    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [July 14, 1999]
    [Pages 1214-1217]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the College Democrats of America
    July 14, 1999

        Thank you. I ought to quit while I'm ahead. [Laughter]
    Harold, you ought to be giving that speech
    for yourself some day. That was pretty great. I was definitely
    impressed.
        Thank you for your wonderful welcome. I want to thank all the
    College Democrat officers: your national chair, Reta Lewis, who used to be in the White House with me; Vice
    President Brendan Tully; Executive Director
    Jeff Schulman; National Field Director Lisa
    Kohnke; and all the people who helped to
    organize this, your largest meeting ever.
        Let me say a special word of welcome or greetings on behalf of the
    Vice President. Eleven years ago he almost
    single-handedly brought the College Democrats of America back, and I'm
    glad you came back. We have needed you.
        My administration has been, in large measure, about giving the young
    people of America a better America in the 21st century, an America where
    there is opportunity for every responsible citizen and where we are
    coming together as a community across all the lines that divide us.
        When I ran for President in 1992, I was infuriated that I had seen
    election after election after election and then Washington in between
    use rhetoric to divide us and to create a majority based on not being
    ``them.'' I didn't think it was good for America then; I don't think
    it's good for America today. I have done everything I could do to get
    all of us to see that what we have in common is much more important than
    what divides us.
        I must say that the young people of America, who increasingly live
    more and more together with those who are at least superficially
    different from themselves, are going to have to lead America to that
    future. The work that you have done, the registration efforts that you
    have done--in 1996, under the leadership of your former executive
    director, Susan Blad Seldin, CDA helped to
    register over a million young people--that is very, very important.
        I want to say something serious tonight. This is--we've got a very
    festive atmosphere, and I know the fire marshal is concerned about how
    many people we've crammed in this room--[laughter]--but I want to say
    something really serious to you. I'm not running for anything anymore.
    I'm not on the ballot in 2000. I'm

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    telling you this because I'm still concerned about tomorrow. Ideas make
    a difference in politics.
        I was, earlier today, at the Democratic Leadership Council's
    meeting. Many of the ideas that we've been working on there for 14 years
    are now the focus of debate not only in the United States but in other
    countries around the world, where new parties--sort of like where the
    Democrats have been in the last 6\1/2\ years--have won elections in
    England, in France, in Germany, and Brazil and The Netherlands and many
    other countries, with the kind of debates that we have tried to provoke
    about how do you create opportunity for everyone; how do you really
    promote greater responsibility among citizens; how do you build a
    community in an increasingly diverse society; what are our
    responsibilities to the rest of the world? Those kinds of debates are
    going on all over the world today, based on ideas. Ideas have
    consequences.
        I know that images have a lot to do, rhetoric has a lot to do with
    elections. But what I want you to understand is that we must stay the
    course that is the course of new ideas rooted in these basic values that
    have produced such good results for America. It is not an accident--I
    used to say, coin that old--quote that old country saying in the '96
    election, when you find a turtle on a fencepost, the chances are it
    didn't get there by accident. [Laughter] Ideas have consequences.
        All these things that your president just recited about the strength
    of the economy--and I might say, we now have almost 19 million new
    jobs--almost 19 million--and we have the lowest minority unemployment
    rates ever recorded since we started taking statistics, and we have, as
    has been pointed out, cleaner air, cleaner water, safer food. We've also
    set aside more land--from the redwoods in California and the Mojave
    Desert there to the Florida Everglades--we've set aside or protected
    more land than any previous administration except those of the two
    Roosevelts. This administration has thought about tomorrow. Ninety
    percent of our 2-year-olds are immunized against serious childhood
    illnesses for the first time in history, because we're thinking about
    tomorrow.
        Ideas matter, and in the last year and a half of this
    administration, in the last 6 months and the first year of the new
    millennium, we will have a debate about ideas which will not only shape
    the 2000 election, but decisions will be made or not made which will
    profoundly affect your future and the future of every young person in
    this country.
        This week and in the weeks to come, we're going to have a huge
    debate centered around what we should do about the surplus. Now, most of
    you are so young that you can't realize that if anyone had had this
    discussion 10 years ago, that would have been an absurd discussion.
    [Laughter] In the 12 years before I became President, the national debt
    was quadrupled. The year I took office, the deficit was $290 billion,
    projected to go to about $400 billion this year. This is a high-class
    debate in that sense--what to do about the surplus. Don't stop thinking
    about tomorrow--that's what to do about the surplus. I believe we should
    use this moment to meet the great challenges of your generation, the
    great challenges of the 21st century.
        What are they? Number one, the aging of America. That affects not
    just the baby boom generation--that's most of your parents--but you. If
    we reform and strengthen and secure Social Security and Medicare, it
    means not only that your parents will have a secure retirement; it means
    they won't have to depend upon you and the income you will need to raise
    your children when they're your age. This is a compact for all
    Americans. So yes, I believe we should use the bulk of the surplus to
    save Social Security and to save Medicare and to reform it.
        I believe we should continue to invest in education, in the
    environment, in research and development, and to keep our military the
    world's strongest so that we can do what we did in Kosovo, to save lives
    against ethnic slaughter. I think that is important.
        I believe we can do these things and still have a tax cut, a tax cut
    that will help people to save for their own retirement, to pay for child
    care, to pay for long-term care for their parents, that will help us to
    build modern schools, and that will help us to do something else: that
    will help to give Americans the same incentives to invest in the poorest
    parts of America they now have to invest in the poorest parts of the
    world. That's what I tried to do last week in traveling around the
    country.
        And the nice thing about it is that if we do with the surplus what I
    propose, we can spend more money on education and the military and other
    things; we can have a tax cut

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    that is substantial. But if we will save the bulk of it to extend the
    life and the security and the quality of Social Security and Medicare,
    we will also have this country out of debt for the first time since
    1835, in 15 years.
        Why should you care about that? Because in a global economy, where
    the financial markets move money across national borders at the speed of
    light, where interest rates are set by what's going on everywhere, if
    America, the world's wealthiest country is out of debt, it means lower
    interest rates; higher business investment; more jobs; higher incomes;
    lower costs for home mortgages, student loans, car payments, credit card
    payments; more money at lower cost for other countries that need the
    money badly to develop, to become our partners for trade and prosperity
    and for democracy and freedom. It is a better thing for the world. So I
    say to you, it matters.
        Now, I had a good meeting Monday with the leaders of Congress in
    both parties, and we may have some agreement on at least saving the
    Social Security taxes for Social Security. But they may not do it in a
    way that actually lengthens the life of the Social Security Trust Fund.
    Nonetheless, it's a good start.
        But unfortunately, the Republicans have now unveiled their tax plan.
    What they want to do is to use almost all the non-Social Security
    surplus on a tax cut and to go to the people and say, ``Our tax cut is
    bigger than theirs.'' And that sounds good. But what they don't say is
    if theirs passes, it means you can't really strengthen Social Security;
    it means no new money for Medicare, which will imperil it; it means big
    cuts in education, the environment, research and development; and yes,
    their defense budget cannot be funded. That's what it means. And it
    means, in the second decade of the tax cut, we'll actually start having
    deficits again, at the very time when the baby boomers retire and we
    ought to be paying down the debt until we don't have one any more.
        Now, these are big ideas. And young people in college should care
    about them because it will affect your life much more than mine. This is
    about tomorrow. So if somebody asks you tomorrow, ``Why did you go to
    the College Democrats convention?'' don't say it was because the
    President gave a good speech. [Laughter] Say, ``It's because I believe
    that our ideas are good for America, good for all Americans, and I have
    evidence.'' We have 6\1/2\ years of evidence: not just a strong economy
    but the lowest crime rate in 26 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 30
    years, declining social problems.
        I believe it matters, and I believe we ought to use this moment of
    promise with this surplus to save Social Security, save and modernize
    Medicare, give the seniors the prescription drugs benefits and more
    preventive screenings so they stay healthy in the first place, invest in
    education, invest in the environment, bring opportunities to the poorest
    parts of America, and still pay for a tax cut we can afford while
    meeting our responsibilities to tomorrow.
        If they ask you why you're a Democrat, say because you think we
    ought not to let criminals buy guns just because they go to gun shows.
    If they ask you why you're a Democrat, if they ask you why you belong to
    this party and this organization, tell them it's because you're for a
    Patients' Bill of Rights that lets doctors, not accountants, decide the
    medical needs of people.
        If they ask you why you came to this convention, tell them you're
    for hate crimes legislation that protects people without regard to
    whether they're gay or straight, black or white or Hispanic or Asian;
    and you tell them, tell them it's because you kind of like the idea of
    giving Federal money to help our schools in a way that hires 100,000
    teachers, modernizes schools, ends social promotion, but gives kids a
    chance to go to summer school and after-school programs to guarantee all
    of our children learn.
        And you have to keep looking for new ideas. On Monday the Vice
    President talked about his crime plans, and
    he said that he thought we ought to have, yes, stiffer punishment where
    it was merited, but more prevention where it would work, and that he
    thought we ought not to quit now in trying to keep guns out of the hands
    of criminals. He said we license people to drive cars, and they have
    photo licenses. If you don't want to close the gun show loophole because
    you think it's too burdensome, we could do it if everybody had a photo
    ID to go with their handgun license and they had to show that they knew
    how to use a gun.
        If they ask you why you're a Democrat, tell them because you like
    the fact that we have cleaner air, cleaner water, safer food; you don't
    like all these proposed legislative riders from the other party to
    weaken the quality of the environment, and you like the Vice
    President's livability agenda. Why
    shouldn't we set aside

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    more green space in all of our cities? Why shouldn't city kids be able
    to enjoy nature just like people like me, that grew up in rural areas?
        Now, I'll tell you why it's important. Because for every one of you
    here cheering, there are 10,000 others that aren't here, maybe more. In
    1998 only one out of five young people between the ages of 18 and 24
    voted. I realize sometimes it's a hassle. You register where you're in
    school or where you live, and you have to study for an exam or you're
    just preoccupied with something that seems much more important in the
    immediate future. But I'm telling you, ideas matter.
        Young people understood, when they stood with me and Al Gore in
    1992, that we had to turn this country around, and their future was at
    stake. It is no less at stake now just because things are going well.
    And the longer you live, the more you come to appreciate--or endure when
    they're not so good--the rhythms of life, the ups and downs, the twists
    and turns in the road, the unpredictability; and the more you come to
    understand how precious moments like this are, when things seem to be
    going well, and how profoundly important it is not to just reach out and
    grab the biggest apple on the tree that looks so good but to keep
    thinking about tomorrow.
        So what we do with the surplus will affect how you raise your
    children as well as how your parents fare in retirement. It will affect
    the quality of the air your children breathe. It will affect the texture
    of the society in which you live and whether we are really coming
    together in a way that celebrates our diversity and makes life more
    interesting but still binds us tighter and tighter together as a
    national family. It will affect all of that.
        So when you leave here, make yourself a promise. This summer when
    you go home to your friends, next year when you go back to school, talk
    to people about the ideas. Oh yes, the people are important, and I'm
    glad I had the chance to serve at this time, but the ideas and the
    values behind them are far more important, and you, you can carry them
    into the 21st century and guarantee that America's best days are in your
    future.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 7:38 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the
    Washington Court Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Harold D. Powell,
    national president, College Democrats of America.