Rubin and I, we worked very
hard to keep the financial crisis in Asia from spreading to Latin
America. Thirty percent of our growth has come from exports.
Now, we don't know what's going to happen beyond our borders. But I
know this: No matter what happens, we'll be better off. Interest rates
will be lower; there will be more money to spend on new plant and
equipment; there will be more money to invest in American economic
growth if we pay down this debt and we keep your interest rates low.
Then if the world takes off again--and we're working for it--we'll do
even better. And if there are problems in the world, we won't get hurt
nearly as badly as we otherwise would have been.
So I implore you, if we want more and more stories like the ones we
celebrate today, I hope you will support our efforts to save a
substantial portion of this surplus until we have secured Social
Security, stabilized Medicare, and guaranteed low interest rates for
another 15 years. It's important for America.
The second thing I'd like to say is that just as you make
investments in your employees, we
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must make more investments. America has had for many years a budget
deficit and an investment deficit. While we have cut the deficit, we've
almost doubled our investment in education and training. But 88 percent
of the companies--listen to this--88 percent of the companies in
manufacturing today are having trouble finding qualified applicants to
fill at least one kind of job. One in five companies report that they
cannot expand because they have not been able to have workers with the
right mix of skills to support the expansion.
That's why I'm so grateful, as I said before, for the example that
you were setting in your workplace and why our administration, the Vice
President and Secretary Daley, Secretary Riley, and others, have worked
so hard to set up a system of lifetime learning, to open the doors of
college to all with tax credits and scholarships and much lower cost
student loans, and many, many other things.
In this budget of mine, we are proposing a big new investment in our
worker training system so we can support training and re-employment for
every person who loses a job in America. We want to help millions more
whose first language is not English, learn it. We want to help many more
people come back and finish their GED and then go on to college. And you
are setting a good example.
We also, in this budget, have tried to provide the private sector
with the necessary incentives to reach the biggest group of new markets
that we haven't fully tapped, and those are the markets for employees
and consumers in the inner city and in rural areas that still haven't
been part of our recovery. Now, this is very important.
In America today, in the urban and rural neighborhoods where
unemployment is high and growth is low, there is a consumer market of
$85 billion in those areas, bigger than the consumer market of Mexico,
which is our second-largest purchaser of American products and trading
partner. So what I have asked the Congress to do is to pass laws
providing tax credits for people who invest in these designated areas,
and also setting up a model, sort of like our Overseas Private
Investment Corporation, which many of you in this room have used before,
to guarantee a portion of investments in an inner city, so that, for
example--suppose that in a big urban census area that had a 15-percent
unemployment rate, you were willing to go in and set up a plant with 300
people and train them and do all that, and the initial investment was
$300 million. If you took full advantage of this proposal of ours, you
could have 2 of that $300 million guaranteed in the ``American Private
Investment Corporation.'' The other $100 million, you'd get a 25 percent
tax credit for the investment. So if we put together $300 million of
investment in an underdeveloped area, you would actually have only $75
million at risk. That's a pretty good deal.
And we can--if we can't take free enterprise into these urban and
rural areas that have had no recovery now, with our lowest peacetime
unemployment rate since 1957, with a high growth rate, and with safer
investment opportunities at home than many of those abroad we pursued--
if we can't fix America now, when will we ever be able to do this? So
again, I hope you will support this.
The last thing I'd like to ask you to do is to support the continued
expansion of trade. In the State of the Union Address, I said, ``We've
got to build a new consensus on trade in America and beyond our
borders.'' We've got to be able to convince the American people and
people in other countries that trade benefits ordinary citizens, that it
doesn't have to tear the environment up. It certainly doesn't have to
depress labor standards.
I know and many of you in this room know that 30 full percent of all
this growth that we all celebrate all the time came because we've
expanded trade. And so I ask for your support to make sure that the
financial crisis we saw in 1998 doesn't become a trade crisis in 1999
because we don't do everything we can to continue to expand trade and
support open borders. [Applause]
Just last week the Vice President
announced our plan to call for a big reduction in agricultural tariffs,
which now average 40 percent. We're trying to restore the traditional
trade authority that Presidents since Gerald Ford have had, to create
new opportunity for American companies. We are committed to doing this,
and I thank you for your applause. But you know as well as I do that a
lot of Americans--it's very interesting--when we had this trade debate
last year, I found that there was an unusual alliance in the Congress
between some of the most conservative Republicans and some of the most
liberal Democrats, both of whom thought those of us who were sort of
stuck in the middle
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believing that we could actually create a new world economic system that
would benefit ordinary people were wrong, and they thought we had to
withdraw.
As I said, I'm working hard within my own party to build a consensus
on this, and at the same time I'm trying to reach out to Republicans to
build a consensus with them. But I do not believe we can continue to
grow the American economy and raise American incomes and reach into
America's distressed neighborhoods unless we continue, also, to reach
out to the rest of the world.
Furthermore, I believe we can minimize the likelihood that we will
ever have to send our men and women in uniform into a big conflict if we
have economic and other cooperation with countries that show that there
are other ways to solve your difficulties than taking up arms and
robbing children of their future.
So that's what I think we ought to do. I'm glad we're doing well. I
am grateful for having had the chance to serve. I am very mindful of the
fact that a lot of the credit for America's success goes to companies
and the people who work for them, like those we honor today. But I am
absolutely certain that this is not the time to sort of sit back on our
laurels and say, ``Isn't this nice. We've waited for 40 years for a time
like this. I think I'll take a vacation.''
This is a time to take this prosperity we have and this confidence
we have and expand our efforts. We can meet the long-term challenges of
the 21st century. We can alleviate the looming specter that the baby
boom might bankrupt our children and our grandchildren to pay for our
retirement. We can guarantee a secure retirement, a compact within the
generations, and we can pay down the national debt and guarantee low
interest rates and a stable situation and more capital to invest in the
private sector for 15 years. We can improve our education and training
systems. We can invest in our inner cities. We can expand trade. That is
an economic agenda that will set a framework within which more companies
who follow your lead will find the same kind of success that you have.
And remember what I said when I started. America wouldn't have
nearly the problems we have today if everybody was as happy on the job
as you are.
Thank you, and good luck.
Note: The President spoke at 11:45 a.m. in Imperial Ballroom A at the
Grand Hyatt Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to award foundation
president Roger G. Ackerman, chairman and chief executive officer,
Corning, Inc.; former Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige's sister,
Letitia Baldrige; foundation chairpersons Barry K. Rogstad, president,
American Business Conference, and Roberts T. Jones, president and chief
executive officer, National Alliance of Business; foundation trustee
Earnest W. Deavenport, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer,
Eastman Chemical Co.; and Dale Crownover, president and chief executive
officer, Texas Nameplate Co.