    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [October 6, 1999]
    [Pages 1696-1699]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for Representative Bart Stupak
    October 6, 1999

        The President. Thank you. Well, first of all, I would like to thank
    our host for providing this magnificent room for us to meet in tonight
    in Union Station. When I was a college student in Washington, DC, Union
    Station was one of Washington's big eyesores. There's a young woman here
    nodding; she wasn't even alive when I was in college. How does she know
    that? [Laughter] But to see what's happened to it, for those of us who
    love this city and its monuments, it's a great thing, and I'm delighted
    that we're here.
        I also want to acknowledge--Bart's a good politician; he called
    everybody's name in this audience tonight who can actually vote for him.
    [Laughter] Right before I came in here, I got a call on the cell phone
    from Hillary, who is in Europe on a
    trip, saying to say hello to Bart and Laurie.
    They are two of her favorite people,

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    and she loves the Upper Peninsula and its Representative.
        But I think if you--everybody wants to know why I'm here--if you
    want to see an indication of why Congressman Stupak has been so
    successful, I'd like for every Member of the House of Representatives
    here to raise your hand--everybody who is here in the House: one, two,
    three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. That's pretty good,
    isn't it? Let's give them a hand. [Applause]
        I saw several with my bad eyesight, and I knew that if I tried to do
    what he did--he had everybody written down--[laughter]--I'd be making a
    political mistake. Anyway, I want to thank them for coming.
        I also want to tell you that--Bart said I had been to the Upper
    Peninsula. We had a Governors conference in Traverse City in 1988. I
    said '88, maybe it was '87--'87, I think. And I went to--we were
    obviously in Traverse City, where my most vivid memory besides the
    beautiful lake is that impossible golf course that Jack
    Nicklaus built there.
        Audience member. The Bear!
        The President. The Bear--and it is--and all of the beautiful little
    towns around there, including the place where they make the biggest
    cherry pie in the world--[laughter]--in the summertime that literally
    took up the whole courthouse lawn. I got a piece of that cherry pie.
    [Laughter] And I've been trying to get back there ever since. [Laughter]
        We also went to Mackinaw Island for a Democratic Governors meeting,
    and all the then-Democratic candidates for President came and met us
    there at the Grand Hotel, where I stayed and where the then-Governor of
    Michigan, Jim Blanchard, put on a Motown
    revue, with Martha and the Vandellas and Junior Walker and the All-
    Stars. And they asked me to come play with them, and I did. It was the
    first time I'd played saxophone in 3 years, and I've been playing ever
    since. So I feel--again, I mean, from my former--so I feel very indebted
    to the Upper Peninsula for a lot of things. And I have very vivid
    memories of running around the outside of Mackinaw Island jogging there
    in the summertime, and how much I loved it. So I hope I can come back.
        Let me be to the point here. When we passed the economic plan in
    1993--that did raise taxes on the wealthiest 1\1/2\ percent of the
    American people, but cut taxes for 15 million working families and
    promised to reduce the deficit at least $500 billion--the very
    announcement of the plan, before I even took the oath of office, began
    to drop interest rates. And then when we introduced it, they dropped
    some more. And when we kept fighting for it, they dropped some more.
        But everybody knew what would happen if we did it, that the
    Republicans would try to convince everybody that we'd raised taxes on
    them. And sure enough, that's what happened. They decided that they
    would not give us one vote, even though they knew that these deficits
    had quadrupled the national debt, given us high interest rates, slow
    growth, and a terrible recession, stagnant earnings.
        And we all decided that we would jump off that bridge together. And
    I felt terrible about it because a third of the Senate comes up for
    election every 2 years, and every House Member does, but the President
    doesn't have to run for 4 years. And we all knew that there was a very
    good chance, if we passed that plan in August of 1993, that it would
    bring the deficit down and bring interest rates down, but people might
    not feel the improved economy or believe, even, that the deficit was
    coming down by the '94 election.
        For the Members from rural America, particularly after we passed the
    crime bill--we passed the Brady bill for background checks; we passed
    the crime bill, which banned 19 assault weapons; and we put those
    100,000 police on the street, like Bart said--they put an enormous
    burden on rural Democrats.
        And Bart went home to run for reelection. And a number of our
    people, I think, were hoping they could make the election about
    something else. Bart Stupak decided to make the election about the vote
    he cast. He was proud of it. He thought it was right, and if the people
    wanted to vote him out for it, so be it. But he wanted to make sure they
    knew exactly what was in the bill, which is not at all what his opponent
    said was in the bill. So he went home and adopted an in-your-face
    position, and he's still standing here. And I admire the fact that he
    voted with us when it would have been easy for him to take a pass,
    because if we had lost one vote, the plan would have failed.
        Then, I admire the fact that he was not ashamed of the vote he'd
    taken and wasn't about to run and hide from it, because he knew it

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    would help to turn America around. The same thing with having been in
    law enforcement and what he said about background checks.
        Now, when I was running in '92, we just made an argument to the
    American people, those of us that came in in '92. It was an argument. We
    said, ``Give us a chance. We can put people first. We can do better. We
    can create opportunity for every responsible citizen. We can create an
    American community where we don't forget about rural America, we don't
    forget about the minorities in the inner cites, we don't forget about
    anybody. We give everybody a chance to be a part of this. Give us a
    chance.'' It was an argument.
        By the time I got to run for reelection--you should know this--the
    deficit was coming down for almost 4 years before a majority of
    Americans believed it. The economy was getting better for almost 3 years
    before a majority of Americans believed it, before they could feel it
    and feel secure. There is a lag time.
        When you have to make a very tough decision and then you try to turn
    a big country around, it's like trying to turn an ocean liner around.
    It's not like running a little powerboat with an outboard motor that you
    can turn on a dime. And there's a lot of groaning in the turn. And we
    did lose a lot of wonderful people in the United States Congress. The
    country's been paying for it ever since, I might add. [Laughter] But
    Bart stood strong. And now there's not an argument anymore.
        As we go through the 2000 election, this is what I hope all of you
    from the Upper Peninsula will say about your Congressman: When the
    future of the country was on the line, when America's future in the 21st
    century was on the line, when the children of this country had an
    uncertain future, he stepped up. He loved being in Congress. He had just
    gotten there, and he was willing to throw it all away for you, and he
    had enough confidence in himself and his wife and his family. You know,
    if I had 10 people in my family, I'd have never lost an election,
    either. [Laughter] He had enough confidence in himself, in the people he
    represented to believe they could take the truth and make the right
    decisions.
        And it's not a debate anymore. And I want every Member of the House
    here who's with us to remember that. When you go home in 2000--we made
    an argument in '96--in '92. And in '96, we said, ``We're doing a little
    better.'' It's not an argument anymore. There is evidence.
        So when the Republicans come up for the elections in 2000, from the
    White House to the Senate to the House, you've got to tell the people,
    ``If you vote for them now and what they want to do, you're doing it in
    the face of all the evidence.'' We implemented our economic policy over
    their opposition. We've got 2 years of back-to-back budget surpluses for
    the first time in 42 years, the lowest unemployment rate in 29 years,
    the lowest welfare rolls in 32 years, the lowest poverty rate in 20
    years. We implemented our crime policy with a handful of them with us,
    almost all the rest of them against us. We've got the lowest crime rate
    in 26 years. Not a single hunter's been interrupted in the hunting
    season in the Upper Peninsula, but 400,000 people did not get guns who
    shouldn't have gotten them.
        Now, these are facts. This is not an argument anymore. And we have
    worked our hearts out for over 6\1/2\ years to get this country going in
    the right direction again, to get the country together again, to do
    things that make sense again. What I want the American people to do--I'm
    not on the ballot; this is something I want as a citizen. What I want
    the American people to do in 2000 is to say, ``Okay, we turned this
    great big ocean liner around, and we're going in the right direction,
    and the country is working again. Now, for the first time in our
    lifetimes, we are free to look at the big challenges out there, to paint
    the future of America we want, to deal with the retirement of the baby
    boomers by saving Social Security and Medicare, to give all of our kids
    a world-class education, to get this country out of debt over the next
    15 years for the first time since 1835, and give us a generation of
    prosperity.'' We can do big things. We've got the crime rate down to the
    lowest level in 26 years; how about the real goal? Why don't we make
    America the safest big country in the entire world? We can do these
    things. We've got 19\1/2\ million new jobs, and it's the most we've ever
    had in this period of time. But why don't we establish a real goal to
    bring economic opportunity through free enterprise into every
    neighborhood in this country, all those rural towns that haven't felt
    it, up and down the Mississippi Delta where I grew up, in Appalachia, on
    the Indian reservations, everywhere?

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        Why don't we--if we don't get around to this now, we will never do
    it. We have a couple of Members from Pennsylvania here; there are still
    towns in Pennsylvania that have had no economic recovery. So why don't
    we establish a real goal--and so we say, ``Look, great, we're growing.
    We've got a low unemployment rate. Let's bring enterprise and
    opportunity to people who haven't felt it yet.'' This is what we are
    free to do.
        What they're going to say is, ``Well, now, we learned we've got to
    be nice to everybody, and let's go back and do something else.'' And I
    just want to remind you this guy put his neck on the line and so did a
    lot of the other people here, and they tried to chop it off. But enough
    of us survived to see our argument tested, and we were right.
        Now, should America continue to change? Should we vote for change in
    2000? Absolutely. The question is: What kind of change? We've got the
    country going in the right direction. Now is the time to reach for the
    stars, not make a U-turn. Stick with this guy. He's the best.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 7:25 p.m. at B. Smith's Restaurant. In his
    remarks, he referred to Mayor Laurie Stupak of Menominee, MI, wife of
    Representative Stupak; and professional golfer Jack Nicklaus.