    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [June 13, 2000]
    [Pages 1139-1141]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
    Hispanic Caucus Reception
    June 13, 2000

        Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being here. Thank you
    for your support for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. I want to thank
    Patrick Kennedy for his heroic work in
    raising money for all our congressional candidates. Thank you,
    Lucille, for your leadership.
        Unlike Congressman Kennedy, I am
    going to introduce the Members of the Hispanic Caucus here because,
    unlike Congressman Kennedy, I need them to vote for me several more
    times this year. [Laughter] So since we're all standing up already, I'd
    like to ask them to raise their hands as I call their names. If I miss
    anyone, don't be bashful: Solomon Ortiz
    from Texas, there he is; Xavier Becerra from
    Los Angeles--[inaudible]--Ed Pastor from Arizona;
    Nydia Velazquez from New York; Bob
    Menendez from New Jersey, Bob; Carlos
    Romero-Barcelo from Puerto Rico--
    [inaudible]--Ruben Hinojosa from South Texas,
    there he is; Silvestre Reyes from El Paso,
    there he is; Ciro Rodriguez from Texas--
    Ciro, where are you?--Charlie Gonzalez
    from San Antonio; Grace Napolitano from
    California, there she is back there; and for me, at this particular
    moment, most important of all, because day before yesterday he had his
    first hole in one, Representative Joe Baca
    from California. And he is so shameless about it that, if you doubt it,
    he is carrying the authentic certificate proving that he is. [Laughter]
        Ladies and gentlemen, I will be brief. Members have to go to a vote
    in a few minutes. I want to first of all thank all of them, because
    without them, nothing that we have accomplished, the Vice President and
    I, in our administration would have been possible. We carried an
    economic plan in 1993 by one vote, which set off this economic explosion
    we've enjoyed in the last 8 years. It would not have been possible
    without the Hispanic Caucus.
        And whether it was on our welfare policy, where we said, we are for
    work, but we're also for family; require people to work who can work,
    but don't take the food stamps and the medical care away from the poor
    children--the Hispanic Caucus made it possible for us to hammer out that
    compromise. On crime, on education, on every single issue, they were
    there. And we do--we have the lowest Hispanic unemployment ever
    recorded, the lowest poverty rate among Hispanics in a generation, a 250
    percent increase in SBA loans to Hispanic-owned businesses, and as it's
    already been said, the largest number of Hispanics in high positions in
    our administration and in our courts in history.
        Now, what I want to say to you is, elections are always about
    tomorrow, not about yesterday.

    [[Page 1140]]

    If we did a good job, after all, it's just what you hired us to do. I
    remember once I was asking a guy to vote for me for reelection as
    Governor of Arkansas. And I said, ``Well, don't you think I've done a
    good job?'' He said, ``Sure you have, but you got a paycheck every 2
    weeks too, didn't you?'' He said, ``That's what I hired you to do.''
    [Laughter]
        What I want to say to you is that I think the outcome of these
    elections for Congress and the outcome of the election for the President
    are every bit as important as the elections of 1992 and 1996. I worked
    very hard when this country was in trouble to turn it around; to put the
    economy, to put the people of this country first; to, in the words of my
    '96 campaign, build a bridge to the 21st century. Now the great test the
    American people face is, what is it we intend to do with our good
    fortune, with this moment of possibility?
        I think we ought to use it to meet the big challenges of the
    country. I think we ought to use it to keep paying down the debt, to
    keep the prosperity going but to extend the prosperity to people and
    places who have been left behind. I think we ought to give tax
    incentives to investors who invest in the poor areas of America the same
    incentives we give them to invest in poor areas in Africa and Asia and
    Latin America. I think that's important. I think we ought to make after-
    school care and preschool universal for all of our children who need it.
    I think we ought to have--I think we ought to modernize our schools and
    ensure they're all hooked up to the Internet. I think we ought to
    provide more options for working families to get health care. We ought
    to pass the Patients' Bill of Rights. We ought to allow working families
    whose children are in our Children's Health Insurance Program to buy
    into it themselves. We ought to have middle class tax relief for long-
    term care, for child care, and to help all families pay for a college
    education. I think we ought to take on these big challenges.
        And while it is now fashionable for both parties to court the
    Hispanic vote--indeed, both candidates speak Spanish and love to do it--
    I hope very much that I am the last President in American history who
    can't speak Spanish. I think from now on everyone will have to speak
    Spanish. [Laughter] And within a year or two, when I get a little
    private time, I may be able to speak Spanish, too. I'm going to work on
    it. [Laughter]
        But what I want to say to you is, there is a difference. There is a
    difference in the Congress, and there is a difference in the race for
    the White House. One party supports the Patients' Bill of Rights, and
    the other opposes it. One party is for raising the minimum wage, and the
    other is not. One party is trying to expand health insurance coverage to
    poor working families, and the other has not endorsed it. One party
    wants a big tax cut that will keep us from paying down the debt; the
    other party--ours--we want an affordable, middle class tax cut that will
    enable us to continue to pay down the debt and invest in the education
    and health care and future of our children.
        We all say that we favor broad participation, but I'll just give you
    one example. I named an Hispanic lawyer from El Paso, named Enrique
    Moreno, to the Federal Court of Appeals. He
    graduated summa cum laude from his university. He graduated near the top
    of his class in law school. A panel of State judges in Texas said he was
    one of the three best lawyers in his part of the State. He got the
    highest rating from the American Bar Association. But the two Republican
    judges from Texas--Senators from Texas said he wasn't qualified to sit
    on the Court of Appeals. And I haven't heard a peep, I might add, out of
    any of the other elected Republicans in Texas about this.
        So I say to you, there's a difference. There is a difference. And
    sometimes it can be as stern a test of a country's character and
    judgment, how it handles its prosperity, as how it handles its
    adversity. After all, when the American people took a chance on me in
    1992, we had our backs to the wall; we were in trouble. And people were
    willing to let us make a few changes. Now, the danger is that people
    will think, ``Oh well, this economy has been so good, so long, nobody
    can mess it up''--[laughter]--or that everybody seems so nice, nobody
    can do anything too bad. There is a difference. These people should be
    in the majority in the House. We should hold the White House. We should
    win the Senate.
        And you can go and tell people, look, it's not as if they're taking
    a big chance. You've got evidence now. We were divided all the way along
    on economic policy, on crime policy, on welfare policy, on education
    policy, on environmental policy, and the evidence is in. And the

    [[Page 1141]]

    ideas are out there. The best days of this country are still ahead. The
    best days for Hispanic America are still ahead. But we have got to make
    the right choices.
        You made a good investment coming here tonight, and I want you now
    to make your investment good by taking every opportunity, every day,
    between now and November, to make the same arguments, in your own way, I
    made to you tonight.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

     Note:  The President spoke at approximately 7:50 p.m. in the Chinese
    Room at the Mayflower Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to
    Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard.