[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.
[[Page 565]]
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
[[Page 566]]
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
[[Page 567]]
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
[[Page 568]]
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
[[Page 569]]
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).