[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[February 24, 2000]
[Pages 314-317]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 314]]


Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner in New York City
February 24, 2000

    Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Doug. I want to thank you and Traie for hosting us, and all the rest of you, thank you so 
much for coming tonight. I thank my good friend Mayor Rendell for agreeing to become the chair of the Democratic 
Party, a little part-time job that he can do on the side. [Laughter] 
Thank you, Carl McCall, for being here. And 
thank you, Carolyn Maloney, for being 
here and for always being there for me and for our country in 
Washington.
    I would, just following up on what Doug said, I want to say to all 
of you who have made such immense contributions to the economic 
prosperity and to the quality of life our country has enjoyed over the 
last few years--I want to express my gratitude to you. For me, it's been 
a great privilege to serve. As I've told all the young people who work 
for us, even the bad days are good days if you have a chance to do 
something good for our country, and a lot of the static should be looked 
at as part of the cost of doing business in the modern environment in 
which we all labor. But it's been a wonderful thing to see our country 
grow and prosper and deal with a lot of our non-economic challenges over 
the last few years.
    And I would just like to ask you briefly to think about how you 
would answer the question tomorrow if someone asked you why you came 
here tonight and spent all that money to hear Bill Clinton give a 
speech, since you could have heard a much longer one at the State of the 
Union for free on television. [Laughter] And you need to have an answer 
for that, for yourselves and because this is a long year. There will be 
a big election, and there will be many ups and downs and twists and 
turns in the road, not only the Presidential elections but in the 
congressional elections, the Senate elections, and others, one of which 
I have a particular interest in here. [Laughter]
    The central question before our country today is, what are we going 
to make of these unprecedented good times--of the longest peacetime 
expansion, the longest expansion in our history, including wartime, now, 
the longest economic expansion ever; of a 20-year low in poverty and a 
30-year low in welfare rolls and a 40-year low in female unemployment, 
and a 40-year low now, Doug, in the size of 
the Federal Government. What are we going to do now?
    It seems apparent to me that one of the ways we got to where we are 
is that the Government has followed policies that created the conditions 
and gave people the tools and removed the impediments so that the 
incredible creative enterprise of America could flourish. And we did it 
by understanding that we live in a very, very dynamic time, fueled 
principally by globalization and the explosion of technology, 
particularly information technology, but also in the biomedical area, in 
material science, and a whole array of other areas. That seems to me to 
make the argument that what we need is to change, to keep changing, to 
be very dynamic, but to do it consistent with the principles and the 
direction that we followed for the last 7 years.
    I say all the time, and it normally gets a laugh, that if someone 
were running for President this year and said, ``Vote for me. I'll do 
just what Bill Clinton did,'' I would vote against that person because 
we're not standing still; we're moving.
    But I think, just to pick up on some of the things you said, among 
the questions I think that should be asked and answered, that I tried to 
answer in the State of the Union are: How are we going to keep this 
economic growth growing? And how are we going to spread it to people in 
places that haven't been part of it? We have a moral obligation to do 
that, and it also will help to keep the economy growing. We've got some 
people here today who don't live in parts of New York City that have 
flourished, who live in other parts of New York that haven't 
participated fully in the economic expansion. I think we ought to 
continue to pay this debt down, to keep the economy going. And I think 
we ought to give special incentives and make special efforts to get 
people to invest in the areas that have been left behind.
    What are we going to do to give all of our kids a world-class 
education? What are we going to do to open the doors of college to all? 
I think we ought to, at a minimum, do what Senator Schumer and Hillary 
have suggested and give people a tax deduction for college tuition.

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We've got the college-going rate up 10 percent over the last 6 years. It 
needs to go up some more, and we need to make sure when people go, they 
stay.
    What are we going to do to help people balance work and family 
better? We saw Doug and Traie's beautiful daughter here tonight. I just signed cards for five kids over 
here, that said, ``My Dad had dinner with the President,'' and I 
affirmed that that, in fact, happened and signed my name. And I hope my 
penmanship will not be taken as a model for the children. [Laughter] But 
most of you who can afford to come here tonight may not have to worry 
about that. But the truth is that most families in this country today 
have to work for a living, both parents or a single-parent household. 
And even if they make good incomes, they worry about where their 
children are when they're working, particularly if they're in preschool 
years. Do they have adequate care? What happens if the parents can't get 
off work to go to the parent-teacher conferences at school? What do they 
do if the children get sick? What do they do if they have a sick parent? 
And we haven't done enough to help people balance work and family.
    What are we going to do to help to continue to grow the economy and 
meet these big environmental challenges that are out there? The truth 
is, this is a gold mine if we'll look at it as an opportunity, not a 
problem. There's a $1 trillion global market for environmental 
technology to defeat global warming, if we embrace it instead of run 
away from it.
    What are we going to do to continue to be a force for peace and 
freedom and against terrorism and weapons of mass destruction around the 
world? And do we understand that our economic interests around the world 
and our national security interests are increasingly merging? I believe 
China, for example, should be taken into the WTO because it's great 
economics for America in the short run, but I'm convinced it's the only 
way to really assure a stable, peaceful Asia and a stable transformation 
within China over the long run.
    What are we going to do to maintain and improve the basic fabric of 
life here at home? I think it's interesting, as I say continually, that 
in this most modern of ages, where we talk about the wonders of the 
Internet and bridging the digital divide, which is very important, that 
we continue to be bedeviled by the oldest of human society's problems, 
people who can't get along with people who are different from them. 
We're horrified when we read about the tribal wars in Africa, the 
continuing problems in the Middle East, the killing in the Balkans, and 
on and on and on. But in this country, in just the last couple years, 
we've had people killed because of their race, their religion, or their 
sexual orientation. How are we going to get beyond that?
    I think part of it is passing legislation like the hate crimes 
legislation and the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. Part of it is 
enforcing the laws, but part of it is setting the right tone and showing 
a devotion to the differences among Americans and relying on our common 
values.
    You mentioned the court appointments. That could well be--I'll just 
mention two issues that I think are very important, about how you strike 
the balance between individual liberties and community responsibilities. 
The Democratic candidate for President will support maintaining a 
woman's right to choose and will act accordingly. The Republican 
candidate for President, whoever it is, won't and will act accordingly, 
according to both political obligation and conscience.
    You know, it's fashionable now, and it has been for several years, 
unfortunately--probably two decades now--for people who run against one 
another basically to try to convince the voters that their opponents are 
bad people. I just don't believe that. I think you here have a 
difference of conscience. But you should not be naive and expect that if 
someone who differs with us and whose political allegiances are 
different gets elected, that they will abandon their conscience. And we 
shouldn't ask them to.
    And the next President is going to appoint somewhere between two and 
four judges on the Supreme Court, and it will have a huge impact on 
America. And so the American people should think about that.
    On the other hand, there's another big party difference that's very 
important to me, where, in effect, we've changed sides, where they 
believe individual liberty means that they shouldn't adopt even the most 
commonsense measures to keep guns away from children and criminals. And 
we believe our common responsibility to one another means that we ought 
to close the gun show loophole in the Brady bill, means that we ought to 
do other things. For me and for the Vice President and for Senator Bradley, we

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believe at least we ought to license handgun owners. That's what we 
believe. We license cars and drivers. Somebody steals your car while 
you're here tonight and they drive it to New Jersey and leave it in the 
parking lot and you call the police, you can be notified within a minute 
or two, once it's found, because we have records of it.
    And I think we have--and I say this as someone who comes from a 
culture where half the people have a hunting or a fishing license or 
both. I'm proud of the fact that we've got the lowest crime rate in 30 
years. And don't kid yourself, one of the reasons is the Brady bill, 
which has kept a half a million felons, fugitives, and stalkers from 
buying handguns. I signed the bill. The last President vetoed it. I've 
tried to strengthen it. That's what our party believes. They don't 
believe that. They actually agree with the NRA. I'm not going to tell 
you that I think they're bad people. That's what they think. They are 
willing to pay a price, in a country that's less safe, that I'm not 
willing to pay. And I don't think it has anything to do with individual 
liberties. And I do not believe the 2d amendment says that you ought to 
be able to get an assault weapon with a huge magazine that we ought to 
continue to import. We have differences here, and you can see it in the 
votes of the last 7 years. And these are big decisions the American 
people ought to make.
    But what I want to say to you tonight is, we have an unusual 
responsibility, all of us in this room, individually because we've been 
successful and blessed, but also as a nation. And a lot of people have 
heard me say this, and they may think I'm a broken record, but one of 
the nice things about not running for office is you can just say what's 
on your mind. [Laughter] I have thought a lot and done many interviews, 
and you've seen some of them, about why this expansion has gone on as 
long as it has. And I think there are many reasons. I think our economic 
program had a lot to do with it, but I think the unbelievable impact of 
high technology on productivity throughout the American economy kept it 
going longer and stronger than anyone had imagined. And there are lots 
of other reasons.
    The important thing to me, though, is not what caused it but what 
are we going to do with it. And I told the group that I was with earlier 
tonight, and I try to say this everywhere because I think it's important 
for you to think about. Some of you, like Doug and Traie, are a lot 
younger than me; some of you about my age; some of you a little bit 
older. The last time we had the longest economic expansion in history 
was in the 1960's, 1961 through 1969.
    When I was a child, a young man graduating from high school, 1964, 
John Kennedy had just been assassinated. Lyndon Johnson was the 
President of the United States. Unemployment was low; inflation was low; 
growth was high. The country had rallied behind a new President. We were 
passing civil rights legislation. Most people, in spite of the 
heartbreak of the loss of the President, felt pretty good about things. 
They thought we were going to solve our civil rights problems 
peacefully. They thought this economy would go on forever. They thought 
we would prevail in the cold war, and they didn't think Vietnam would 
tear the country apart.
    Within 2 years, we had riots in some of our streets. And within 4 
years, when I graduated from college, it was 2 days after Robert Kennedy 
was killed, 2 months after Martin Luther King was killed, 9 weeks after 
Lyndon Johnson said he couldn't run for reelection. Washington, DC, was 
in flames. The country was split right down the middle over the Vietnam 
war. The expansion was a few months away from being over, and we had our 
first presidential election based on--in modern times--based on the 
politics of real division, the Silent Majority. That means that those 
who weren't in it, like me, were in the loud minority--``us'' and 
``them.''
    And we've been ``us-ing'' and ``them-ing'' ourselves to death for a 
long time now. And when I ran for President in '92, I said I wanted to 
create a country of opportunity for all, responsibility from all, and a 
community of all Americans. I have tried to end the politics of 
division. I think I've been more successful outside Washington than 
inside, but nonetheless, I think we've made a lot of headway.
    The reason I'm telling you this is, we thought it was going to go on 
in 1964. If anybody had told most Americans that within 4 years the 
wheels would have completely run off, no one would have believed it. And 
as an American citizen, not President, as a citizen, I have waited 35 
years for my country to be in a position for us to build the future of 
our dreams for our children--35 years.
    And we've got a second chance. We should be happy about it, but we 
should be humble.

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And we should understand that life is a fragile and fleeting thing. 
Nothing lasts forever--nothing good and, thank God, nothing bad. And if 
somebody asks you why you came here tonight, you tell them, because you 
like what happened but because you feel a heavy responsibility to make 
sure that we make the most of a truly magic moment.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:05 p.m. at the Four Seasons Restaurant. 
In his remarks, he referred to dinner host Doug Teitelbaum, his wife, 
Traie, and their daughter, KateRose; Edward G. Rendell, general chair, 
Democratic National Committee; New York State Comptroller H. Carl 
McCall; and former Senator Bill Bradley.