    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [January 13, 2000]
    [Pages 55-59]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Reception in New York City
    January 13, 2000

        The President. Thank you. First of all, let me say I've had a good
    time tonight. I've enjoyed taking the pictures with all of you, and it's
    the only way I get to make absolutely sure I meet everyone. [Laughter]
    So I'm sorry that we had to do it so quickly, but at least I got to see
    all of you briefly.
        I want to thank John and
    Margo for opening their beautiful home
    for us and for being my wonderful friends for a very long time now. And
    I want to thank the other cochairs of this event for the efforts that
    you made and the success that you had. And I would like to just take a
    moment to say some things that may be obvious to all of you about why I
    think it's important that you did this tonight.
        When I ran for President in 1992--and I'm quite sure that most
    people in New York could not imagine voting for a guy who was Governor
    of a State that many people here couldn't find on a map, you know--
    [laughter]--as President Bush said, a small southern State. [Laughter]
        Let me say something else--I know I usually get on--[inaudible]. I
    keep reading--several times in my tenure, for various reasons, the press
    has said that I was a lame duck, and now they say I really am because I
    only have a year to serve. You know what a lame duck is, really? That's
    when you're supposed to show up at an event, and you do, and nobody else
    is there. [Laughter] So you all were immensely reassuring to me tonight,
    and I thank you. I'll sleep well tonight. I thank you very much.
        But let me say to you----
        Audience member. [Inaudible]
        The President. Listen, that is--part of the reason we're here
    tonight; it's a high-tech economy, you know all these cell phones----
        Audience member. Buy 500 shares. [Laughter]
        The President. Even I know it's--[inaudible]. The thing that I want
    to say about it, just very

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    briefly, why I hope you will--if somebody asked you tomorrow why did you
    come, apart from you wanted to get a picture or you wanted to say
    something to me about a particular issue, Cyprus or something else--I'll
    say more about that in a minute. I just want you to remember, 7 years
    ago, when I ran for President in 1992, we had economic distress, social
    division, political conflict, and Government was discredited.
        And the only reason I ran--I was actually very happy at home in my
    job, raising my daughter, with my friends--some of whom have become your
    friends, some of you, in the last 7 years. But it really bothered me
    because I knew this was a great country that had more strengths and more
    potential for the 21st century than at any time in our history. And I
    felt we had an obligation to the rest of the world because this is the
    only place that has the kind of economic strength we have and political
    strength, and also we have people from everywhere else on Earth living
    in America. We have people from everywhere else on Earth, nearly, in
    this room tonight. [Laughter] And that's very important.
        So, anyway, we set about our work. And the reason this is so
    important is now the American people have to decide whether to ratify
    the approach that has had such a large role in producing the last 7
    years, or take a different approach.
        John talked about we've gone from a big deficit to a big surplus.
    We've got the first back-to-back budget surpluses in 42 years, and in
    the last 2 days we actually bought in Government debt before it was due,
    for the first time in the history of the United States. We're going to
    get this country out of debt.
        And all of you know we've got the lowest unemployment rate in 30
    years and the longest--in just a few weeks, we'll have the longest
    economic expansion in the history of America, including the times we
    were fully mobilized for war. And I'm grateful for that. And I'm
    grateful for the fact that we have the lowest welfare rolls in 32 years
    and the lowest murder rate in 30 years and all of those things.
        But what I want to say to you is, elections and public work are just
    like your work: It's really always about tomorrow. And I appreciate what
    John said about the job that we've done. But I never will forget when I
    was thinking about running for a fifth term as Governor--we used to have
    2-year terms, and then we went to 4-year terms--I went out to the State
    Fair. And this old man in overalls came up to me and said, ``Are you
    going to run for another term?'' And I said, ``Well, I don't know. If I
    run, will you vote for me?'' He said, ``I guess so. I always have.''
    [Laughter] I'd been in 10 years. And I said, ``Well, aren't you sick of
    me after all these years?'' He said, ``No, I'm not, but nearly everyone
    else I know is.'' [Laughter] So I got my feelings hurt. I said, ``Well,
    don't you think I've done a good job?'' He said, ``Yeah, but that's what
    I hired you to do.'' [Laughter] He said, ``You drew a check every 2
    weeks, didn't you?'' It was a very interesting encounter.
        So every time we come around to a decision, we always have to think
    about the future. And the only thing I want you to think about is this.
    This is the only time in my lifetime when we have had at the same time
    dramatic economic progress, dramatic decline in our social problems, the
    absence of an internal crisis, and the absence of an external threat to
    our existence. We have never had all those four conditions at one time.
    Therefore, we have the opportunity of a lifetime to chart the future of
    our dreams for our children here at home and to be the world's most
    responsible nation abroad.
        A lot of you came up to me; some talked about the Middle East peace
    process, which I'm heavily involved in. I hope and pray we can reach an
    agreement between Syria and Lebanon and the Palestinians in Israel in
    the next several weeks. And several of you talked to me about how we've
    made some progress in repairing the breach between Turkey and Greece,
    but we haven't done enough on Cyprus. You think about it: There's no
    other place in the world where people would come and talk to the head of
    a country and talk about these things. And it's a great privilege to be
    an American, to live in a country where we have people from everywhere
    and where our country has the opportunity and the responsibility to try
    to move the world toward greater harmony, to go beyond the racial and
    ethnic and religious conflicts that have caused so much turmoil in the
    world. And I think that's important.
        We have an opportunity to do the same thing here at home. We have an
    opportunity now--the reason I'm here today in New York is I came to the
    Wall Street Project, sponsored by Jesse Jackson, Sandy Weill, and
    Dick Grasso--now, that's an interesting trio.
    [Laughter] And

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    why are they doing that? For the same reason that I'm going around
    America trying to get changes in the law and new investments and tax
    incentives to invest in areas and people that have been left behind,
    because we'll never have the opportunity we have right now, today, to
    give people who have been poor and forgotten a chance to be part of this
    free enterprise economy. If we don't do it now, we'll never get around
    to it--we'll never get around to it.
        Let me just mention two or three more issues. We've got the most
    diverse group of young people in our country's history and the largest
    number of students. We've got the best system of college education in
    the world, and we have effectively opened the doors of college to
    everybody, although I'm going to propose some things to make it more
    affordable in the State of the Union. But no one believes we've done
    what we need to do to give every child a world-class education,
    kindergarten through 12th grade. Until we do that, we won't be secure in
    the 21st century.
        The number of people over 65 is going to double in the next 30
    years. I hope to be one of them. [Laughter] And I'm trying to get the
    Congress to take the Social Security Trust Fund out beyond the life of
    the baby boomers and to add to the life of Medicare and to let elderly
    people on Medicare who can't otherwise afford it buy insurance so they
    can have prescription drugs when they need them. These are big issues.
        And just one more--I could mention four or five more--I want to
    mention one more. I had an incredible experience this week, which I hope
    every one of you will have at some point in your life if you have not
    already. I flew in very late at night into the Grand Canyon. And I spent
    the night in an old lodge built in 1905, with a balcony right over the
    edge of the Canyon. And I spent an hour in the morning watching the Sun
    rise over the Grand Canyon.
        Thirty years ago, when I was a much younger man, I spent 2 hours
    crawling out on a ledge to watch the Sun set over the Grand Canyon. And
    it's a source of infinite humility. People ask me all the time about my
    legacy. It took millions of years to form the Grand Canyon; doubtless in
    a few thousand no one will remember that I did a lot to save it or
    expand it, you know. It's not about your legacy; it's about your life.
        But if you go to the Grand Canyon and you watch the sunrise or the
    sunset and you see that it took millions upon millions of years for all
    these layers of rock to form and they're different colors and different
    shapes, so when the Sun sets you watch the light come up out of the
    Canyon and, when the Sun rises, you watch the light dive down into the
    Canyon, and it's like watching this breathtaking, constantly changing
    painting, there's nothing like it anywhere in the world.
        And I went out there because I added a million acres to the land
    we're protecting, almost doubling the size of the Grand Canyon. And when
    we did that, our administration has now protected more land in the lower
    48 States than any administration in history except those of Franklin
    and Theodore Roosevelt. [Applause] Thank you. You don't have to clap for
    that, but I like it. [Laughter]
        But here's why I make this point. When I ran for office in 1992, I
    used as my theme song that old Fleetwood Mac song ``Don't Stop Thinking
    About Tomorrow.'' And all during the times I've been President, the good
    times and bad, I have hammered my Cabinet and my staff to remember why
    we came here. I was immensely gratified when, a couple of years ago, a
    scholar of the American Presidency said that we had--and this was 3\1/2\
    years ago--already kept a higher percentage of our promises to the
    American people than the previous five administrations he'd studied. And
    it's not a mystery. We just sort of showed up for work every day, and no
    matter what else they were lobbing in, we just kept working and kept
    working.
        The reason I think it's important you're here tonight is this: Just
    remember, for all the good things that have happened, what we have
    basically done is turn the ship of state around, got the country going
    in the right direction, and got it coming together.
        We now have a chance to think about these big things--I mean really
    big things. Just think about it. We could make America the safest big
    country in the world. We could prove forever that you could grow the
    economy and improve the environment. We could move beyond our own racial
    and religious and ethnic conflicts and basically make a lasting peace in
    other parts of the world. These are things we could do. We could prove
    you could educate all children. We could prove you could bring free
    enterprise to poor people. These are things we can do.

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    But they won't happen unless we make a decision, as a people, in this
    election that we will not be devoted, distracted, or divided by the good
    times before.
        Now, there are a lot of young people here, and I'm glad that you're
    here. But everybody over a certain age can cite some personal experience
    when you made a big mistake in your life because you thought things were
    going so well that there were no consequences to the failure to
    concentrate. Everybody over a certain age--[laughter]--isn't that right?
    I have about 10 laws of politics, one of which is, you're always most
    vulnerable when you think you are invulnerable.
        This country will never get an election like this again in our
    lifetime, when all these things are in alignment. And now we have to
    make a decision about what we want to do for our children and our
    grandchildren. And it's not as if we don't know what the great
    opportunities and the great challenges of the next 30 or 40 years are
    going to be. So we have no excuse. We know.
        So if somebody asks you why you came tonight, say, ``I got to see
    the President, and he told a joke or two, and we took a nice picture.
    But I care about the America and the world my children and grandchildren
    are going to live in, and I want us to use this election to take what
    Theodore Roosevelt called, almost 100 years ago, the long look ahead.''
        Thank you very much.

        Audience member. One or two questions.

    Judicial Nominations

        Audience member.  [Inaudible]--so much about the future, and one of
    the reasons I think everybody is here is because of their concern. And
    one of the key things that keeps coming up in this election is not about
    the next 4 years; I think it has a great effect on the Federal judiciary
    for the next 30 years. I don't know the statistics, but I know the
    Supreme Court is basically up. I just wondered if you could comment on
    this.
        The President. I think a lot of people have not given much thought
    to this, but when you vote for--now, this is a self-interested statement
    I'm about to make. When you vote for the Senate--[laughter]--and when
    you vote for President, one of the things you should know is, I have
    appointed a very large number of judges. In spite of the fact that I
    think the Republican Senate has been way too slow in considering our
    nominees, I've appointed more than 40 percent of all the judges in the
    city today, but only two members of the Supreme Court.
        Most people believe there will be at least two and maybe as many as
    four members of the Supreme Court retire in the next 4 years. That
    means--and there are only two groups of people that matter then, the
    President who nominates and the Senate who confirms.
        And all these people have been pretty honest, I must say. The
    candidates have been pretty honest. Governor Bush said the other day
    that the two people on the Supreme Court that he most admires were
    Clarence Thomas and Justice Scalia. That's what he said. So he's sending
    you a signal. He said, ``I want you to know that so you'll know who I'll
    appoint to the Supreme Court if I get elected.'' And you have to
    assume--I can tell you that the people who are in the President's party
    are more likely to vote to confirm his nominees, whether or not they
    agree with him.
        So you need to think about that. What do you want in a Supreme Court
    judge? Do you care if they repeal Roe v. Wade, or not? Do you want them
    to? Do you not want them to? It's a big issue. And nobody is talking
    about it yet, but you should be aware. This is not an idle, sort of
    sideline conversation. This is a real, significant possibility. And so
    it's something you should think about. And there's not just that, there
    are all the civil rights cases and a lot of other issues that are big,
    big issues. So you should know that.
        The power of the President--I really tried to--and my judges were
    much less politically controversial than previous judges, both Democrat
    and Republican, because I focused on getting people who had good skills
    and were highly regarded by the American Bar Association. Even though
    there were more women and more minorities in my appointees than anybody
    in the past, they also had the highest ratings. So I tried to keep it
    out of politics. But it could get very political very fast, and the
    public would be making a mistake if they didn't take into account these
    things as they voted.
        Thank you.

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    Note: The President spoke at 9:05 p.m. at a private residence. In his
    remarks, he referred to reception hosts John and Margo Catsimatidis;
    Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition;
    Sanford I. Weill, chief executive officer, Citigroup; Richard Grasso,
    chairman and chief executive officer, New York Stock Exchange; and Gov.
    George W. Bush of Texas.