    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [October 1, 1999]
    [Pages 1648-1651]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1648]]

    Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Luncheon in Las
    Vegas, Nevada
    October 1, 1999

        Thank you very much. Senator Bryan,
    Senator Reid, Senator Baucus; Mr. Mayor, Mayor
    Jones, and Senator Bernstein--that sounds pretty good, doesn't it? [Laughter]
    Sounds pretty good. [Laughter] And my good friend Arthur Goldberg--
    I had a wonderful day with him in his
    home in New Jersey, and now he's brought me to Paris.
        I went to Paris for the first time 30 years ago this year as a young
    man. And not very long ago, on my way to Bosnia to talk about our
    humanitarian efforts there to save the people of Kosovo from ethnic
    cleansing, I stopped in Paris for a day to see the President of France
    and the Prime Minister, and I had a chance to walk again as I did a
    young man, along the Tuileries and look again at the Eiffel Tower. I've
    already had more dreams fulfilled than I could have asked for in 10
    lifetimes, but I never dreamed I'd actually get to give a speech in the
    Eiffel Tower. [Laughter] So I thank you, Arthur, for one more milestone in my life, and I congratulate you
    on this magnificent creation and the success it's enjoying.
        I was thinking about all of you here today, and I was thinking, one
    of the things that I like about Arthur Goldberg and a lot of the others of you who have been my longtime
    friends here, is that you have a sense of enlightened self-interest.
    You're intelligent enough to support Democrats so you can continue to
    live like Republicans. [Laughter]
        And I told someone the other day, I saw how much money Governor
    Bush had raised--you know, I'm thinking of
    putting that down as one of the economic achievements of my tenure in
    office--[laughter]--that we didn't discriminate; we allowed the
    Republicans to make money, too, in this economy. And it's not our fault
    if they decide to spend it in a way different than we would like.
        Let me say, just seriously--I'll be rather brief, but I want to
    first thank you for coming here; and second, to try to give you some
    sense of what is at issue in this coming election year in all of the
    elections, and certainly in these elections for United States Senate,
    every one of which is of genuine national significance.
        First, when Al Gore and I moved to Washington in 1993, into the
    White House, and we started our administration, we had a few very
    definite ideas about how we ought to change our policy, how we ought to
    change our economic policy, our crime policy, our welfare policy, our
    education policy, what our priorities in foreign policy ought to be, and
    we generally were trying to prepare America for the global economy and
    the global society in which we're living for the post-cold-war world,
    with a view to give every person in this country a chance to live up to
    his or her God-given abilities; trying to bring an increasingly diverse
    country closer together, instead of allowing it to become more and more
    torn apart and fractionalized, as so many countries in the world are
    today, over differences of race, religion, and other things. And we
    wanted to try to maintain America's role for peace and freedom and
    prosperity in the world.
        And after 6\1/2\ years, the results, I think, speak for themselves.
    We do have the lowest unemployment rate in 29 years and the lowest
    welfare rolls in 32 years and the lowest crime rates in 26 years. We
    just had back-to-back surpluses in our budget for the first time in 42
    years. And yesterday we learned that we have the lowest poverty rate in
    20 years, the longest peacetime expansion, and the highest homeownership
    in history. These are things we can be proud of. And I am grateful that
    I had the chance to serve and to be a part of these historic
    developments. And for all of you that had anything to do with that, I
    thank you.
        But every country must always have its eyes pointed toward tomorrow.
    And it may seem strange to you, since I can't run again, but I almost
    wish that the theme song of this year's election--the millennial
    election next year, I mean--were the one that we used in 1992, that
    great old Fleetwood Mac song, ``Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.''
        The question is not whether America will change; it is how America
    will change and whether we will build on what we have done that is
    working to meet the large, long-term

    [[Page 1649]]

    challenges the country faces in this new millennium or whether we will
    basically veer off and go back to an approach that got us in an awful
    lot of trouble before. The economy has been good so long, most people
    have forgotten what it was like in 1992. Most people forgot what it was
    like to have year in after year out of crime rates rising, welfare rolls
    rising, and intensifying social divisions.
        So I say to you, the question--and I hope you'll keep this in mind
    between now and November of 2000--the issue for every citizen, without
    regard to party, is not whether we will vote for change. The issue is
    what kind of change we will embrace. That is, America is always
    changing. That's why we're still around here after over 220 years,
    because we've always been in the business of recreating ourselves based
    on our bedrock principles. And what difference does it make who's in the
    Senate? It will determine whether we use this moment of prosperity to
    save Social Security so that the baby boomers don't, in effect, bankrupt
    our children with our retirement. It will determine whether we lengthen
    the life of Medicare and add a prescription drug coverage, which is of
    pivotal importance to millions of Americans. Three-quarters of the
    retired people in this country today do not have access to affordable
    prescription drugs, and a lot of the hospital bills that they run up are
    because they did not have the preventive medications that they need.
        It will determine whether we make a commitment to what is now the
    largest, most ethnically and religiously diverse group of people we've
    ever had in our schools, and whether we really believe that they can all
    learn and we're determined to give them a world-class education.
        Yesterday I went to New York, to the IBM Center, to meet with
    Governors and business leaders of both parties to talk about the
    absolute imperative of having world-class standards and genuine
    accountability for all of our school children; the need to end social
    promotion but to give our children the schools they need; to turn around
    failing schools or shut them down; to give kids the after-school and
    summer school and mentoring support they need; but to keep pushing for
    higher standards in education. These are just three big questions.
        I have asked the Congress to adopt a plan that would take Social
    Security out to 2050, beyond the life expectancy of all but the most
    fortunate baby boomers. I'd like to be around then, but it seems sort of
    unlikely. I have asked them to add more than a decade to the life of
    Medicare and to deal with the prescription drug issue. I have asked to
    adopt some truly groundbreaking educational reforms, and I have asked
    them to do it in a budget that would allow America over the next 15
    years to pay down the debt, so that by 2015 we'd be debt-free for the
    first time since Andrew Jackson was President in 1835. Now, those are
    changes worth fighting for.
        Now, in every case, there are differences among the parties on this.
    I also have to tell you that there are differences in other areas. I'm
    fighting now to get the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty ratified
    in the Senate. Virtually all the opposition we have is coming from the
    other side of the aisle. A dream that was first embraced by Dwight
    Eisenhower, a Republican President, and proposed by John Kennedy, a
    Democrat, who gave us the first temporary test ban treaty.
        It is profoundly important because we are trying to stop countries
    that do not have nuclear power now, and terrorist groups who do not have
    nuclear power now, from getting it. And it will help us not only to
    restrain people who have nuclear weapons from using them ever in the
    future but from seeing the proliferation of these things. Every
    Senator's vote makes a difference. The treaty has to be ratified by two-
    thirds of the Senate.
        I'm trying to get the funds from the Congress to implement the
    agreement I made with former Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mr. Arafat, with the
    help of the late King Hussein, at the Wye peace accords. It's absolutely
    imperative that America do its part if we want the Israelis and their
    partners in the Middle East to keep making peace. It could have a huge
    impact on the life our children lead in the 21st century. And the
    congressional majority so far has been unwilling to fund it. Every
    Senator's vote makes a difference.
        And I can go on and on and on. You know this; you've seen it. But
    it's easy to forget. This State has been profoundly well served by Dick
    Bryan and Harry Reid. And Arthur said he
    wished I could run again; I wish Dick would have run again. [Laughter] I
    told him, I said, ``He's too young to quit. He doesn't even have gray
    hair, unlike some people.''
        So when you pick someone to succeed him, you have to think about
    this. The person you

    [[Page 1650]]

    pick to succeed him is going to lengthen the life of Social Security or
    try to let it wither on the vine, hoping that it will be privatized, not
    really thinking about what's going to happen not to the baby boomers;
    most of us will be fine. What happens to our children and their ability
    to raise our grandchildren if we leave a significant percentage of our
    people who are my age and younger, in the baby boom generation, unable
    to sustain themselves in retirement?
        What if we don't continue to push to raise standards in education?
    You know, our children have picked up nearly a full grade in reading
    levels in the last 2 years. It didn't happen by accident. Four years ago
    only 16 States had enforceable standards; today, 50 do. Four years ago
    only 11 States had real accountability--that is, for schools, teachers,
    and students; today, only 16 do.
        Now, I can tell you, the Democrats are more likely than the
    Republicans, by a factor of five or six, to continue to push to raise
    standards in education. It could change the whole future of America. We
    are more likely to push for things like the hate crimes legislation and
    other things that are designed to bring us together across all the lines
    that divide us, and certainly more likely to think about our
    responsibilities in the world.
        You know, people come here to Las Vegas, from all over the world.
    And I know that for many Americans, maybe people living in small towns
    in this State, they'd just as soon, just thinking about it for 30
    seconds, that we not invest any money anywhere else in the world. But
    with the end of the cold war, a modest investment in our diplomacy can
    keep American men and women in uniform out of wars for decades to come.
    It will save lives; it will give us a more peaceful world. It will also
    protect the international economy, on which our own prosperity depends.
        All this will be determined not only by the Presidential race but by
    the races for the Senate and the races for the House. And it seems to
    me, when you think about the things everybody used--not everybody, at
    least our friends in the opposition--the Republicans used to say about
    the Democrats that they were weak on crime, weak on welfare, weak on the
    budget, weak on foreign policy, all those things they used to say about
    us--``you can't trust them to run the country.'' Our crime policy has
    helped communities have the lowest crime rate in a generation. Our
    welfare policies have given us the lowest welfare rolls in 32 years,
    without doing what they wanted to do, which was to cut the kids out of
    federally guaranteed food and medical care and to give more child care
    so people can succeed at home and at work. Our economic policies have
    benefited not just those of us in this room who can afford to be here,
    but we've also got the lowest poverty rates in 20 years.
        And our continued commitment to fulfilling our responsibilities in
    the world have given us a safer world and will give us a safer world in
    the 21st century, which means a more prosperous world, which is critical
    to a more prosperous America.
        I'd just leave you with this thought: We are 4 percent of the
    world's population; we have 22 percent of the world's income. We cannot
    sustain 22 percent of the income with 4 percent of the people unless we
    have a constructive relationship with the other 96 percent of the people
    in the world. It is of pivotal importance.
        So it is not only for humanitarian reasons that I have sought to end
    the slaughter in Kosovo and Bosnia, to try to bring peace from the
    Middle East to Northern Ireland, to try to deal with the test ban
    treaty. It's also very much in the immediate daily interest of the
    people of this city, this State, and this Nation. This is a different
    and a better country than it was in 1992, and I'm grateful that I had a
    role to play in it. But don't be deceived here. It wasn't because of me;
    it was because what we did was the right thing to do. It is the ideas,
    the policies, the direction, the conviction of where we're going--that's
    what counts.
        And you can keep America changing in the right way with the right
    decisions in all these elections in 2000. After those elections, I'll
    just be a citizen again, but I look forward to bearing this message for
    the rest of my life. And I thank you for being here to help make America
    work.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:10 p.m. in the Eiffel Tower Restaurant at
    the Paris Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Oscar B. Goodman
    and former Mayor Jan Laverty Jones of Las Vegas; Senatorial candidate Ed
    Bernstein; Arthur M. Goldberg, president and chief executive officer,
    Park Place Entertainment; President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister
    Lionel Jospin of France; Gov. George W. Bush of Texas; former Prime
    Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel;

    [[Page 1651]]

    and Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority.