[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[June 23, 2000]
[Pages 1241-1243]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Saxophone Club Reception in Hollywood, California
June 23, 2000

    The President.  Well, thank you very much. I never thought I'd live 
to hear Bill Maher say those things. [Laughter] And he said it in front 
of the press, which means he'll have to dump on me twice as hard next 
week. [Laughter] But it'll be worth it. I love it. Thank you, 
Bill. Thank you, Vivica. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
    I want to thank our hosts for having us here. I was coming over here 
with my buddy Terry McAuliffe tonight, and 
he said, ``Now, tell me where we're going?'' He's a good Irish-Catholic 
boy. I said, ``We're going to a place called the Garden of Eden.'' 
[Laughter] He said, ``We can't go.'' [Laughter] I said, ``Why?'' He 
said, ``They'll accuse one of us of being in search of original sin.'' 
[Laughter] But here we are, and they did a nice job for us. Thank you 
very much, all of you. It's really beautiful, thank you. Thank you so 
much.
    Now, look, you all came here to have a good time, and you probably 
don't want to hear a political speech. But I do want to say one or two 
things. First of all, I am very, very grateful for the chance that I 
have had to serve as President these last 7\1/2\ years. I am grateful 
for the support I received from California, from southern California, 
from Los Angeles, and from this community, and I thank you very, very, 
much.
    Audience members.  Four more years! Four more years! Four more 
years!
    Audience member.  Run for Governor of California. [Laughter]
    The President.  I don't think so. You've got a good Governor, and you've got to get a good President.
    The second thing is, somebody might ask you why you came, tomorrow, 
and I want you to be able to give a serious but brief answer. There are 
three things you need to know about this election. Number one, it is 
real important. It's just as important as it was in '92 and '96. And I 
want all the young people here, everybody here under 40, to listen to me 
about this.
    In '92, when I got elected, California was in the dumps. We had had 
riots in the streets. We had the politics of division. Everybody knew 
what had to be done. We had to get the show back on the road. We had to 
turn the economy around. We had to get the society coming together 
again. The political system had to work. You didn't have to be a genius 
to know what we needed to do.
    But now things are going well. And what I want to say to you, if 
you're young, is this: It is just as stern a test of a nation's judgment 
and character, what you do with the good times, as what you do with 
adversity. And everybody here who is over 30 can remember at least one 
time in your life when you made a significant mistake not because things 
were going so badly but because things were going so well you thought 
there was no penalty to the failure to concentrate. Nobody who's lived 
any length of time has failed to make a mistake like that.
    So the first thing I want you to know is, this is a big issue, this 
election. What's the question? The question is, what are we going to do 
with the prosperity? Are we going to indulge ourselves, take all the 
short-term fixes, pretend there are no consequences, or take this 
opportunity to build the future of our dreams? That's really what this 
is about.
    And there are a lot of things out there to do. What are you all 
going to do when all the baby boomers like me retire and there's only 
two people working for every one person drawing Social Security and 
Medicare? We need to prepare for that.

[[Page 1242]]

    We have more kids in our schools than ever before, and they're more 
diverse. What are you going to do 20 years from now, if you're young, 
and we don't succeed in giving them all a world-class education?
    We still have people in this country, in this city, on the Indian 
reservations, and the rural areas, that aren't part of all this 
prosperity. If we don't give them a chance to participate now, when will 
you ever get around to it?
    What are you going to do 20 years from now if we don't do something 
about global warming and prove that we can still grow the economy and 
improve the environment? If all these people that say you can't do that, 
and don't worry, just keep putting stuff in the air, what are you going 
to do if the sea level rises a foot? What will it be like here? What 
will you be making movies about?
    So you've got to think about these things. We have never in my 
lifetime had the chance we have now for you as citizens to decide that 
you want to do big things and get them done. So it's an important 
election.
    The second thing I want to tell you is--as if you needed reminding--
there are huge differences between the two parties, from the candidates for 
President to the Senate to the House. Now, Bill 
made a joke about Governor Bush, and people have made a few jokes about 
me, as he pointed out. [Laughter] People made a few jokes about Al Gore. 
Al Gore makes jokes about himself. We all ought to make a few jokes and 
laugh and have a good time.
    But I want to be dead serious about this. You have a chance here to 
have a positive election. That is, most of these elections the last 20 
years have been fueled by fanatics or people who wanted power, and they 
thought that the best way to win an election was to keep everybody home 
that could think and then try to persuade those that were going to vote 
that their opponents were just one notch above a car thief. I mean, how 
many elections have you seen like that?
    Now, you don't have to say anything bad about anybody in this 
election. All we ought to do is just have a debate about what we think 
we ought to do with our prosperity, and know what the differences are. 
So, number one, it's a big election. It's about your future. Number two, 
there are real differences.
    And here's the third point, and it's real important. Only the 
Democrats really want you to understand what the differences are. You 
listen to the Republicans talk, you'd think they never even had a 
primary. [Laughter] And when the lobbyist for the NRA says that if they 
win the White House, then the NRA will have an office in the White 
House, it's probably true, but it's inconvenient for him, so they sort 
of hide that.
    We differ. They want to spend all this projected surplus we've 
worked so hard to get over the next 10 years on a big tax cut which 
would benefit a lot of you--a big tax cut--and spend the rest of it on 
partial privatization of Social Security and a big national missile 
defense program and whatever else they've promised. And there won't be 
any money left, even if all the surplus materializes. If it doesn't 
materialize, we'll be back to deficits, high interest rates, not such a 
good economy, and you will pay the price.
    We say--and I'm proud of Al Gore for 
saying this--it may not be popular, but we're going to save some of this 
money, because it may not materialize. The taxes you pay for Medicare, 
we're going to save. Pay the debt down, and know we can take care of the 
baby boomers when they retire without bankrupting the rest of you. It's 
time to think about the long run.
    We have differences on the environment. We have differences on 
education. We're for putting 100,000 teachers in our schools and 
modernizing our schools and providing extra funds and requiring schools 
to turn around if they're failing, or shut down; and they're not. We're 
for raising the minimum wage, and they're not. We're for a Patients' 
Bill of Rights, and they're not. We think all seniors on Medicare ought 
to have access to affordable prescription drugs, and we ought to take 
this time and provide it; and they don't. We have big differences.
    Now, there are lots of others, but you get the idea. If we have a 
debate about this, we will win.
    Now, let me just say one other thing. In the history of America, we 
have always had a Vice President; we've had some pretty great Vice 
Presidents. Thomas Jefferson was Vice President, made a pretty good 
President. Theodore Roosevelt was Vice President, made a good President. 
Harry Truman was Vice President, was a great President. But we have 
never had a person in the office of Vice President who, while he was 
Vice President, had anything like the positive impact on the economy and 
the society of our country that Al Gore has 
had.

[[Page 1243]]

He's by far the best Vice President in the entire history of the United 
States.
    And therefore, he is by far the best 
qualified person to be President who has run for office in my adult 
lifetime, because of the way he spent the last 8 years and because I had 
sense enough to give him a lot to do. [Laughter] It's self-serving for 
me to say, but he has performed magnificently.
    And there are three reasons you ought to be for him: Number one, he 
will keep this prosperity going because he won't change our economic 
policy; he'll build on it.
    Number two, he'll try to include 
everybody in his vision of America, the people in places left behind, 
all the families that are working for a living but need help to raise 
their children, need help with child care or long-term care for their 
parents or their disabled family members, or after-school programs for 
their kids. He'll try to do that. And everybody will have a place. We 
led the fight for the hate crimes victory that we got in the Senate this 
week, which a lot of you like. We think everybody should be part of our 
America.
    And the final reason you ought to vote for him is, he understands the future, and he can lead us there. 
He understands the implications of the Internet revolution. He 
understands that all your medical records and all your financial records 
are going to be in somebody's computer file somewhere, and your privacy 
ought to be protected, and they ought not to be invaded unless you give 
permission to do it. That's an important issue.
    He understands that global warming is 
real. He's the first politician in American life that said anything to 
me about climate change, long before it was widely accepted that it was 
happening.
    So what do you need in a President? Somebody with the best 
experience; somebody that will keep the prosperity going; somebody that 
cares about all of us; someone that understands the future.
    If you want, all of you--so many of you said, ``Thank you very much 
for being a good President. I wish I could do something for you.'' You 
can do something for me: Make sure that everybody you know in this State 
and across America understands it's a big election; there are real 
differences; and we want you to know what they are and that we intend to 
build the future of your dreams. And we need Al Gore. We need these candidates for the Senate and the House.
    And if you'll go out and tell people that, and tell people we don't 
want to badmouth anybody, just let's talk about what our honest 
disagreements are, we're going to have a big celebration in November. 
And more important, you young people here are going to have the best 
days America has ever known.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

 Note:  The President spoke at 8:45 p.m. in the Fireplace Lounge at the 
Garden of Eden nightclub. In his remarks, he referred to Bill Maher, 
host of the television program ``Politically Incorrect''; actress Vivica 
A. Fox, who introduced the President; Terence McAuliffe, chair, 
Democratic National Convention Committee 2000; Gov. Gray Davis of 
California; and Gov. George W. Bush of Texas.