[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

[[Page 1215]]

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

[[Page 1216]]

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

[[Page 1217]]

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.