[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,

[[Page 1178]]

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

[[Page 1179]]

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.