[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[June 19, 2000]
[Pages 1176-1179]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Luncheon in
Houston
June 19, 2000
Thank you very much. Senator Torricelli, Senator Wyden, Mayor Lanier and Elise, and Secretary
Bentsen and B.A.; Mr. White, we miss you in the
administration. I told Lloyd Bentsen when he and B.A. came through the
line, I said, ``Well, your economy is still humming along pretty good,
Lloyd.'' And I want all of you to know that if he hadn't been my first
Treasury Secretary, might not any of us be sitting here today
celebrating the strongest economy in American history, and I thank you
very much.
I am here today primarily on behalf of our Democratic candidates
for the Senate and those who are presently serving. I suppose that every
American who is a reasonably good citizen understands, in general, what
the Senate does, and thinks on balance it would be a good thing if good
people were there who more or less agree with you.
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But because of the unique vantage point that I have occupied in the
last 7\1/2\ years, I probably feel that more passionately than any other
person. I know what a difference it makes in the confirmation process of
judges, in the weighing of the decisions about confirming people for
other important positions, and how legislation is shaped and how the
whole direction of foreign policy is controlled. And these things are
very important. And I think what I would like to do today, recognizing
that, as all of you know, I have a special interest in one particular
Senate race--which, thank goodness, does not disqualify me from speaking
here today. [Laughter]
I want to leave you with three thoughts. Somebody's liable to ask
you why you showed up here today, and you need to be able to give an
answer. And the three points I want to make is, number one, this is a
big election. And it's just as important as the elections of 1992 and
1996, which enabled us to turn this country around and move it in the
right direction and get a lot going.
The second thing I want to say is, there are real differences
between the candidates of the two parties. And I hope this will be an
immensely positive election. It is no longer necessary for us to engage
in the politics of personal destruction. I hope we've beat that back for
a long time to come. But that means you can have an honest debate on the
real differences. And from the White House to the Senate to the House,
there are real differences. And we ought to have a good time debating
them--in a good humor, be happy our country's in good shape, and just
have an old-fashioned citizenship lesson in what the differences are. So
it's a big election; there are real differences.
The third point, however, I want you to know is that for the only
time, I think, in my adult lifetime, one party--the Republican Party--
doesn't really want you to understand what the differences are. Which is
a dead giveaway that, at least, they think if the American people knew
what the differences were, they'd vote with us. And from my perspective,
I'm--first, let me say I'm grateful that I had the chance to serve as
President and determined to get everything done I can do in the next 6
months, 7 months I have to serve. I had a very distinguished man call me
a couple of days ago, and he said, ``You know, Mr. President, for a lame
duck, you're still quacking rather loudly.'' [Laughter] So I do think
there's a lot that we're going to get done in the next 6 months.
But what I want to say to you is I've done what I could to turn the
country around, to build that bridge to the 21st century, to bring
people involved--all different kinds of people in the political process.
My Deputy Chief of Staff, Steve Ricchetti,
is here. ``Look around this room,'' he said--and Steve grew up in Ohio--
and he looked at me, and he said, ``This is not your typical Texas
cowboy crowd, is it?'' And I said, ``You know, Texas has changed.
Houston has changed. America has changed. This is a different world out
there. And we want everybody involved.''
And so what I hope for my country now is that we will say to
ourselves, this is a very important election; here's what we want to
accomplish; here's where the candidates stand, from the White House to
the Senate to the House; here's what we're going to do. I mean, I hope
that democracy, in short, will work the way it's supposed to work. And
then none of us can have any complaints.
But a lot of people seem to think it really doesn't make much
difference because the economy is so prosperous; we've got the longest
economic expansion in history and the 22 million new jobs and the lowest
African-American, Hispanic unemployment rate we ever had, the lowest
crime rate in a quarter century, and the lowest welfare rolls in 32
years--they're half what they were when I took office. And there is no
apparent threat to our security, and our country is able to be a force
for peace and freedom around the world. So they say, ``Could there be
any differences?'' And the answer is yes. Are there consequences? Yes.
Anybody who has lived more than 25 or 30 years, anyway, knows that
nothing lasts forever. Now, if you're in the middle of a terrible time,
that's immensely reassuring. [Laughter] But if you're in the middle of
good times, it ought to be humbling and sobering. You get a time like
this maybe once in a lifetime as a nation, where you really have it
within your power to shape the future of your dreams for your children.
And to do that you have to ask, what are the great challenges; what
are the great opportunities here before us? And then, how should we go
about meeting them? And I think you can really argue that how we handle
prosperity is as stern a test of our judgment, our vision,
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our character, as how we handle adversity. There is not anybody in here
over a certain age who can't remember at least one time in your life
when you made a mistake not because things were going so badly but
because things were going so well. You thought there were no
consequences to the failure to concentrate. It's just part of human
nature.
So that's the first thing. This is a big, big election. The second
thing is, what are the questions? Bob Torricelli said I always try to
ask the right question. I think that the outcome of these elections will
be determined, in no small measure, by what people think the question
is. So I can only tell you what I think the big questions are.
Number one, how do we keep the economy going? It's projected that
we're going to have a very large surplus over the next 12 years--10
years. We can actually get this country out of debt in the next 12
years. Should we do it, or not? I think we should. And we can do that,
still have a decent-size tax cut, invest in the education of our
children, invest in science and technology, and health care and
preserving the environment and keep paying the debt down.
And in the process, we will then prepare for what I think the next
big challenge is, the aging of America. How are we going to handle it
when there are only two people working for every one person drawing
Social Security and Medicare? We should be saving today against that
eventuality and preparing for it.
How are we going to extend this economic prosperity to people in
places who have been left behind? Now this is something Vice President
Gore and I have worked on very hard for the last 8 years. We have this
empowerment zone program that he's done a brilliant job of running.
We've got one quite successful one down in south Texas, which is now the
third fastest growing area of America--interestingly enough, Secretary
Bentsen's backyard down there.
But I think we ought to give Americans the same incentives to
invest in poor areas here we give them to invest in poor areas around
the world, in Latin America or Africa or Asia. And I'm working with the
Speaker of the House. I'm trying to make this a totally bipartisan
issue. But this is a big deal, because there are still a lot of people
in places who aren't part of this prosperity.
The next big question--I think a big ethical question for our
society--how are we going to permit people to do a better job of
balancing their responsibilities as parents and their responsibilities
at work? A higher and higher percentage of people with young children
are in the work force. If they have to choose between succeeding at
raising their children and succeeding in the work force, society has
lost from the beginning, because the most important work of all is
raising children. And so, obviously, if you make people choose, we're
going to lose. There's a lot more we can do there.
We have an enormous percentage of families who are racked with
worry because they don't have access to health insurance. Houston, the
greater Houston area, one of the highest percentages in the country of
working families who don't have access to health insurance--what do we
propose to do with that?
How are we going to grow the economy and continue to improve the
environment and deal with the challenge of global warming, which now
virtually everybody acknowledges is real? Can it be done? The answer to
that is, yes, it can be. How are we going to give all of our kids a
world-class education and open the doors of college and university to
everybody? How are we going to stay on the cutting edge of science and
technology? How are we going to continue to be a force for peace?
Now, what are the specifics here? Are there differences? Yeah. The
Democrats, for example, believe that America should ratify the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty--we're trying to get India and
Pakistan to do it--the Republicans don't. They believe we should walk
away from a generation of leading the world toward less dangers from
nuclear weapons. This is a huge issue, and it falls right on the Senate.
So if you agree with them, that you think it would be a good idea
if America withdrew from all these global arms control regimes and stop
trying to reduce the danger of nuclear weapons and say, ``We'll just
have bigger weapons; we don't care what anybody else does''--then you
should support the Republicans for the Senate. But if you are proud of
the fact that America has tried to lead the world away from the nuclear
brink and reduce the nuclear threat, and that we--you should be, I hope,
proud of the fact that I was the first world leader to sign the
Comprehensive Test Ban
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Treaty, and you would like to see it ratified--then you should support
the Democrats.
I'll give you just another. If you believe that we should pay down
the debt and have a modest tax cut we can afford, and that we can't
possibly assume we're going to have all this money that people now say
we'll have over the next decade, so we should take a more prudent
course, then you have to vote for our side. If you think that it's an
absolute lock-cinch that nothing bad will happen in the next decade and
you want to get all the money out there right now in a tax cut and just
hope to goodness it will all work out all right, you should vote for
them, because that's what they want to do and they really believe it.
They don't believe there's any way anything bad can go wrong, and
so they want to spend the surplus right now, all of it, before it
materializes. And they think it will make the economy stronger. I think
it will cause interest rates to go up. I think it will bring back the
deficits, and I think it will make it weaker. But you have to decide.
It's not like you don't have a choice here. And I could go through issue
after issue after issue.
Now obviously, you've made your choice, or you wouldn't be here.
But the point I'm making is, you need to go out across the State, across
the community, across the country, to your friends, and say, whether you
agree with me or not, this is an important election. The country is
being tested. This is the election where we will say, ``This is what we
propose to do with our prosperity.'' That's what this election is about.
Nineteen ninety-two was about, ``We're in a mess here; how are we
going to get out of it?'' Nineteen ninety-six was about, ``Can we really
build a bridge to the new century by keeping this going?'' Two thousand
is about, ``What do we propose to do with our prosperity?'' And then I
want you to say, ``There are differences between the candidates at all
levels, and it is not necessary, as we too often have done in the last
20 years, to criticize them personally. It is better to say, here are
their honest differences.'' And then, of course, I hope you'll--
[applause]. Thank you. And then, of course, I hope you'll say why you
agree with our side. But even if someone disagrees with you, that's what
an election is about. That's what democracy is supposed to be.
And this is the last point I want to make. The most important thing
of all, which is why I like looking around this crowd today, is that we
find a way to live together with all of our differences, that we find a
way not just to tolerate them but to celebrate them, to say we are glad
these Muslims from South Asia are part of 21st century America. We think
they look very nice in their garb, and they're probably more comfortable
than we are in the summertime. And we might have something to learn from
them about the way life is organized and lived and thought about. And
who knows, maybe they've got something to learn from us.
And this makes us stronger, that we have Sikhs and maybe Hindus and
we've got Jews and we've got Christians and we've got Baha'is and we've
got people from every different racial and ethnic group. And there has
to be a way for us to celebrate this and yet reaffirm the primary
importance of our common, shared humanity. Everything I have done as
President for 7\1/2\ years, when you strip away all the details of the
policy, has been designed to achieve that.
If I could have one wish for America, I would wish for us to be one
America in that sense, because we're very smart. We're very industrious.
We're very clever, and we'd figure out how to solve all our other
problems. If we can keep the human heart in proper balance as we relate
to others, we're going to be okay. And one of the things I'm proudest
about my party and my Senate candidates is that that's the America we
believe in.
Thank you very much.
Note: The President spoke at 1:17 p.m. in Salon A at the Four Seasons
Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Senator Robert G. Torricelli,
chair, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; former Mayor Bob Lanier
of Houston and his wife, Elise; former Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd
Bentsen and his wife, Beryl Ann (B.A.); and Bill White, former Deputy
Secretary of Energy and former chair, Texas State Democratic Party.