    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [September 27, 1999]
    [Pages 1607-1610]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Luncheon for Representative William J. Jefferson in New Orleans
    September 27, 1999

        Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I've had a wonderful day
    here. I don't think I've ever had a bad day in New Orleans. [Laughter]
    And I'm honored to be here with Bill and Andrea, with Vic and Fran
    Bussie. And Vic, you've done a lot of great
    things in your life, but you haven't given many better talks. That was
    very, very good.
        I'm honored to be here with your bright young mayor, who has established such a fine record and has recently
    joined the ranks of the happily married. [Laughter] We're proud of him
    for that, too.
        Let me say to all of you--I was just sitting here listening to what
    everybody else was saying, wondering if I could offer any unique
    perspective. I first came to New Orleans 50 years ago. I hate that.
    [Laughter] I was just a little boy. My mother was in nursing school
    here. And one of the most vivid memories of my lifetime was seeing my
    mother kneel by the side of the railroad tracks and cry when I went home
    with my grandmother, because she had been widowed early, before my
    father--before I was born. My father died 3 months before I was born.
    And she came down here to get some education so she could support me.
        I came back here when I was 15 and a budding musician. [Laughter]
    And they wouldn't let me in anyplace to hear anybody--[laughter]--
    because I was so young. And I saw--I never will forget this--I was
    walking away from my mother, and I saw Al Hirt sitting there in some big
    English limousine, reading a newspaper, and he was going to go in and
    perform. I knocked on his window, told him who I was, and said I had
    come all the way down here from Hot Springs, Arkansas, and all I cared
    about was music. I didn't want to drink anything; I didn't want to
    gamble; I didn't want anything; I just wanted to go hear him play. He
    took me in and put me on the front table. It's funny what you remember,
    isn't it?
        I've never forgotten that, and that sort of embodies the generosity
    that the people of this city and this State have exhibited to me
    throughout my life. And you did give Al Gore and me, Hillary and Tipper,
    and our administration the electoral votes of the people of Louisiana
    twice, and I'm profoundly grateful for that.
        I want to say three or four things I think you ought to think about
    in this election. When I became President, I ran a long, hard campaign.
    I was written off for dead three or four times along the way, and three
    or four dozen times since. [Laughter] But Bill Jefferson was one of my
    first supporters. I remember the first time I came here, when the
    Jeffersons had me in their home. I met
    their beautiful, brilliant daughters, and their family members, many of
    whom are here today. The Congressman's father
    is here, mother-in-law is here, many others
    here.
        And we went through that campaign, and I found that, to a remarkable
    degree, we shared the same philosophy. We were proud members of the
    Democratic Party, but we didn't like the fact that our party had been a
    part of the leadership of 12 years of Republican Presidents when we had
    the majority in the Congress, and together they quadrupled the debt of
    the country;

    [[Page 1608]]

    and that we were in a terrible recession. Interest rates were high.
    Unemployment was high. Wages had been stagnant for more than a decade.
    We didn't like the fact that people thought because we believed in the
    United States Constitution and we were against racial discrimination,
    that somehow we were soft on crime or we thought able-bodied people
    shouldn't work instead of being on welfare.
        We thought that the Democratic Party, and African-Americans in
    general, had been twisted and distorted and used as political whipping
    boys in campaigns. And we thought Washington was divided by gridlock,
    and we wanted a change.
        So I said, give me a chance to change America, to change the
    direction of the country, change our party, to change our leadership in
    Washington. I have a simple philosophy: I want America in the 21st
    century to be a place where every person, without regard to race, creed,
    gender, or anything else, has a chance to live up to his or her God-
    given potential. I want America to be a place where we're all coming
    together, not being driven apart. And I want America to be the world's
    strongest force for peace and freedom and justice and prosperity.
        And my strategy for getting there is to do everything I know how to
    do to give opportunity for all, demand responsibility from all
    Americans, and create a community of all Americans. That's what we said
    we'd do.
        Now, in 1992, it was an argument. And the people decided to give me
    a chance, even though I was, in the rather disparaging characterization
    of the incumbent President, just a Governor from a small southern State.
    [Laughter] The people decided to give me a chance. They bought our side
    of the argument.
        By 1996, there was no argument anymore because the results were
    beginning to pour in. And now, in 1999, I can look back and say with
    gratitude and thanks and humility that it has worked out. The results
    speak for themselves. We have the longest peacetime expansion in
    history; 19.4 million jobs; the lowest unemployment rate in 29 years;
    the lowest welfare rate in 32 years; the lowest crime rate in 26 years.
    Today I announced that this year's surplus will be $115 billion, the
    first time in 42 years we've had a surplus 2 years in a row.
        And I say that to make this point--and along the way, by the way,
    with the HOPE scholarship and other financial incentives, we've opened
    the doors of college to virtually every American. The air is cleaner;
    the water is cleaner; the food is safer; 90 percent of our kids are
    immunized against serious childhood diseases for the first time; 100,000
    young Americans have served in AmeriCorps in their communities all over
    this country, including this one, and earned some money for college. And
    we've been a force for peace and freedom throughout the world. And I'm
    proud of that.
        What's that got to do with this? Well, I'll just give you a few
    examples. And what's that got to do with the Governor's race, even if it
    has something to do with our record? And I'll give you a few examples of
    that.
        Number one, all this started with one vote in August of 1993. The
    economy started getting better after the election, as soon as I
    announced my economic plan. But it did not get voted on in Congress
    until August, because it was fairly controversial. I had cut hundreds of
    programs but dramatically increased education. And I asked the
    wealthiest Americans to pay more taxes, and cut taxes on 15 million
    Americans who were working for modest wages, lower wages, with children
    in their home.
        And there was a lot of controversy, and the Republican Party in
    Congress decided that they would vote against this to the person, that
    they would not give me one vote, and that they would tell everybody it
    was a just a tax increase, even though they knew only a tiny fraction of
    Americans were going to have one.
        Now, that bill passed by one vote in the United States Senate, Al
    Gore's vote. And it passed by one vote in
    the United States House of Representatives. If Bill Jefferson hadn't
    voted for that, it wouldn't have happened, the recovery probably
    wouldn't have occurred, and none of us would probably be standing here
    today doing this. So I am grateful to Bill Jefferson.
        I'm grateful to him for supporting our agenda to reach out to other
    countries--to Latin America, to Africa--to expand trade of American
    products, to build up the Port of New Orleans, to bring us closer to
    other people in other countries. I'm grateful to Bill Jefferson for
    supporting the anticrime agenda that Mayor Morial talks about all the
    time: Get guns out of the wrong hands; put more community police on the
    street; give our kids something good to do.
        And I'm grateful to Bill Jefferson for supporting my education
    agenda every step of the way, including our plan to hire 100,000 more

    [[Page 1609]]

    teachers to get class size down in the early grades, something he's
    running on; our plan to build or modernize 6,000 schools, which would
    include his commitment to air-condition the schools that don't have it;
    our plan to triple the number of our young people who are eligible for
    after-school programs; set high standards for failing schools, and if
    they don't turn around, let the parents go to another public school with
    their kid, but help the schools turn around.
        We can do that. I've seen that all over America. I'm telling you,
    I've been in the schools in the worst neighborhoods you can imagine in
    terms of adversity, and I've seen children learning at a high level
    because of what was done in the school.
        So, yes, I'm grateful to Bill Jefferson. And a lot of what we enjoy
    today came as a direct result of policies he supported that he played a
    critical role in bringing to bear.
        The second point I'd like to make to you is that I believe I'm the
    only person in this room who has actually been a Governor. I know
    something about this. [Laughter] And I did it quite a long time. I
    served 12 years. I served for 12 years and would have served for 14 if
    the people hadn't elected me President. [Laughter] And I'm telling you,
    I loved every day of it. It is a wonderful job if you love people and if
    you care about good schools, good jobs, and creating strong, healthy,
    vibrant communities.
        We have done more in the education area probably than any
    administration, certainly since the Johnson administration. But most of
    the money for schools and most of the direction for schools, by State
    constitutional law, comes from the State, in every State in America. So
    it is very important.
        You know, education is very important to me, personally, and to
    Hillary and to all of our administration. But the President has to
    protect the American people in many ways; the national security has to
    come first, and then you have to deal with a whole range of other
    issues. But a Governor has no more important job, none, than education.
        And a Governor also has to be able to get people together to really
    get things done. What you want in a Governor is somebody who is smart,
    committed, with a good heart, who is passionate about what he or she
    believes but is not particularly partisan. And I can tell you, Bill and
    I--we all came out of State Government; he and I both did. We're both,
    frankly, mortified by how partisan that crowd is in Washington.
    [Laughter] I mean, I always tell him there's plenty of things for us to
    argue about in the next election, but the people give us a paycheck
    every 2 weeks to show up for work in the meanwhile. And we're not
    supposed to fight about everything; we're supposed to work out things
    and get things done. That's the sort of person he is.
        And he has a lot of friends in the Congress who are Republicans
    because they know that he has not responded in kind to the harsh
    partisanship of their leaders and that he is still willing to work with
    people of good will to get things done. You cannot be a good Governor
    unless you are both open to people in both parties but absolutely
    aggressive in what you believe and what you want to achieve. You need
    both an agenda and an ability to bring people together. He can do that.
    And I did this for 12 years; I'm telling you, this is important, and he
    can do it superbly well.
        The other thing that has not been mentioned--Vic talked about his
    service in the legislature--he was twice voted, twice, the best member
    of the Louisiana Legislature. So he knows about this job.
        The last thing I'll say is this, and I think it's important. I want
    to thank Anne and Stan and
    Chris Rice for having us in this
    magnificent facility. But this facility used to be an orphanage, and I
    got to thinking, Hillary and I had a very moving event at the White
    House this week to celebrate our attempts to move people, kids from
    foster care into adoption, and all the work we've done over the last 7
    years--one thing we have done, by the way, on a bipartisan basis--to
    speed up adoptions. And I got down here today, and when I was over at
    the school, a woman stopped me and said, ``Mr. President, thank you for
    helping to fix the adoption laws. I just adopted two children.'' So
    we've worked on this.
        Now, I want to say that I want you to think about this as a place
    where children once lived who had no family. This man knows what it's
    like to have a difficult time. He knows what it's like to have the
    support of a good family. He knows what it's like to build a good
    family, and he and his wife have five
    magnificent daughters who have done superbly well because they have good
    parents and a good home.
        In the end, having now served 12 years as a Governor and 7 years as
    President, I can tell

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    you, a lot of times you have to make decisions that nobody is smart
    enough to make. A lot of times decisions come to me that, no matter how
    smart I think I am, I cannot think my way through. And all you can do is
    pray to God to give you the wisdom to do it, and listen to your heart,
    not your head.
        So the last thing I'll say is, remember everything--the man has
    proven he's had the courage to take a tough decision. He cast a decisive
    vote on the most important bill that brought us the prosperity we enjoy
    today. He has wide experience in State Government. He has the capacity
    to get people together. He clearly has the right agenda. There is no
    more important agenda for Louisiana's future than getting the education
    up to world-class levels.
        But when it's all said and done, what really counts is, do you have
    a good heart. Keep in mind, 50 years later I still remember my mother
    loved me enough to kneel down on those railroad tracks and cry when I
    had to go away. When it's all said and done, you don't remember first
    and foremost in the last moments of your life the honors you had, the
    riches you had; you remember who you liked and who you loved, how it
    felt when the seasons changed, and what it felt like to be really,
    really important, to matter in the lives of other people. The people of
    Louisiana will matter to Bill Jefferson if he is the Governor.
        I agree with what has been said. You should only vote for him if you
    think he'd be the best Governor. But if you think he'd be the best
    Governor and you let him be defeated, it would be a terrible thing,
    because the children here, the children of this State deserve the very
    best person they can get in experience, in mind, and in heart.
        Thank you. God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:25 p.m. in the Green Velvet Ballroom at
    St. Elizabeth's Orphanage. In his remarks, he referred to luncheon hosts
    Anne and Stan Rice and their son, Christopher; Representative
    Jefferson's father, Mose, mother-in-law, Bernice Green, wife, Andrea,
    and their daughters Jamila, Jalila, Jelani, Nailah, and Akilah; Victor
    Bussie, president emeritus, Louisiana AFL-CIO, and his wife, Fran; and
    Mayor Marc H. Morial of New Orleans.