    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [July 28, 1999]
    [Pages 1338-1343]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the American Legion Boys and Girls Nations
    July 28, 1999

        Thank you very much. I always look forward to your coming every year
    because I know we'll have plenty of enthusiasm to light up the old house
    here. [Laughter]
        Let me begin by thanking Secretary Riley, who is, I'm almost sure, the longest serving Secretary of
    Education in American history, and I am quite sure the finest Secretary
    of Education we have ever had. And I thank him for his service.
        I would like to thank the officials of Boys and Girls Nation who are
    here: the American Legion National Commander, Butch Miller; Boys Nation Director Ron Engel; Director of Activities Jack Mercier, who was a counselor when I was at Boys Nation, in 1904
    or whenever--[laughter]--a long time ago--1963--Girls Nation Director
    Dianne McClung, Youth Program Coordinator
    Kenya Ostermeier.
        I'd also like to acknowledge the presence in the audience of some
    alumni of Boys and Girls Nation: Congressman Jim Ramstad of Minnesota, who was there with me in 1963. Stand up,
    Jim. [Applause] And I see one of my two White House staffers who is an
    alumnus, Fred DuVal of Arizona, who is here. And
    Janet Murguia from Kansas is--I don't know if
    she's here or not, but she went to Girls Nation--a long time after I
    did. [Laughter]
        I also can't help noting that--I think the State of Nevada today is
    represented by Patrick Sergeant. His
    father, Colonel Steve Sergeant, is the new
    Deputy Executive Secretary of the National Security Council here at the
    White House, and we're glad to have his service.
        I want to thank your Boys Nation and Girls Nation officers who are
    here: Vice President Denise Battle and Vice
    President John Feeny. If Al Gore were here, he would tell you that's a very important job.
    [Laughter] And I might say it is a very important job.
        The Vice President has this great joke.
    He says every time he votes, we win. [Laughter] And as all of you know,
    we only vote when there's a tie in the Senate. And actually, we've had
    some of the more important--perhaps one of the two or three most
    important votes taken in the Senate in my term as President was the vote
    on the economic plan of 1993, which led to big reduction in the deficit
    and gave us the biggest leg up on the balanced budget. It was a tie
    vote, and the Vice President broke the tie. So you might think about
    that as you contemplate your future. It's a good thing to break ties.
        I want to thank President Teah Frederick
    and President Ryan Rippel for their comments and
    their example.
        I look forward to this day every year, partly because of my own
    memories of being at Boys Nation and the debates we had. When you talked
    about the issues you were dealing with--we had this huge debate on civil
    rights in 1963, and I was one of the four representatives from

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    the South that voted for the civil rights plank. And in the light of
    history, it looks pretty good. I feel good about it. But I've never
    forgotten what it was like that week hearing from the Cabinet members,
    meeting Senators and Congressmen, and all the debates that occurred.
        I've never forgotten that President Kennedy met with us and made us
    feel that public service is a noble endeavor and that we all could make
    a difference. And I hope all of you feel that way, because your country
    needs you. You have so much to give.
        One of the young people here today may go on to be President. One
    might command the first human mission to Mars. One might develop a cure
    for cancer or AIDS. Perhaps you will teach the next generation of young
    people or help to alleviate poverty or violence in your own communities.
    As long as you keep setting goals and working hard and using your talent
    for the common good, there's no limit to what you can do. And America
    needs you.
        This country has been around a long time because we have remained
    faithful to our ideals, but forever young and open to change. I don't
    want to conduct a tour of the White House today, but the old house was
    finished in 1800. So, on our millennial year, we will celebrate the
    200th birthday of the White House. The painting of George Washington to
    my left, to your right, was painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1797 and
    purchased for the then enormous sum of $500, for the White House. It is
    priceless today.
        But it's worth remembering how important it is to keep democracy
    alive, that in 1814, when we were in the last throes of the War of 1812
    and the British were coming up the Potomac, the President of the United
    States, James Madison--who was the last President to be the active
    Commander in Chief for the Armed Forces, and so was up in Maryland,
    where he mistakenly thought the British would be--at the head of an
    army, sent word back to his wife, Dolley, who was preparing this vast
    banquet--the White House was full of food; this room was full of food--
    that the British were on the way and she should get out, but no matter
    what, she had to take the picture of George Washington.
        So Dolley Madison cut that picture out of its frame, rolled it up,
    and got out of the White House. The British arrived to find the empty
    frame, ate the food, and burned the house. [Laughter] But we rebuilt the
    house, and the picture still lives. And every time I see that picture, I
    think about it.
        It was in this room that Thomas Jefferson met with his secretary,
    Merriwether Lewis, to plan the Lewis and Clark expedition--right where
    you're all sitting. The place was covered with bearskins and ancient
    maps, and they were--President Jefferson was in love with the geography
    and science, and he saw this whole thing as not only a geographical
    expedition, but he thought that all kinds of scientific information
    would be gathered along the way. So a lot of very important things have
    happened where you are sitting today that remind us that America is a
    place with great opportunities and great responsibilities.
        Today, our country is the greatest force for peace and security and
    human rights and prosperity in the world. We have the longest peacetime
    expansion in our history. We have almost 18, 19 million new jobs now. We
    have the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, the lowest crime rate in
    26 years, the smallest welfare rolls in 30 years. Our social problems,
    in general, are getting better. Teen drug abuse, pregnancy, teen smoking
    are declining. And the country is learning to live with the most amazing
    array of diversity--racial diversity, ethnic diversity, religious
    diversity--and still find a way to be bound together as one community.
        This is a very important time. And rather like you at this time in
    your life, your always-young Nation faces the question of what to do
    with our prosperity and our promise, just as you face the personal
    question of what to do with your promise. Will we seize this chance of a
    lifetime to meet the long-term challenges of America, to ensure that
    when you are our age, you will have a great country to live in and
    cherish and pass on to your children and grandchildren? I would argue
    that that is the real challenge we face today, just as you must decide
    whether you're willing to continue to forgo certain things today in
    order to achieve your goals tomorrow.
        Will we invest in creating the best system of education in the
    world, with smaller classes, better-prepared teachers, modern and safe
    schools? Will we save Social Security and Medicare before the baby
    boomers retire and the number of people over 65 doubles, which will
    happen in 30 years? Will we make America debt-free for the first time
    since 1835, and so ensure your prosperity, and do those things

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    which will enable economic opportunity to come to the people and places
    who still have not felt this recovery?
        These are some, but not all, of the great long-term questions before
    us as a nation, as you gather here. And so we're having this enormous
    debate in Washington. It is a good-faith debate, based on competing
    visions and values. It will help us to define what we see as our most
    fundamental responsibilities to our parents, to our children. It is a
    debate about the future of our Nation and, to be sure, about your
    future.
        I want to talk just a minute about it today, because it is a debate
    that 6\1/2\ years ago, when I was taking office, no one thought we would
    ever have. Everywhere I go in America now I say, ``You know, when I was
    here in 1992, if I had said to you, `Now, I want you to vote for me, and
    in 6\1/2\ years from now, I'll come back and we'll talk about what to do
    with the surplus,' they would have laughed me out of the room. I never
    would have carried a single State. They would have said, `That poor
    young man seems like a nice fellow, but he's terribly out of touch.'''
    [Laughter] Because we had a $290 billion deficit, high interest rates;
    we had averaged 7 percent unemployment for a long time, and we
    quadrupled the national debt in 12 years.
        All I could do was to tell the American people I was going to bring
    the debt down; I would do my best to balance the budget; and if we did
    it, we'd get interest rates down, and investment would come up. And I
    said, but we had to do it in a way that allowed us to continue to invest
    in education, in the environment, in health care and research, the
    things that were critical to our future.
        So that's what I did. You probably won't remember this because you
    were all young, but in the year I ran for President in 1992, one of the
    best selling books--quite a well-written book, written by two journalists from
    Philadelphia--was entitled ``America: What Went Wrong?'' Thanks to the
    hard work of the American people, our country has made a seismic shift
    in the last 6 years. Now we're looking at $99 billion in surplus this
    year, and we look forward to a new decade of budget surpluses and a new
    century full of confidence and pride.
        I'm also proud that while we have eliminated the deficit and
    produced the surpluses, we nearly doubled our investments in education
    and training programs, because that is the most effective investment we
    can make in our long-term future. Without good teachers and high
    expectations, I wouldn't be here today. But education is even more
    important to your generation and will be even more important to those
    coming along behind you because of the nature of the way the information
    age works.
        Secretary Riley has already talked about the historic investments
    we've made to open the doors of college to every American, to do more
    for underprivileged children, to try to make sure every classroom in the
    country is hooked up to the Internet by the year 2000, and that because
    of the so-called E-rate, even the poorest schools will be able to afford
    to log on in all those classrooms--and the other things that we're
    trying to do.
        This year Congress is debating whether to work with us to finish the
    job that Congress made an initial commitment to last year of hiring
    100,000 teachers so we can lower class size to an average of 18 in the
    first 3 grades all across the country. And I have asked Congress to pass
    a tax incentive to help us build or modernize 6,000 schools across
    America, because enormous numbers of young people are going to schools
    that are very, very old, a lot of them not even capable of being wired;
    and a lot of other young children are in housetrailers out beside the
    old schools because we now have, finally, a class of schoolchildren
    bigger than the baby boomers. And we have to do more in that regard.
        I have also asked Congress to help us to strengthen performance--
    with higher standards for schools, for teachers, for students--to say
    that Federal aid should go only to those schools that end social
    promotion but also provide summer school programs, after-school
    programs, and extra help to turn schools around that aren't doing the
    job.
        So far, the main thing that the Congress has heard in all this is
    the siren call of large tax cuts on the theory that we have a surplus,
    it's your money, and we ought to give it back to you. Now, it only takes
    5 seconds to say that, and it sounds great. I heard one Member of
    Congress the other day, in all seriousness, said, ``If you let them''--
    referring to the President and the members of my party--``if you let
    them keep your money, they'll spend it on their friends.''
        Well, what I have proposed to do is to take most of the surplus and
    set it aside for Social

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    Security and Medicare, and in the years when we don't use the money, use
    that to pay down the debt so we can be debt-free in 15 years, for the
    first time since 1835, which means lower interest rates for everybody,
    more investment, more jobs, higher incomes and, for your families, lower
    mortgage rates, college loan rates, credit card rates, and car payment
    costs. And it would guarantee the long-term stability of the country. I
    think that's the right thing to do.
        And I have also proposed to spend adequate amounts of money to
    continue the Federal role's investment in education and medical
    research, national defense, and other things and then to take what's
    left and spend it on a tax cut. It is, admittedly, much smaller than the
    one that the majority approved.
        Now, they believe--to be fair--it is your money. It's the taxpayers'
    money; and they believe that the best thing to do is to give it back. It
    would cost about $800 billion over the next 10 years and $3 trillion
    over the 10 years after that. Sounds like an unimaginable sum--that's
    real money there. And that's when the baby boomers will be retiring.
        Now, the problem I have with it is that under their plan, to be
    fair, we could save the Social Security surplus to pay down the debt,
    partially, but we would not lengthen the life of the Social Security
    Trust Fund or the Medicare Trust Fund, and we'd have to have big cuts in
    education and the other items that I've mentioned. But people would get
    the tax cut. But that would be the price tag; in other words, it's not
    free. So we're having this big debate.
        My argument is that we quadrupled the debt of this country between
    1981 and 1992. And I don't believe we should be even discussing the tax
    cut until we decide what our obligations are--to deal with the aging of
    America. And let me say, this is not just an issue for you--I mean, for
    us. I mean, I'm the oldest of the baby boomers. But it's not just an
    issue for us. It is an issue for you. Why? Because I can tell you that
    my generation is absolutely obsessed with the notion that if we retire,
    there will be so many of us that we will break the bank of Social
    Security and Medicare and we'll have to depend on our kids to support us
    and then our children won't have the money they need to raise our
    grandchildren.
        So this--when you hear about the Social Security and Medicare
    debate, it's not just about senior citizens. It's about the compact
    between the generations in America and whether we can continue to, in
    effect, let seniors take care of themselves by and large so that their
    children by and large will be free to take care of their grandchildren.
    That's really what is going on here.
        So--and if I had my way, we would decide this issue in the following
    order: We would decide what are we going to do--what does it take to fix
    Social Security and Medicare; what do we have to have to take care of
    education, defense, research, and the things that we should do as a
    nation? And then let's take what's left over and give it back in a tax
    cut. The way we're having the discussion about the size of the tax cut
    first, it would be like if you go home this weekend, when you finish,
    you go home and you have dinner and your folks say to you, ``You know,
    we have always wanted to take this month-long vacation to Hawaii, and
    we're going to take it. We're going to fly first-class; we're going to
    go to the most expensive hotels; we're going to have everything we've
    ever dreamed of. And when we get home, we'll figure out whether we can
    pay the home mortgage and send you to college.'' [Laughter] Now, you
    being--I'm sure you need the vacation. I'm sure it would be a good
    thing. [Laughter] But you wouldn't make the decision in that order.
        So that's the debate we're having here, in part. I believe that a
    lot of people who voted for this tax cut, they know I'm going to veto it
    if it passes, so they don't think it will be law. And they want to be on
    record as, ``I was for a bigger tax cut than President Clinton was.''
    But what we should be doing, I think, is saying, ``Hey, we have--once in
    a lifetime you get this kind of chance where there's no more deficit,
    projected surpluses, and you know what the big challenges of the country
    are. You know it's dealing with the aging of America, dealing with the
    education of our children, dealing with keeping the economy going and
    bringing economic opportunity to people who haven't felt it. There are
    other things, but let's just focus on those three.'' I think we ought to
    decide what we ought to do.
        And let me give you an idea of what would happen if a tax cut of
    this size were to become law, so you can focus on it. Because there is
    no such thing as a free decision. It is your money, and if you tell the
    Congress you want it back, they could by enough--if they could override
    my veto, they could give it all back

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    to you. I mean, everything you give us is your money. We could abolish
    the Department of Defense tomorrow and everything else we do and give it
    all back to you and have no Federal Government. So it is your money.
        But let me give you an example. If we pass the tax cut, and we
    stayed with a balanced budget, according to our Office of Management and
    Budget, here's what the consequences would be. Today, we're helping 12
    million children in high-poverty areas get extra help. I have proposed
    reforms to raise standards for them and give them more help. This plan,
    if it passed, with this tax cut, would require us to say to 6 million of
    those children, ``We can't help you.''
        Today, we provide funds to help a million children learn to read
    independently by the end of the third grade. If the tax plan passes,
    we'd have to say to 480,000 of them, ``We're sorry; we can't do that.''
        Today, we're nearing our goal of enrolling a million people in Head
    Start. If the plan passes, we'd have to say to 430,000 preschoolers,
    ``We can't do that.''
        Last year we reached across party lines to hire 30,000 of that
    100,000 teachers I talked about. It was a wonderful moment--like when we
    passed the balanced budget in '97, overwhelming majorities of both
    parties in both Houses; when we passed welfare reform in '96,
    overwhelming majorities of both parties in both Houses. That's the way
    the country ought to work. And we did that last year. And it will allow
    us, as I said, if we finish the job, to reduce class size to an average
    of 18 in the first 3 grades. But if the tax cut passes, and we keep a
    balanced budget, we'd have to say to a million students, ``No smaller
    classes.''
        So I think this is a big problem. Today, we're helping 400,000
    students with after-school programs. This is a huge deal. Every inner-
    city, tough neighborhood that has after-school programs that are
    aggressive sees a big drop in the juvenile crime rate and a big increase
    in learning in the schools. We propose to triple the number of people
    who would be included in those programs next year. If this tax plan
    passes, we'd have to cut that in half.
        The school construction tax cut I mentioned to you earlier, to help
    us build or modernize 6,000 schools, ironically, is not in the plan. In
    this plan, only 10 percent of that many schools would be fixed.
        Now, these are not just numbers; these are children. And keep in
    mind, most of you are going to be fine regardless. I mean, you got to
    Girls Nation; you got to Boys Nation. Somebody will give you a
    scholarship if your family doesn't have the money to go to college. You
    have to ask yourself whether you will be better off if your country is
    better off. If we try to make sure that we all go forward together--you
    came here because you believed in the American system, a system that is
    designed not to just address the needs of the most talented and the most
    fortunate among us but a system premised on the fact that nearly
    everybody, nearly everybody in a free country can do what is necessary
    to be a good, productive, hard-working citizen if given the tools to do
    so. And I believe that.
        The reverse is true, that those of us who are most fortunate will
    also have the quality of our lives diminished to the extent that we do
    not provide everyone the chance to live up to their God-given abilities.
    So that's what's going on now. And believe me, this is an honest,
    philosophical debate. If the people who disagree with me were here, they
    would say, ``Well, we just think Government wastes too much money, and
    this is your money, and you paid the taxes, and we ought to give it back
    to you.''
        There's another element here I want to say to be fair. We might keep
    spending all this money, but if we did that and pass the tax cut, then
    we'd be right back in the same fix we were in before I took office--huge
    debts, higher interest rates dragging down the economy, higher
    unemployment. So I know it's easier for me to say, maybe, because I'm
    not running for anything. You know--under our system we have a two-term
    limit, and I can't run for anything unless I go home and run for the
    school board some day. [Laughter]
        But I believe that the American people can be told the truth about
    our long-term challenges. And I believe the American people feel good
    about the decisions we made that were hard decisions at the time that
    have brought our country to this moment. And there are still such big
    things out there.
        So what I say is, let's do first things first. Let's lift the burden
    of your parents' aging off your shoulders by securing Social Security
    and Medicare. Let's give you a chance to have an even more successful
    economy than we have today, by getting this country out of debt for

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    the first time since 1835 and taking extra steps to bring money into
    these inner-city neighborhoods, the rural neighborhoods, the Indian
    reservations, where there has been no economic recovery.
        Let's continue to make sure that we are investing in the education
    of our young people. We'll still have money for a tax cut that could
    include long-term care, child care--for me, helping ordinary families
    save for retirement. But the main thing is not so much what the elements
    of it are but that it's not so big that it either throws us into debt or
    requires us to compromise our future.
        Now, that is the way I see this. I wonder if 36 years from now you
    will remember what was going on in Washington with the same clarity that
    I remember. But I can tell you, it was by no means certain that Congress
    and the country would do the right thing on civil rights. Indeed,
    President Kennedy, when he addressed the Boys Nation delegates, thanked
    us for our resolution on civil rights and bemoaned the fact that the
    Governors, who had just met a week before we did, could not reach
    agreement; they could not reach across party lines and regional lines to
    stand up for the elemental principal of civil rights. And he thanked us
    for doing it.
        Thirty years later, 36 years later, it looks like Boys Nation was
    right, and the Governors' Association was wrong. [Laughter] Just look
    around this crowd today. Look at all the differences represented by the
    young men and women here. Who could possibly say that America is not
    better off for the progress we have made? But you need to know a lot of
    people lost their jobs in election sticking up for civil rights in
    places where it wasn't so popular. A lot of Congressmen lost their jobs
    in 1994 because they voted to bring the deficit down, or they voted for
    the Brady bill or the assault weapons ban, which helped to give up the
    lowest crime rate in 26 years.
        But sometimes you have to look to the long run. And one of the
    things that the sad events of the last couple of weeks have reminded us
    all of is that the gifts of life and the burdens of life do not fall
    according to some rational plan--that all of our lives, even if we live
    to be 80--or in the case of Secretary Riley's father, over 90--life is
    still fleeting. And the great test is to try to enjoy and make the most
    of every day and still sow the seeds for your children to have a better
    tomorrow.
        That is what we are trying to do here. Thomas Jefferson said every
    difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. If we can
    remember that here, I think we can once again reach across the party
    lines and the regional lines and think about the long-term interest of
    America. It has been a long, long time since our country has had a
    chance to make provisions for the next generation with absolute
    confidence, unencumbered by the burdens of just getting through the day.
    That is where we are. And I am determined to do everything I can to see
    that we make the most of it to give you the chance to live your dreams.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:52 p.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Teah Frederick, president, Girls
    Nation; Ryan Rippel, president, Boys Nation; and authors Donald L.
    Barlett and James B. Steele.