[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[January 13, 2000]
[Pages 55-59]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Reception in New York City
January 13, 2000
The President. Thank you. First of all, let me say I've had a good
time tonight. I've enjoyed taking the pictures with all of you, and it's
the only way I get to make absolutely sure I meet everyone. [Laughter]
So I'm sorry that we had to do it so quickly, but at least I got to see
all of you briefly.
I want to thank John and
Margo for opening their beautiful home
for us and for being my wonderful friends for a very long time now. And
I want to thank the other cochairs of this event for the efforts that
you made and the success that you had. And I would like to just take a
moment to say some things that may be obvious to all of you about why I
think it's important that you did this tonight.
When I ran for President in 1992--and I'm quite sure that most
people in New York could not imagine voting for a guy who was Governor
of a State that many people here couldn't find on a map, you know--
[laughter]--as President Bush said, a small southern State. [Laughter]
Let me say something else--I know I usually get on--[inaudible]. I
keep reading--several times in my tenure, for various reasons, the press
has said that I was a lame duck, and now they say I really am because I
only have a year to serve. You know what a lame duck is, really? That's
when you're supposed to show up at an event, and you do, and nobody else
is there. [Laughter] So you all were immensely reassuring to me tonight,
and I thank you. I'll sleep well tonight. I thank you very much.
But let me say to you----
Audience member. [Inaudible]
The President. Listen, that is--part of the reason we're here
tonight; it's a high-tech economy, you know all these cell phones----
Audience member. Buy 500 shares. [Laughter]
The President. Even I know it's--[inaudible]. The thing that I want
to say about it, just very
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briefly, why I hope you will--if somebody asked you tomorrow why did you
come, apart from you wanted to get a picture or you wanted to say
something to me about a particular issue, Cyprus or something else--I'll
say more about that in a minute. I just want you to remember, 7 years
ago, when I ran for President in 1992, we had economic distress, social
division, political conflict, and Government was discredited.
And the only reason I ran--I was actually very happy at home in my
job, raising my daughter, with my friends--some of whom have become your
friends, some of you, in the last 7 years. But it really bothered me
because I knew this was a great country that had more strengths and more
potential for the 21st century than at any time in our history. And I
felt we had an obligation to the rest of the world because this is the
only place that has the kind of economic strength we have and political
strength, and also we have people from everywhere else on Earth living
in America. We have people from everywhere else on Earth, nearly, in
this room tonight. [Laughter] And that's very important.
So, anyway, we set about our work. And the reason this is so
important is now the American people have to decide whether to ratify
the approach that has had such a large role in producing the last 7
years, or take a different approach.
John talked about we've gone from a big deficit to a big surplus.
We've got the first back-to-back budget surpluses in 42 years, and in
the last 2 days we actually bought in Government debt before it was due,
for the first time in the history of the United States. We're going to
get this country out of debt.
And all of you know we've got the lowest unemployment rate in 30
years and the longest--in just a few weeks, we'll have the longest
economic expansion in the history of America, including the times we
were fully mobilized for war. And I'm grateful for that. And I'm
grateful for the fact that we have the lowest welfare rolls in 32 years
and the lowest murder rate in 30 years and all of those things.
But what I want to say to you is, elections and public work are just
like your work: It's really always about tomorrow. And I appreciate what
John said about the job that we've done. But I never will forget when I
was thinking about running for a fifth term as Governor--we used to have
2-year terms, and then we went to 4-year terms--I went out to the State
Fair. And this old man in overalls came up to me and said, ``Are you
going to run for another term?'' And I said, ``Well, I don't know. If I
run, will you vote for me?'' He said, ``I guess so. I always have.''
[Laughter] I'd been in 10 years. And I said, ``Well, aren't you sick of
me after all these years?'' He said, ``No, I'm not, but nearly everyone
else I know is.'' [Laughter] So I got my feelings hurt. I said, ``Well,
don't you think I've done a good job?'' He said, ``Yeah, but that's what
I hired you to do.'' [Laughter] He said, ``You drew a check every 2
weeks, didn't you?'' It was a very interesting encounter.
So every time we come around to a decision, we always have to think
about the future. And the only thing I want you to think about is this.
This is the only time in my lifetime when we have had at the same time
dramatic economic progress, dramatic decline in our social problems, the
absence of an internal crisis, and the absence of an external threat to
our existence. We have never had all those four conditions at one time.
Therefore, we have the opportunity of a lifetime to chart the future of
our dreams for our children here at home and to be the world's most
responsible nation abroad.
A lot of you came up to me; some talked about the Middle East peace
process, which I'm heavily involved in. I hope and pray we can reach an
agreement between Syria and Lebanon and the Palestinians in Israel in
the next several weeks. And several of you talked to me about how we've
made some progress in repairing the breach between Turkey and Greece,
but we haven't done enough on Cyprus. You think about it: There's no
other place in the world where people would come and talk to the head of
a country and talk about these things. And it's a great privilege to be
an American, to live in a country where we have people from everywhere
and where our country has the opportunity and the responsibility to try
to move the world toward greater harmony, to go beyond the racial and
ethnic and religious conflicts that have caused so much turmoil in the
world. And I think that's important.
We have an opportunity to do the same thing here at home. We have an
opportunity now--the reason I'm here today in New York is I came to the
Wall Street Project, sponsored by Jesse Jackson, Sandy Weill, and
Dick Grasso--now, that's an interesting trio.
[Laughter] And
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why are they doing that? For the same reason that I'm going around
America trying to get changes in the law and new investments and tax
incentives to invest in areas and people that have been left behind,
because we'll never have the opportunity we have right now, today, to
give people who have been poor and forgotten a chance to be part of this
free enterprise economy. If we don't do it now, we'll never get around
to it--we'll never get around to it.
Let me just mention two or three more issues. We've got the most
diverse group of young people in our country's history and the largest
number of students. We've got the best system of college education in
the world, and we have effectively opened the doors of college to
everybody, although I'm going to propose some things to make it more
affordable in the State of the Union. But no one believes we've done
what we need to do to give every child a world-class education,
kindergarten through 12th grade. Until we do that, we won't be secure in
the 21st century.
The number of people over 65 is going to double in the next 30
years. I hope to be one of them. [Laughter] And I'm trying to get the
Congress to take the Social Security Trust Fund out beyond the life of
the baby boomers and to add to the life of Medicare and to let elderly
people on Medicare who can't otherwise afford it buy insurance so they
can have prescription drugs when they need them. These are big issues.
And just one more--I could mention four or five more--I want to
mention one more. I had an incredible experience this week, which I hope
every one of you will have at some point in your life if you have not
already. I flew in very late at night into the Grand Canyon. And I spent
the night in an old lodge built in 1905, with a balcony right over the
edge of the Canyon. And I spent an hour in the morning watching the Sun
rise over the Grand Canyon.
Thirty years ago, when I was a much younger man, I spent 2 hours
crawling out on a ledge to watch the Sun set over the Grand Canyon. And
it's a source of infinite humility. People ask me all the time about my
legacy. It took millions of years to form the Grand Canyon; doubtless in
a few thousand no one will remember that I did a lot to save it or
expand it, you know. It's not about your legacy; it's about your life.
But if you go to the Grand Canyon and you watch the sunrise or the
sunset and you see that it took millions upon millions of years for all
these layers of rock to form and they're different colors and different
shapes, so when the Sun sets you watch the light come up out of the
Canyon and, when the Sun rises, you watch the light dive down into the
Canyon, and it's like watching this breathtaking, constantly changing
painting, there's nothing like it anywhere in the world.
And I went out there because I added a million acres to the land
we're protecting, almost doubling the size of the Grand Canyon. And when
we did that, our administration has now protected more land in the lower
48 States than any administration in history except those of Franklin
and Theodore Roosevelt. [Applause] Thank you. You don't have to clap for
that, but I like it. [Laughter]
But here's why I make this point. When I ran for office in 1992, I
used as my theme song that old Fleetwood Mac song ``Don't Stop Thinking
About Tomorrow.'' And all during the times I've been President, the good
times and bad, I have hammered my Cabinet and my staff to remember why
we came here. I was immensely gratified when, a couple of years ago, a
scholar of the American Presidency said that we had--and this was 3\1/2\
years ago--already kept a higher percentage of our promises to the
American people than the previous five administrations he'd studied. And
it's not a mystery. We just sort of showed up for work every day, and no
matter what else they were lobbing in, we just kept working and kept
working.
The reason I think it's important you're here tonight is this: Just
remember, for all the good things that have happened, what we have
basically done is turn the ship of state around, got the country going
in the right direction, and got it coming together.
We now have a chance to think about these big things--I mean really
big things. Just think about it. We could make America the safest big
country in the world. We could prove forever that you could grow the
economy and improve the environment. We could move beyond our own racial
and religious and ethnic conflicts and basically make a lasting peace in
other parts of the world. These are things we could do. We could prove
you could educate all children. We could prove you could bring free
enterprise to poor people. These are things we can do.
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But they won't happen unless we make a decision, as a people, in this
election that we will not be devoted, distracted, or divided by the good
times before.
Now, there are a lot of young people here, and I'm glad that you're
here. But everybody over a certain age can cite some personal experience
when you made a big mistake in your life because you thought things were
going so well that there were no consequences to the failure to
concentrate. Everybody over a certain age--[laughter]--isn't that right?
I have about 10 laws of politics, one of which is, you're always most
vulnerable when you think you are invulnerable.
This country will never get an election like this again in our
lifetime, when all these things are in alignment. And now we have to
make a decision about what we want to do for our children and our
grandchildren. And it's not as if we don't know what the great
opportunities and the great challenges of the next 30 or 40 years are
going to be. So we have no excuse. We know.
So if somebody asks you why you came tonight, say, ``I got to see
the President, and he told a joke or two, and we took a nice picture.
But I care about the America and the world my children and grandchildren
are going to live in, and I want us to use this election to take what
Theodore Roosevelt called, almost 100 years ago, the long look ahead.''
Thank you very much.
Audience member. One or two questions.
Judicial Nominations
Audience member. [Inaudible]--so much about the future, and one of
the reasons I think everybody is here is because of their concern. And
one of the key things that keeps coming up in this election is not about
the next 4 years; I think it has a great effect on the Federal judiciary
for the next 30 years. I don't know the statistics, but I know the
Supreme Court is basically up. I just wondered if you could comment on
this.
The President. I think a lot of people have not given much thought
to this, but when you vote for--now, this is a self-interested statement
I'm about to make. When you vote for the Senate--[laughter]--and when
you vote for President, one of the things you should know is, I have
appointed a very large number of judges. In spite of the fact that I
think the Republican Senate has been way too slow in considering our
nominees, I've appointed more than 40 percent of all the judges in the
city today, but only two members of the Supreme Court.
Most people believe there will be at least two and maybe as many as
four members of the Supreme Court retire in the next 4 years. That
means--and there are only two groups of people that matter then, the
President who nominates and the Senate who confirms.
And all these people have been pretty honest, I must say. The
candidates have been pretty honest. Governor Bush said the other day
that the two people on the Supreme Court that he most admires were
Clarence Thomas and Justice Scalia. That's what he said. So he's sending
you a signal. He said, ``I want you to know that so you'll know who I'll
appoint to the Supreme Court if I get elected.'' And you have to
assume--I can tell you that the people who are in the President's party
are more likely to vote to confirm his nominees, whether or not they
agree with him.
So you need to think about that. What do you want in a Supreme Court
judge? Do you care if they repeal Roe v. Wade, or not? Do you want them
to? Do you not want them to? It's a big issue. And nobody is talking
about it yet, but you should be aware. This is not an idle, sort of
sideline conversation. This is a real, significant possibility. And so
it's something you should think about. And there's not just that, there
are all the civil rights cases and a lot of other issues that are big,
big issues. So you should know that.
The power of the President--I really tried to--and my judges were
much less politically controversial than previous judges, both Democrat
and Republican, because I focused on getting people who had good skills
and were highly regarded by the American Bar Association. Even though
there were more women and more minorities in my appointees than anybody
in the past, they also had the highest ratings. So I tried to keep it
out of politics. But it could get very political very fast, and the
public would be making a mistake if they didn't take into account these
things as they voted.
Thank you.
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Note: The President spoke at 9:05 p.m. at a private residence. In his
remarks, he referred to reception hosts John and Margo Catsimatidis;
Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition;
Sanford I. Weill, chief executive officer, Citigroup; Richard Grasso,
chairman and chief executive officer, New York Stock Exchange; and Gov.
George W. Bush of Texas.