    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [October 3, 1999]
    [Pages 1669-1672]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Luncheon for Representative Brad Sherman in Beverly Hills, California
    October 3, 1999

        Thank you very much. Thank you. Let me, first of all, say to
    Dick and Daphna,
    Brad Sherman said I was patient; I could have stayed up there all day.
    I'm looking at you and all your happy faces and the kids on the
    trampoline and the other kids in the playhouse back there and these
    beautiful children who sang for us and somebody back up there with half
    a dozen saxophones--it must be a wise person--[laughter]--in this
    beautiful, beautiful setting.
        So let me begin by just thanking you all for coming. I thank our
    attorney general, Bill Lockyer, and Controller
    Kathleen Connell and, of course, our
    wonderful first lady, Sharon Davis, for being
    here. I want to say I just got off the phone with Hillary a few moments ago, and we admire so much the
    work that Daphna has done and the prodding of
    us she has done to try to change the laws of our country to make
    adoption easier and to do what is always in the best interest of the
    children. And she

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    has played a genuine national role in that, and that is a very elegant
    way of saying I never saw her that she wasn't pushing me to do the right
    thing. And I want to thank her for that very much.
        I want to say that I'm glad to be here for Brad Sherman, too,
    because--you would know why if Brad Sherman had ever asked you to do
    anything. [Laughter] He's really a perfect Congressman. When Brad
    Sherman asks you to do something, you can do it now, or you can do it
    then--[laughter]--after he has gnawed on you for months or years or
    however long it takes. Eventually when he asks you to do something, if
    it involves his work, you will do it. So I've learned to do it sooner
    rather than later. It saved me a lot of trouble, and I've had a lot of
    fun. [Laughter]
        You should know that he genuinely is, I think, one of the most
    energetic and effective Members of the United States Congress, with a
    great future, very much liked by all of us, and very much trusted by all
    of us. So I thank you for being here for him. And in a larger sense, I
    thank you for being here for what his election represents.
        You know, Brad was reading off those statistics, and he was very
    kind to do so, but I would like to ask you to think about something
    else. Remember what it was like in California in 1992? We had a bad
    economy, a terribly, terribly fractious social climate here, a lot of
    tensions between the races. We had a sense of drift and division, and
    the politics of the national Republican Party were basically designed to
    divide the country up between us and them, and as long as their ``us''
    was bigger than our ``them,'' they won and who cared what the
    consequences were.
        Al Gore and I came to the people of California and the United States
    and said, ``We would like to try a different way. We're sick of all this
    division. We think there can be a unifying theory of American
    citizenship in our American community. We believe, for example, that we
    could reduce and get rid of this deficit, which is crippling our
    economy, and still continue to invest in education and the environment,
    things that are important. We believe we could help business and labor.
    We believe we could grow the economy and actually clean up the
    environment, given the technological advances of recent years.'' And on
    and on. You know, when I came here in '92, it was an argument; that is
    we made an argument, and they made an argument, and--thank God--you
    agreed with us, and you gave us the chance to serve.
        But nobody knew whether we were right or not because they had been
    in for so long. And you heard those statistics Brad reeled off. I just
    want to say them again, not to give myself credit but to give the
    American people credit. A unifying, community-oriented, balanced view of
    America, that gives us all a chance to bring out the best in one another
    and to work together, works. We do--it's given us the lowest
    unemployment in 29 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 32 years, the
    lowest crime rates in 26 years, the lowest poverty rates in 20 years,
    and the first back-to-back budget surpluses in 42 years. So it's not an
    argument anymore. There is evidence. This way works. It works better
    than the other way.
        Let me say, the land is cleaner; the water is cleaner; the air is
    cleaner; the food is safer. We've set aside more land than any
    administration except those of Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt. We
    didn't hurt business. The previous President
    vetoed the Family and Medical Leave Act; I signed it; 15 million people
    took advantage of it. They said it was bad for business. Every year,
    there's been a record number of new small businesses.
        The previous administration vetoed the Brady bill; I signed it and
    the ban on assault weapons. They said hunters were going to lose their
    weapons. That didn't happen, but 400,000 people with criminal records
    did lose their weapons, and that's one of the reasons we got the lowest
    crime rate in 26 years.
        So I say to you, you have to see this election in 2000, Brad
    Sherman's election and all these others, in that context. We made an
    argument in 1992. In the year 2000, there is no argument; we have
    evidence. The question is, will the American people act on the evidence,
    or will they once again be vulnerable to the siren songs that the
    Republicans put out?
        Now, what I think I should be doing, primarily, is not out here
    politicking, because I'm not on the ballot. What I do most of the time
    is just try to give you every day I've got left to be the best President
    I can. But let me tell you, you need to know that when we brought our
    economic program forward, 100 percent of the Republicans opposed it.
    When

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    we brought our crime program forward, 90 percent of them were against
    it. When they passed welfare reform, I had to veto it twice because they
    didn't guarantee medical care and food for the children of the families
    on welfare we were requiring to move to work.
        They are still fighting us every step of the way on the environment.
    And I could go on and on and on. We have a different view of America's
    future. It is a deeply and honestly held difference. I don't question
    their motives, but I think they're wrong, and now we have evidence that
    they're wrong. But the one thing I like about the Republicans is they
    are undeterred by the evidence; they go right on. [Laughter] They go
    right on.
        And you know, we have--our prosperity has been indiscriminate; we've
    let the Republicans make money, too. [Laughter] Why do you think
    Governor Bush has so much money in his
    campaign treasury? [Laughter] I've been thinking of listing that as one
    of the seminal accomplishments of my economic policy, the George Bush
    campaign treasury. [Laughter]
        So they're never in doubt. It doesn't matter what the evidence is.
    But the rest of us, we have to act on that. So I'm trying to get the
    Congress today to deal with the challenge of the aging of America. We're
    going to double the number of people over 65 in the next 30 years. We
    ought to take the opportunity now to save Social Security, save
    Medicare, add a prescription drug coverage to the Medicare program.
    Three-quarters of the seniors in this country can't afford it. We ought
    to do that. We're for it, and they're not.
        As California knows, we have the largest and most diverse student
    population in history. We ought to take this opportunity to give all the
    students who need it not only high standards and accountability but the
    summer school and after-school and mentoring programs they need. We need
    more teachers, and we need more modern schools. We've got a program to
    do all three of those things. The Democrats are for it, and they're
    fighting us every single step of the way.
        I'll tell you an interesting thing. It was a big issue in California
    last time. We made a downpayment right before the election in 1998 on
    putting 100,000 teachers in the schools for smaller classes. And the
    Republicans voted with us right before the election. And then they all
    went home and said, ``We voted for 100,000 teachers and this is a great
    thing, and this is like a Republican program. There is no bureaucracy
    here; it is wonderful.''
        You know what they just did? They refused to continue the
    commitment, and they undid it. Why? Because this is not an election
    year. And they don't want the Democrats to be able to say they did
    anything for our children. Doesn't anybody care about whether it's good
    for the kids or not? Isn't there anybody in their party that will say,
    ``To heck with the politics; we did it in '98 when we wanted votes; it
    was the right thing then for kids; it's still the right thing?'' There
    are serious and deep differences up there. And Washington is a long way
    from California, but what Gray Davis and all
    these other fine State and local officials can do is shaped, to some
    extent, by what we do.
        On the environment, last year we spent $400,000 complying with
    subpoenas from one Republican subcommittee in the House of
    Representatives because they thought our attempts to fight global
    warming and promote energy conservation and alternative sources of
    energy was some sort of deep conspiracy to wreck the economy of the
    United States. You have no idea; however bad you think it is, multiply
    it by three or four. [Laughter]
        We are five seats away from a majority in the House of
    Representatives. They will not vote to close the gun show loophole. They
    have kept 2 years--they let 2 years go by until we could vote on a
    Patients' Bill of Rights, which finally we're going to get a vote on
    this week. We are five votes away from a majority. We can't lose a guy
    like Brad Sherman, and we can pick up three or four more seats in
    California if you will fight.
        If you believe we ought to meet the challenges of the future; if you
    are for dealing with the challenge of the aging of America; if you're
    for giving all these kids a world-class education; if you're for putting
    America back in the lead to a safe and healthy environmental future; if
    you're pleased that we've got the lowest crime rate in 26 years, but you
    would like America to be the safest big country in the world; if it
    bothers you that not everybody in America has participated in our
    prosperity and you think every person who's willing to work ought to
    have a chance to be a part of our successful, free enterprise system,
    and you want us to do something for the poor, to give them a chance,
    too; if you believe that we are all one people,

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    without regard to our race or our gender or our religion or our sexual
    orientation, and we ought to all be part of America's future, and you're
    sick and tired of the politics of division, and you want us to pass the
    employment nondiscrimination act and the hate crimes prevention act, and
    in a larger sense, you want us to stand for these things around the
    world; if you thought we were right to try to stop ethnic cleansing in
    Bosnia and Kosovo and to try to bring peace to the Middle East and
    Northern Ireland, and to do our best to diffuse the tensions between
    India and Pakistan; if you believe that ought to be America's role at
    home and abroad and you don't want to see us go into the 21st century
    everybody hooked up to a modern computer and everybody hooked down and
    held down by paralyzing primitive hatreds, then you ought to be a
    Democrat, and you ought to be for Brad Sherman and take him back to
    Congress and holding the White House and helping us to build a country
    this Nation can be in the 21st century.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 2 p.m. at a private residence. In his
    remarks, he referred to luncheon hosts Richard S. and Daphna Ziman;
    California State Attorney General Bill Lockyer and Controller Kathleen
    Connell; Sharon Davis, wife of Gov. Gray Davis of California; and Gov.
    George W. Bush of Texas.