    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [October 8, 1999]
    [Pages 1734-1740]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Forum of Federations Conference in Mont-Tremblant, Canada
    October 8, 1999

        Thank you. Thank you so much. Prime Minister Chretien; to the Prime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Denzil
    Douglas; Premier Bouchard; cochairs of this conference, Bob Rae and Henning Voscherau; to
    distinguished visitors; Governors--I think the Lieutenant Governor of
    South Dakota, Carole Hillard, is here--and to
    all of you: I think it is quite an interesting thing that we have this
    impressive array of people to come to a conference on federalism, a
    topic that probably 10 or 20 years ago would have been viewed as a
    substitute for a sleeping pill. [Laughter]
        But in the aftermath of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia; the
    interesting debates--at least I can say this from the point of view as
    your neighbor--that has gone on in Quebec; the deepening, troubling
    efforts to reconcile different tribes who occupy nations with boundaries
    they did not draw in Africa; and any number of other issues, this topic
    of federalism has become very, very important.
        It is fitting that the first global conference would be held here in
    North America, because federalism began here--a founding principle
    forged in the crucible of revolution, enshrined in the Constitution of
    the United States, shared today by all three nations on our continent,
    as I'm sure President Zedillo said.
        It is also especially fitting that this conference be held in
    Canada. A land larger than China, spanning 5 times zones and 10 distinct
    provinces, it has shown the world how people of different cultures and
    languages can live in peace, prosperity, and mutual respect.
        In the United States, we have valued our relationship with a strong
    and united Canada. We look to you; we learn from you. The partnership
    you have built between people of diverse backgrounds and governments at
    all levels is what this conference is about and, ultimately, what
    democracy must be about, as people all over the world move around more,
    mix with each other more, live in close proximity more.
        Today I would like to talk briefly about the ways we in the United
    States are working to renew and redefine federalism for the 21st
    century; then, how I see the whole concept of federalism emerging
    internationally; and finally, how we--how I think, anyway--we should
    judge the competing claims of federalism and independence in different
    contexts around the world.
        First let me say we are 84 days, now, from a new century and a new
    millennium. The currents of change in how we work and live and

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    relate to each other, and relate to people far across the world, are
    changing very rapidly.
        President Franklin Roosevelt once said that new conditions impose
    new requirements upon government and those who conduct government. We
    know this to be the case not only in the United States and Canada, Great
    Britain and Germany, Italy and France, Mexico and Brazil, but indeed, in
    all the countries of the world. But in all these places there is a
    federalist system of some form or another. We look for ways to imbue old
    values with new life and old institutions with new meaning.
        In 1992, when I ran for President, there was a growing sense in the
    United States that the compact between the people and their Government,
    and between the States and the Federal Government, was in severe
    disrepair. This was driven largely by the fact that our Federal
    Government had quadrupled the national debt in 12 years, and that had
    led to enormous interest rates, slow growth, and grave difficulties on
    all the States of our land which they were powerless to overcome.
        So when the Vice President and I ran for national office, we had no
    debate from people who said, ``Look, this is a national priority, and
    you have to deal with it.'' But we talked a lot to Governors and others
    about the necessity to create again what our Founding Fathers called the
    laboratories of democracy. We, frankly, admitted that no one knew all
    the answers to America's large welfare caseload, to America's enormous
    crime rate, to America's incredible diversity of children and challenges
    in our schools. And so we said we would try to give new direction to the
    Nation and deal with plainly national problems, but we would also try to
    build a new partnership that would make all of our States feel more a
    part of our union and more empowered in determining their own destiny.
        Now, people develop this federalist system for different reasons. It
    came naturally to the United States because Great Britain set up
    colonies here as separate entities. And the States of our country
    actually created the National Government. So we always had a sense that
    there were some things the States were supposed to do and some things
    the Federal Government were supposed to do.
        Our Founding Fathers gave us some indication in the Constitution,
    but the history of the United States Supreme Court is full of cases
    trying to resolve the whole question of what is the role and the power
    of the States as opposed to what is the role and the power of the
    National Government in ever new circumstances.
        There are different examples elsewhere. For example, in the former
    Yugoslavia when it existed before, federalism was at least set up to
    give the appearance that all the different ethnic groups could be fairly
    treated and could have their voices heard.
        So in 1992 it appeared that the major crisis in federalism was that
    the States had been disempowered from doing their jobs because the
    national economy was so weak and the fabric of the national society was
    fraying in America. But underneath that I knew that once we began to
    build things again we would have to resolve some very substantial
    questions, some of which may be present in your countries, as well.
        As we set about to work, the Vice President and I, in an effort that
    I put him in charge of, made an attempt to redefine the mission of the
    Federal Government. And we told the people of the United States that we
    actually thought the Federal Government was too large in size, that it
    should be smaller but more active, and that we should do more in
    partnerships with State and local governments and the private sector,
    with the ultimate goal of empowering the American people to solve their
    own problems in whatever unit was most appropriate, whether it was an
    individual citizen, the family, the community, the State, or the Nation.
        And we have worked at that quite steadily. Like Canada, we turned
    our deficit around and produced a surplus. We also shrank the size of
    the Federal Government. The size of the United States Federal Government
    today is the same as it was in 1962, when John Kennedy was President,
    and our country was much, much smaller.
        In the economic expansion we have been enjoying since 1993, the
    overwhelming majority of the jobs that were created were created in the
    private sector. It's the largest percentage of private sector job
    creation of any economic expansion in America since the end of World War
    II.
        Meanwhile, many of our State and local governments have continued to
    grow in size, to meet the day-to-day demands of a lot of the domestic
    issues that we face in our country. And I think that is a good thing.

    [[Page 1736]]

        In addition to shrinking the size of Government, we've tried to
    empower the States to make more of their own decisions. For example, the
    Department of Education has gotten rid of two-thirds of the rules that
    it imposed on States and school districts when I became President.
    Instead, we say, ``Here are our national objectives; here is the money
    you can have. You have to make a report on the progress at meeting these
    national objectives, but we're not going to tell you how to do it
    anymore.'' And it's amazing what you can do if you get people to buy
    into national objectives with which they agree, and you stop trying to
    micromanage every instance of their lives and their daily activities. So
    we found some good success there.
        We've also tried to give the States just blanket freedom to try more
    new ideas in areas where we think we don't have all the answers now,
    from health policy to welfare reform to education to fighting crime.
        We have always felt--this has been easy in the United States,
    though, compared to a lot of places because we've had this history of
    believing from the time of our Founders that the National Government
    would never have all the answers, and that the States should be seen as
    our friends and our partners because they could be laboratories of
    democracy. They could always be out there pushing the envelope of
    change. And certain things would be possible politically in some places
    that would not be possible in others.
        And we have been very well served by that. It has encouraged a lot
    of innovation and experimentation. Here is the problem we have with the
    basic business of government and federalism today. In the 21st century
    world, when we find an answer to a problem, very often we don't have
    time to wait for every State to agree that that's the answer. So we try
    to jumpstart the federalist experience by looking for ideas that are
    working and then embodying them in Federal legislation and giving all
    the States the funds and other support they need to do it.
        Why do we do this? Well, let me give you one example. In 1787, in
    the United States, the Founding Fathers declared that all the new
    territories would have to set aside land for public schools and then
    gave the responsibility for public education to the States. Now, then,
    in the next few years, a handful of States mandated education. But it
    took more than 100 years for all of our States to mandate free public
    education for all of our children. That was 19th century pace of change.
    It's inadequate in the 21st century.
        So I have tried to do what I did as a Governor. If something is
    working in a State, I try to steal it, put it into Federal law, and at
    least give all the States the opportunity and the money necessary to
    implement the same change. But it's very, very important.
        Since our Ambassador is a native of
    Georgia, I'll give you one example. One of my goals is to make universal
    access to colleges and universities in America, and we now have
    something called the HOPE scholarship, modeled on Ambassador Giffin's
    home State program, which gives all students enough of a tax subsidy to
    at least afford the first 2 years of college in America, because we
    found in a census that no matter where you come from in the United
    States, people with at least 2 years of education after high school
    tended to get jobs where their incomes grew and they did better. People
    with less than that tended to get jobs where their incomes stayed level
    or declined in the global economy.
        Now, we've also tried to make dealing with Washington less of a
    problem. We've ended something that was very controversial, at least
    prospectively, called unfunded mandates, where the Federal Government
    would tell the States they had to do something and give them about 5
    percent of the money it cost to do it. That, I think, is a problem in
    every national Federal system. We continue to give the States greater
    freedom and flexibility. And this summer I signed a new Executive order
    on federalism which would reaffirm in very specific ways how we would
    work in partnership and greater consultation with State and local
    officials.
        Federalism is not a fixed system; it, by definition, has to be an
    evolving system. For more than 200 years, the pendulum of powers have
    swung back and forth one way or the other. And I do want to say--for
    those of you who may be looking outside in, thinking the Americans could
    never understand our problems, they don't have any problems like this--
    it is true that, by and large, in our State units we don't have people
    who are of just one racial or ethnic or religious groups. But to be
    sure, we have some of that. I'll give you one example that we're dealing
    with today.
        The United States Supreme Court has to decide a case from the State
    of Hawaii in which

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    the State has given native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, the right to
    vote in a certain kind of election--and only native Hawaiians. And
    someone in Hawaii has sued them, saying that violates the equal
    protection clause of the United States Constitution. We disagree because
    of the purpose of the election.
        But you can see this is a federalist issue. We basically said the
    National Government would give that to the States, the States want to do
    it this way; then a citizen says, ``No, you can't do that under national
    law.''
        Another example that causes us a lot of problems in the West--what
    happens when the Federal Government actually owns a lot of the land and
    the resources of a State? The National Government is most unpopular in
    America in States like Wyoming or Idaho, where there aren't very many
    people; there's a lot of natural resources. Cattlemen, ranchers have to
    use land that belongs to the Federal Government, and we feel that we
    have to protect the land for multiple uses, including environmental
    preservation as well as grazing or mining or whatever. And so it's an
    impossible situation.
        It's very funny; in these States, when we started, the Federal
    Government was most popular in the areas where we own most of the land,
    because we built dams and channeled rivers and provided land for people
    to graze their cattle. And within 50 years, the Federal Government has
    become the most unpopular thing imaginable. Now, I used to go to Wyoming
    on vacation just to listen to people tell me how terrible the job I had
    was. [Laughter] But it's a problem we have to face.
        And let me say one other thing I think might be interesting to you
    is that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in the United
    States tend to have different ideas about federalism depending on what
    the issue is, which is why it's always good to have a dynamic system.
        For example, we Democrats, once we find something working at the
    local level that advances our social policy, or our economic policy, we
    want to at least make it a national option, if not a national mandate.
    When I became President, crime was going up, but there were cities where
    crime was going down. I went there and found out why it was going down.
    And it was obvious to me we didn't have enough police officers
    preventing crime in the first place, so I said we're going to create
    100,000 police at the national level and give them to the cities.
        The conservatives were against that. They said, ``You're interfering
    with State and local rights, telling them how to fight crime.'' Of
    course, I wasn't; I was giving them police. They didn't have to take
    them if they didn't want them. [Laughter] And it turned out they liked
    it quite well; we have the lowest crime rate in 26 years. But there was
    a genuine federalism dispute.
        Now we're having the same dispute over teachers. We have the largest
    number of children in our schools in history; lots of evidence that
    smaller classes in the early grades yield permanent learning gains to
    children. So I said, now let's put 100,000 teachers out there. And they
    say I'm trying to impose this terrible burden on State and local
    governments, sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong.
        On the other hand, in the whole history of the country, personal
    injury law, including economic injuries, commercial law has always been
    the province of State and local government except for things like
    securities, stocks, bonds, things that required a national securities
    market. But many people in the Republican Party believe that since there
    is essentially a national economy and an international economic
    environment, that we should take away from the States all their States'
    rights when it comes to determining the rules under which people can sue
    businesses. And they really believe it.
        And I have agreed with them as it applies to securities litigation
    because we need a national securities market. But I have disagreed with
    them as it applies to other areas of tort reform where they think it's a
    bad thing that there is State rights.
        And I say this not to attack the other party, but only to illustrate
    to all of you that in whatever context you operate, there will always be
    differences of opinion about what should be done nationally and what
    should be done at the State level. That cannot be eliminated. The
    purpose of federalism, it seems to me, is to, number one, take account
    of the genuinely local feelings which may be in the United States a
    result of economic activities and ties to the land and history; or it
    may be in another country the result of the general segregation of
    people of various racial, ethnic, or religious groups into the provinces
    in the Federal system.

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        So the first process is to give people a sense of their identity and
    autonomy. And then you have to really try to make good decisions so that
    the system works. I mean, in the end, all these systems only have
    integrity if the allocation of decisionmaking authority really produces
    results that people like living with, so they feel that they can go
    forward.
        Now, let me just discuss a minute what is sort of the underlying
    tension here that you see all across the world, which is what is the
    answer to the fact that on the edge of a new millennium--where we would
    prefer to talk about the Internet, and the decoding of the human gene,
    and the discovery of billions of new galaxies in outer space--those of
    us in politics have to spend so much time talking about the most
    primitive slaughter of people based on their ethnic or racial or
    religious differences?
        The great irony of the turning of the millennium is that we have
    more modern options for technology and economic advance than ever
    before, but our major threat is the most primitive human failing: the
    fear of the other and the sense that we can only breathe and function
    and matter if we are somehow free of the necessity to associate with and
    deal with and maybe even, under certain circumstances, subordinate our
    own opinions to the feelings of them, people who are different from us,
    a different race, a different religion, a different tribe.
        And there is no answer to this that is easy. But let me just ask you
    to look in the context of the former Yugoslavia, where we are trying to
    preserve a Bosnian state--Prime Minister Chretien and I and our friends--which serves Croatians and
    Muslims, after 4 years of horrible slaughter until we stopped it in
    1995; or in Kosovo, where we're exploring whether Kosovo can continue to
    be an autonomous part of Serbia, notwithstanding the fact that the Serbs
    ran all of them out of the country and we had to take them back.
        Why did all this happen? Partly because it was an artificially
    imposed federalism. Marshal Tito was a very smart man who basically
    said, ``I'm going to create federalism out of my own head. I'm going to
    mandate the participation of all these groups in government. And I'm
    going to forbid my government from talking about ethnic superiority, or
    oppression, or problems.'' He wouldn't even let them discuss the kind of
    ethnic tensions that are just part of the daily life in most societies
    in this world. And it all worked until he died. And then it slowly began
    to unravel.
        So one of the reasons you have all these people clamoring for the
    independence of ever smaller groups is that they had a kind of phony
    federalism imposed from the top down. So the first lesson I draw from
    this is every federalist system in the world today--a world in which
    information is widely shared, economic possibilities are at least--
    always, to some extent, based on global forces, certainly in terms of
    how much money you can get into a country--the federalism must be real.
    There must be some real sense of shared authority. And people must know
    they have some real range of autonomy for decisions. And it must more or
    less correspond to what they perceive they need to accomplish.
        On the other hand, it seems to me that the suggestion that a people
    of a given ethnic group or tribal group or religious group can only have
    a meaningful communal existence if they are an independent nation--not
    if there is no oppression, not if they have genuine autonomy, but they
    must be actually independent--is a questionable assertion in a global
    economy where cooperation pays greater benefits in every area of life
    than destructive competition.
        Consider, for example, the most autonomous societies on Earth,
    arguably, the tribes still living in the rainforests on the island of
    New Guinea. There are 6,000 languages still existent in the world today,
    and 1,000 of them can be found in Papua New Guinea, and Irian Jaya,
    where tribes living 10, 20 miles from one another have compete self-
    determination. Would you like that?
        On the other hand, consider the terrible problems of so many African
    peoples where they're saddled with national borders drawn for them at
    the Conference of Berlin in 1885, that took no reasonable account of the
    allocation of the tribes on certain lands and the history of their
    grazing, their farming, their moving.
        So how to work it out? There is no answer. We have to provide a
    framework in which people can work it out. But the only point I want to
    make to you today--I don't want to beat this to death, because we could
    stay here for a week discussing this--is that at the end of World War I,
    the European powers I think and America sort of withdrew, so we have to
    share part of the blame. But our record is not exactly spotless in how
    we went about carving up, for

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    example, the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire. And so we have spent much
    of the 20th century trying to reconcile President Woodrow Wilson's
    belief that different nations had the right to be free--nations being
    people with a common consciousness--had a right to be a State and the
    practical knowledge that we all have that, if every racial and ethnic
    and religious group that occupies a significant piece of land not
    occupied by others became a separate nation--we might have 800 countries
    in the world and have a very difficult time having a functioning economy
    or a functioning global polity. Maybe we would have 8,000. How low can
    you go?
        So that doesn't answer any specific questions. It just means that I
    think when a people thinks it should be independent in order to have a
    meaningful political existence, serious questions should be asked: Is
    there an abuse of human rights? Is there a way people can get along if
    they come from different heritages? Are minority rights, as well as
    majority rights, respected? What is in the long-term economic and
    security interests of our people? How are we going to cooperate with our
    neighbors? Will it be better or worse if we are independent, or if we
    have a federalist system?
        I personally believe that you will see more federalism rather than
    less in the years ahead, and I offer, as exhibit A, the European Union.
    It's really a new form of federalism, where the States--in this case,
    the nations of Europe--are far more important and powerful than the
    Federal government, but they are giving enough functions over to the
    Federal government to sort of reinforce their mutual interest in an
    integrated economy and in some integrated political circumstances.
        In a way, we've become more of a federalist world when the United
    Nations takes a more active role in stopping genocide in places in which
    it was not involved, and we recognize mutual responsibilities to
    contribute and pay for those things.
        So I believe we will be looking for ways, over and over and over
    again--the Prime Minister and I have endorsed
    the Free Trade Area of the Americas--we'll be looking for ways to
    integrate our operations for mutual interest, without giving up our
    sovereignty. And where there are dissatisfied groups in sections of
    countries, we should be looking for ways to satisfy anxieties and
    legitimate complaints without disintegration, I believe.
        That's not to say that East Timor was wrong. If you look at what the
    people in East Timor had been through, if you look at the colonial
    heritage there, if you look at the fact that the Indonesians offered
    them a vote, they took it, and nearly 80 percent of them voted for
    independence, it seems that was the right decision there.
        But let us never be under the illusion that those people are going
    to have an easy path. Assuming that those of us that are trying to
    support them help them; assuming we can stop all the pro-integrationist
    militias from oppressing the people, and we can get all the East
    Timorese back home, and they'll all be safe--there will still be less
    than a million of them, with a per capita income among the poorest in
    the world, struggling to make a living for their children in an
    environment that is not exactly hospitable.
        Now, does that mean they were wrong? No. Under the circumstances
    they faced, they probably made the only decision they could have. But
    wouldn't it have been better if they could have found their religious,
    their cultural, their ethnic, and their economic footing and genuine
    self-government in the framework of a larger entity which would also
    have supported them economically and reinforced their security instead
    of undermined it? It didn't happen; it's too bad.
        But I say this because I don't think there are any general rules,
    but I think that, at the end of World War I, when President Wilson
    spoke, there was a general assumption, because we were seeing empires
    break up--the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire; there was the
    memory of the Russian Empire; British colonialism was still alive in
    Africa and so was French colonialism--at that time, we all assumed--and
    the rhetoric of the time imposed the idea--that the only way for people
    to feel any sovereignty or meaning was if they were independent.
        And I think we've spent a lot of the 20th century minimizing the
    prospects of federalism. We all have recoiled, now, so much at the abuse
    of people because of their tribal, racial, and religious
    characteristics, that we tend immediately to think that the only answer
    is independence.
        But we must think of how we will live after the shooting stops,
    after the smoke clears, over the long run. And I can only say this, in
    closing:

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    I think the United States and Canada are among the most fortunate
    countries in the world because we have such diversity; sometimes
    concentrated, like the Inuits in the north; sometimes widely dispersed
    within a certain area, like the diversity of Vancouver. We are fortunate
    because life is more interesting and fun when there are different people
    who look differently and think differently and find their way to God
    differently. It's an interesting time. And because we all have to grow
    and learn when we confront people who are different than we are, and
    instead of looking at them in fear and hatred and dehumanization, we
    look at them and see a mirror of ourselves and our common humanity.
        I think if we will keep this in mind--what is most likely to advance
    our common humanity in a smaller world; and what is the arrangement of
    government most likely to give us the best of all worlds--the integrity
    we need, the self-government we need, the self-advancement we need--
    without pretending that we can cut all the cords that bind us to the
    rest of humanity--I think more and more and more people will say, ``This
    federalism, it's not such a bad idea.''
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:25 p.m. in the Chateau Mont-Tremblant. In
    his remarks, he referred to Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada;
    Premier Lucien Bouchard of Quebec; President Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico;
    and U.S. Ambassador to Canada Gordon Giffin. The Executive order on
    Federalism is listed in Appendix D at the end of this volume.