[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[April 8, 2000]
[Pages 663-669]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Luncheon in New Orleans, 
Louisiana
April 8, 2000

    Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Arnold. And Celia, thank you. We would 
have all come here today just to see your beautiful home. And unless 
you're lucky, half of us may take a swim before we leave. [Laughter] But 
I thank you so much for opening your home and for reminding me of that 
speech that I gave. It seems like a long time ago in one way, and 
another just like yesterday.
    I want to thank my good friend Sheriff Harry Lee, who proved to me that you could get bad press and the 
people would stay with you. [Laughter] So I simply decided to test the 
theory, and it got a little out of hand. [Laughter] Now, that's a crack 
I probably wouldn't make anyplace in America outside of Louisiana. 
[Laughter]
    I got tickled when Mayor Rendell said he'd never met anybody like 
Ray Reggie. I thought, that's true, but if you 
stayed down here long enough, you'll meet 4 or 500 people you never met 
anybody like before and never will again. [Laughter]
    So Ray, thank you. Thank you, David 
Young. Thank you, Mary Lou 
Winters. I want to congratulate our young 
State representative, Karen Carter. Her 
father has been a friend of mine forever. And once Karen came up and 
accosted me and chewed me out over something she thought I was wrong 
about, and then she later thought maybe she'd gone too far. And I told 
her daddy that I'd be proud if my daughter could talk to the President 
that way. [Laughter] Not because--because she wasn't disrespectful; she 
was just aggressive and articulate. And I'm glad to see her being so 
successful.
    And Mrs. Morial, it's nice to see you. I 
want to say a special word of thanks to Bill and Andrea Jefferson for 
being here. Bill Jefferson was for me when only my mother thought I 
could be elected President. [Laughter] In our immediate household, it 
was a close call. [Laughter] So I thank him for all of his friendship 
and support over the years.
    And I thank all of you who worked so hard to raise these funds for 
our party. I want to thank all the young people who worked on this 
event. And my friend Mayor Rendell--you 
know, when I first met Ed Rendell, we went to Philadelphia. I was 
running for President, and he took me to a neighborhood where he had 
worked to eradicate gangs and drugs, in a very poor neighborhood. And we 
walked down the street, and I could see his evident pride that he had 
helped to change the lives of people who were very often overlooked by 
other public officials. And then we got to the end of the street, and he 
challenged me to shoot baskets. There was a little park there. And even 
though he knew I might become President, he beat me anyway--[laughter]--
which I sort of respected. And we've been friends ever since. And I have 
been waiting for 8 years for a chance to get even. And when I talked him 
into becoming chairman of the Democratic Party, I said, ``You know, it's 
just a little part-time job; it won't take much work.'' [Laughter] He 
had a full head of hair when he took this job. [Laughter]
    But he's really been wonderful. And I 
think it's a great thing to have our party headed by someone who's 
actually been elected to something, served people at the grassroots 
level, understands the problems and the promise of all different kinds 
of people. And Philadelphia is a magnificent city that's been very good 
to me and to the Vice President. So I want to thank him.
    I've been to Louisiana a lot since I've been President, about half 
as many times as I would have liked to have been. And I want to thank 
you all, and through you and the media here, to all the people of this 
State, for voting for

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me twice for President and for giving me the chance to serve.
    I am a little perplexed some days that this is the first time since 
1974 they've held an election and my name hasn't been on a ballot. 
[Laughter] I like to joke that most days I'm all right about that. So 
today I'd like to talk to you from the perspective of someone who is not 
a candidate but is profoundly grateful for what this country has given 
to me and for what this State has done for me. I'm grateful that I had 
the chance to serve at a very crucial moment in American history, when 
we were in need of making some difficult decisions about what kind of 
country we were going to be and how we were going to prepare for a new 
century.
    And I guess I want to make just two or three brief points, because 
when you come to a deal like this I'm sure maybe for a few days 
afterward people say, ``Well, what was it like? And what did the 
President say? And was it really worth all the money it cost you to go? 
And why did you do such a stupid thing?'' [Laughter] I'm sure you get 
asked all those questions. So I'd just like you to think about a few 
things.
    First of all, this country is in a lot better shape than it was in 
1992. We had high unemployment, high interest rates, slow growth, almost 
no new jobs. Our social problems like crime and welfare were getting 
worse, and we didn't seem to have any governing vision for taking us 
into the new century. And I think ideas matter a lot.
    You mentioned--Ed Rendell made the 
remark about what a diverse group we have here, and he made a remark 
about the contributions of people who have brought lawsuits on behalf of 
injured people that I agree with. But I--sometimes I get criticized from 
the other side because I want to pay America's debt off. One columnist, 
a couple of weeks ago, who is a friend of mine, a man I admire very 
much, accused me of embracing Calvin Coolidge economics. I'll explain 
why; I want to do it in a minute. But the point is, when I ran in '92, I 
had been, as President Bush said, the Governor of a small southern 
State, somewhere to the north of here. And I was so dumb, I thought he 
was complimenting me when he said that. [Laughter] I was kind of proud 
of it, myself. I still am, to tell the truth. And the way Washington 
worked didn't make a lick of sense to me. I mean, there was a liberal 
position and a conservative position; there was a Democratic position 
and there was a Republican position. And the one thing that you couldn't 
do without being accused of heresy is try to unlock the differences or 
come out with a third position that would go beyond both of them. And it 
looked to me like it was a very serviceable setup for politicians who 
needed to get on the news for 15 seconds every night, because only 
conflict will guarantee you a place on the airwaves. But it wasn't doing 
very much good for the American people.
    And so I asked the people to give me a chance to try a different 
way. I really believed we could have a country that could get rid of the 
deficit and still increase our investment in education and our children 
and their future. I believed we could grow the economy and improve the 
environment. I thought we could be pro-business and pro-labor. I thought 
we could get rid of unnecessary Government bureaucracy and still be more 
vigorous in the pursuit of those things we saw to be pursued. I believed 
all that.
    And I remember when I first started giving these talks, the people 
who had been covering politics for years looked at me as if I were some 
sort of heretic or it was just political gobbledy-gook.
    But first I want to say, ideas matter. Because after 8 years, we 
have--instead of record deficits and a debt that was quadrupled under 
the previous administrations and their theory, we've got the first back-
to-back surpluses in 42 years and the longest economic expansion in 
history and the lowest minority unemployment ever recorded and the 
lowest overall unemployment in 30 years, the lowest female unemployment 
in 40 years.
    So we did it by being pro-business and pro-labor. We did it by 
getting rid of the deficit, and we've about doubled our investment in 
education and training for our children and dramatically increased 
access to college and raised the standards for education. So, you can do 
these things.
    The air is cleaner; the water is cleaner; the food is safer. We've 
tripled the number of toxic waste dumps we cleaned up over the previous 
two administrations. And the economy is stronger. So it makes sense.
    We've got a stronger Federal Government, but it's the smallest 
Government since 1960. We've eliminated hundreds of programs, and I

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will give anyone here the ticket price here--I'll give you your money 
back if you can stand up right now and name three of them. Any takers? 
[Laughter]
    I say that because I didn't think it was anti-Democratic or anti-
progressive to recognize that we had programs on the book that were no 
longer serviceable, that just kept getting funded because people 
couldn't think of anything better to do with the money. And we were up 
to our ears in debt, and we had to get out. And we needed the money for 
education; we needed the money for health care; we needed the money for 
the environment; we needed the money for helping poor people move from 
welfare to work.
    So that's the first thing I want to say to you. Ideas really matter. 
I've learned that in over 20 years of public life and over 7 years of 
being your President. One of the reasons that I support the Vice 
President is that he understands the 
future. He understands the importance of ideas; he knows how to get us 
there. These things aren't just slogans to him. I've spent too many 
hours with him doing too much work, making too many difficult decisions.
    The second thing I want to tell you is, our adversaries are smart, 
and they want back in in the world's worst way. And they've figured out 
the way to do it is to try to blur the differences within the parties 
until they get in and they start appointing their judges and passing 
their bills and doing their thing. But in the meanwhile, they'd like to 
blur the differences.
    So I want to tell you there are differences. Let me just cite a few. 
We worked hard to turn this deficit around and start running these 
surpluses. And we're paying off the debt at a rapid rate. Now, I'm not 
against a tax cut. I'm actually for a tax cut if it's small enough to 
enable us to save Social Security, reform Medicare, and add a 
prescription drug benefit to the 70 percent of our seniors that can't 
afford it today; continue to invest in education, health care, and the 
environment and science and technology and research; and pay the debt 
off. We can get out of debt, for the first time since 1835, in 12 years. 
And I think we ought to do it, not just because it sounds good, but 
because if we keep paying the debt down, we'll keep interest rates down, 
and there will be more money for people to borrow to start businesses, 
to hire people, to invest in their equipment, to move the economy along. 
That's what I think.
    Now, in spite of all that, I still have offered a tax cut, and the 
Vice President has offered one, I think, in 
the campaign, in the same range. We could give people a $3,000 tax 
credit for long-term care costs for their parents or disabled relatives; 
let people deduct the cost of college tuition for their kids, up to 
$10,000 a year; increase the child care tax credit; increase the earned-
income tax credit for lower income working people. Nobody who works for 
a living and has kids at home should be in poverty. The tax system ought 
to take them out. That's what I believe.
    We still have a sizable tax system. We could even give them some 
relief on the marriage penalties, an issue where our Republican friends 
say they're interested. But I don't think we ought to do that at the 
expense of what got us here. We've got the longest economic expansion in 
history because we said we're going to get rid of the deficit, invest in 
education and technology, and sell more American products around the 
world. That's how we got here. And so there's a big difference.
    What's the difference? The other party wants a tax cut even bigger 
than the one I vetoed last year. Even bigger. Now, they'll tell you 
they're for education; they're for the environment; they're for this, 
that, and the other thing. The truth is, they're not going to have any 
money. They promised this huge tax cut and even bigger increases in 
defense than I've advocated, and the money won't be there. Or if they do 
spend this money, it means that we won't be able to save Social Security 
for the baby boom generation's retirement. Or it means we go back and 
start running a deficit again, and we'll have all the same problems we 
had the last time we did that.
    Now, so I would say to you, I don't think this is rocket science. 
What they're running on--now, they're using different words and blurring 
the distinctions, but what they're running on is the exact same economic 
program they pursued for the last 12 years the last time. And so the 
American people--when they ask you why you're here, you say, ``Well, I 
think we're better off than we were 8 years ago, and we've got a choice 
that's the same choice we had before about which economic strategy we're 
going to follow.'' Except in 1992, you took a chance on me, but in 2000, 
you now have evidence about how their system works and how

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ours works. And you need to tell people about this.
    Because every day all these folks are going to be saying different 
things. All the ones running for Senate and Congress and President, 
they're all going to be emphasizing this issue and that. But I'm telling 
you, I've been there. You can make promises until the cows come home, 
but if you're going to deliver the promises, there is a price tag on it, 
and it all has to add up in the end. Or if it doesn't add up, you're 
going to cut something else or start running deficits again.
    The central thing you need to know about the economic differences 
between the parties is, after I vetoed that huge tax cut last year to 
keep the economy going--and I might add, after I did it, the economic 
growth in the last quarter of last year was 7.3 percent, the biggest in 
a coon's age. Nobody can remember when that was there--[laughter]--
forever and ever. Nobody can remember that.
    Now, they come back and say, ``That tax cut he vetoed wasn't big 
enough; we want a bigger one.'' And let me tell you what's on the other 
side. The number of people over 65 in this country is going to double in 
the next 30 years. I hope to be one of them. There will be two people 
working for every one person drawing Social Security. The baby boom 
generation--that's anybody here between the ages of 54 and 36--and I can 
only tell you about the older baby boomers, because I was born in the 
first generation of them--we are panicked about the prospect that our 
retirement might undermine our children's ability to raise our 
grandchildren.
    Now, we've got the money right now, if we don't throw it away, we 
have the money right now to pledge the interest savings from paying down 
the debt to the Social Security Trust Fund and take it out to 2054--54 
years from today--beyond the life of all but the most fortunate baby 
boomers. We ought to do it. And it's more important to your long-term 
financial health than a tax cut we can't afford.
    If we were starting Medicare again today--now, we're for that; 
they're not--if we were starting Medicare again today, we would never 
design a Medicare program without a prescription drug component. When 
Medicare was set up 35 years ago, it was basically a critical care 
program; the fund covered doctor and hospital bills. Now, anybody that 
lives to be 65 years old has got a life expectancy of 83 years, and it's 
going to keep going up. There needs to be more attention to preventive 
care, to chronic problems, to all kinds of things that medicine can have 
a big impact on.
    And literally, almost three-quarters of our seniors either don't 
have any or don't have an adequate and affordable prescription drug 
coverage. It's a big deal. You overdo the tax cut, you can't cover 
enough people. And we have differences on how many people we want to 
cover with them.
    In education, it's fine to say you want to have higher standards for 
our schools and all these other good programs, but you've still got to 
pay for them. They've still got to be paid for. Our program is: Repair 
our schools that need repairing, build thousands of new schools, hook 
them all up to the Internet, put another 100,000 teachers out there--2 
million teachers are going to retire in the next few years, and more 
kids in the schools than ever before. So I think we ought to help put 
more teachers in the early grades. Have higher standards, but give 
schools the help they need for after-school, for summer school, for the 
reading, the mentoring programs, so that you don't blame kids for the 
failure of the systems. I've got no problem with ending social promotion 
and having higher standards, but if you're going to do it, you've got to 
give the kids a chance to succeed. And I think most people believe that. 
So there are differences. And it all starts on the economic front with 
this.
    There are also differences on a lot of other issues. I'm trying to 
raise the minimum wage a buck a year over 2 years. And they won't just 
pass a clean minimum wage bill; they're trying to get a humongous tax 
cut out of it. But you know, the last time we raised the minimum wage, 
about 6 years ago, they said, ``Oh, boy, this will drive up 
unemployment.'' Twenty-one million jobs later, we know that if you've 
got a good economic policy and a strong economy, paying people a decent 
wage who are working hard does not hurt the economy. And it's time to 
raise it again.
    And do you know, if we raise it again, it would still be, in real 
dollar terms, we'd still only be back where we were about 30 years ago, 
in terms of the purchasing power? So we ought to raise it. We're for it; 
they're not.
    On the gun issue--I grew up down here. I grew up in a culture that 
valued hunting, sport shooting. When I signed the Brady bill

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there was the awfullest commotion you ever heard in the assault weapons 
ban. People said, oh, they were going to lose their guns and all that. 
We heard all that stuff. Well, nobody has missed an hour in the deer 
woods. But 7 years later, 500,000 people--felons, fugitives, and 
stalkers--have not gotten handguns, and it could be a reason why we have 
a 30-year low in gun death rates.
    So now the issue is, should there be child trigger locks on the 
guns; should we ban the import of large capacity ammunition clips, which 
makes a mockery of the assault weapons ban because you just import the 
clips, then you adjust the gun to take the new clip; and should we do a 
background check at the gun shows?
    Now, when we passed the Brady bill, the people that were against it 
said, ``It won't do you any good to do a background check of people who 
buy guns from gun stores because all the criminals buy their guns at the 
gun shows.'' I said, ``Oh, surely some buy their guns at the gun 
stores.'' And sure enough, a half-million did, anyway. [Laughter] So now 
I go back to the same people and I say, ``You remember when you told me 
7 years ago all these people were buying their guns at the gun shows? 
Well, we have the technology to do these background checks now. They're 
not particularly burdensome. Let's do them.'' They said, ``Oh, my 
goodness, we couldn't do that. It would be the end of civilization as we 
know it.'' [Laughter]
    And all I can tell you is, I think it will keep kids alive. And I 
have never done anything, to the best of my knowledge, not one thing in 
my public life that interfered with the legitimate rights of hunters and 
other lawful gun owners. That is not what this is about. It's not about 
scare tactics and slogans.
    Somebody asked me the other day what I thought about all the mean 
things Charlton Heston has said about me. I said, ``I like his movies very much.'' [Laughter] And I actually--he 
came to the White House a couple of years ago for the Kennedy Center 
Honors. I liked him very much. This is just a difference of opinion 
here.
    I think it's really unfair to even say the Republicans are sort of 
in the pocket of the NRA, as if they're doing something they don't 
believe. I think they believe that. We think differently about this. 
This is a difference of opinion.
    They believe that basically this is the one area of our national 
life--guns--where there should be no prevention, all punishment. They do 
say--and I've increased gun prosecutions and want to increase them some 
more, and they're going to support me on that, I think--give us more 
prosecutors and all that. But they believe the only answer is, wait 
until somebody breaks the law and throw the book at them, but this is 
the one area of our national life where we can't have prevention.
    Well, you think about that. We have prevention everywhere else. 
We've got crosswalks for walking across the street, trying to keep 
people from getting run over. We put seatbelts on when we get in the 
car, trying to keep our heads from going through the dashboard. We put 
our kids in these child safety seats, trying to keep them from flying 
around if we have to slam on the brakes. We've got speed limits. We have 
airport metal detectors. Why do we have all this stuff? Most people are 
law-abiding, sensible, careful, and safe, in every endeavor. But you 
still do what you can to stop bad things from happening in the first 
place, right? I mean, that's what you do. When it's your family and your 
life and your kids, that's what you do. And that's what smart societies 
do. All this is about is whether we're going to do sensible things to 
prevent bad things from happening.
    I said it in my press conference the other day--I don't know if any 
of you saw it--I said, what do you think the country would think of me 
if I said, ``You know, I'm really worried about how many people are 
crowding in our airports and how hot they are and tired they are and 
pushed together they are. And 99.9 percent of them are the best people 
you ever want to meet in your life. They're totally law-abiding; they 
would never think of doing anything. And it drives them nuts to be late 
for an airplane and go through one of these metal detectors; and they've 
got a rodeo belt on or a big old heavy money clip, and they go, `bing, 
bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.' They have to go out, and you take 
everything out of your pockets, you go through it, it goes off again, 
and you have to go out and do it again. It just drives them nuts. And I 
just think it's so burdensome, and since almost all of them are law-
abiding, let's just take them all out. And the next time a plane blows 
up, we'll throw the book at them.'' [Laughter]
    Now, that is the logic. That is the logic behind not doing these 
background checks. But man, this has got nothing to do with the deer 
season.

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It's got nothing to do with the gun shows. It's got nothing to do with 
anything. It's a question of whether you believe there should be 
prevention in this area of our national life.
    See, I believe America could be the safest big country in the world. 
When I got elected President, nobody even thought the crime rate could 
go down. I did, because I'd been out to places like Philadelphia. I'd 
seen this. I believe America can be the safest big country in the world 
now. And if I were running the NRA, I would have a whole different take 
on this. I'd say, ``I'd like to prove that you can have the safest big 
country in the world and still have people who like to go hunting, go to 
these shooting contests and have a big time, own guns lawfully, be 
trained carefully, that use them.'' I'd like to prove that. I wouldn't 
be against all this prevention stuff. I think prevention is an important 
part of life. But there are differences here. And you know what the 
other differences are.
    So the first thing I want to say is, the country is in better shape. 
Ideas matter. We've tested ours; we've tested theirs. On the economy, 
they want to do what they did before. And if you do it, you'll get the 
same consequences you got before. And all the other things they talk 
about, all of them running for all these offices, you have to view in 
view of their commitment to a tax cut even bigger than the one I vetoed.
    The second thing I want to say is, I think these other issues 
matter, what you do in education, what you do with the environment, what 
you do with crime, and how you do it.
    The last thing I want to say is this. The Democrats have lost some 
votes since I've been in here, I'm quite sure because we take a very 
inclusive view of society, and we don't believe that people ought to be 
discriminated against just because they're female, just because of their 
race, just because they're handicapped, or even if they're gay--in the 
workplace--subject to hate crimes or anything else. That's what we 
believe. And some people are threatened by that, and they don't think 
we're good Americans, and they won't vote for us. But I think most 
people are with us on this.
    My view of this is real simple. I think if you get up every day and 
you show up for work and you go about your business, you obey the law, 
you pay your taxes, you're a good citizen, you ought to have a chance to 
live in this country and live up to the fullest of your ability, and 
nobody ought to get in your way doing it. That's what I believe. That's 
what I believe.
    And I believe that--I think that we define our sense of community in 
terms of how we live. They, I think, believe we define our sense of 
community more in terms of whether we say we believe the same things. 
And all I can tell you is, if you think about the time I've spent since 
I've been President working on peace around the world, what's the 
problem in the Middle East, in Northern Ireland, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, 
in the tribal wars in Africa, all these places? People killing each 
other because they're different--racial, ethnic, tribal groups, or 
religious groups--difference, right?
    Why did that guy in Los Angeles shoot those kids at the Jewish 
community center and kill that Filipino postman? Why did that guy in the 
middle West, who said he belonged to a church that didn't believe in God 
but did believe in white supremacy, shoot the black former basketball 
coach at Northwestern and the Korean Christian when he was coming out of 
church, and three or four other people? Why was young Matthew Shepard 
stretched out on a rack in Wyoming? And why was James Byrd dragged to 
death in Texas? And what has all this got to do with us?
    I really believe one of the great challenges every person's life 
faces--every person, even people who themselves have been discriminated 
against--is figuring out how to get it right when it comes to how to 
deal with people who are different from you, and how to find a way to 
appreciate other people's differences, enjoy them, and still somehow 
feel that what we have in common is more important than what is 
different about us. And that's hard to do. And the more I try to make 
peace around the world, the more I understand how much progress we've 
made in this country, for all of our problems. It's hard to do.
    And all over the world, people are raised to believe that they can 
identify themselves as good by having somebody else to look down on, 
that their religion only has meaning if somebody else's doesn't. They 
were raised to have pride insofar as it's set off against, in conflict 
with, somebody else. It's not just American. This is everywhere. And in 
this most modern of worlds, we are bedeviled by this old conflict.
    So I just want you to think about that. If somebody gave me one wish 
today, they said,

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``I'm sorry you can't finish your term; you've got to check out 
tomorrow,'' and God came down to me and said, ``I'm no genie. You're not 
getting three wishes. I'll give you one,'' I would not wish for 
prosperity or even a Democratic victory in November. I would wish that 
this country could truly be one America, across all the lines that 
divide us. Because we're smart people; we're good people; we work hard. 
If we could ever get our hearts and minds right about this stuff, the 
rest of it would work out. That's what I believe.
    And I'll just leave you with this thought. The most important 
question of all in this election is, what are we going to do with our 
prosperity? Are we going to make one America? Are we going to give 
everybody a chance to be a part of it? And are we going to meet our big, 
long-term challenges? The biggest danger for the Democrats in this race 
is that people will do what they often do when things are going along 
well; they'll get relaxed. They won't concentrate. They won't feel a 
sense of urgency. And they'll either stay home, or they won't be sharply 
focused on what this could be about.
    How many times--everybody here over 30, how many times have you ever 
made a mistake in your life, not because you were under the gun but 
because things were going along so well you didn't think there were any 
consequences to what you did today? Now, that's the big question here. 
What will we do with this unique moment of prosperity?
    In other words, all these differences only matter, that I just went 
through to you, if we're going to do something about it. And the only 
thing I'd like to tell you about that is, the older I get, the more my 
friends pass away, the faster time goes, and the more I realize nothing 
lasts forever. And I say that not to be morbid. I'm the most optimistic 
person you'll ever meet. I believe in the promise of America. I believe 
no one is irreplaceable. I believe in our country only freedom is 
irreplaceable. I don't believe there is anybody, including me, who's 
irreplaceable. But I believe moments come and go.
    And the last time we had an expansion like this was in the 1960's. 
It was the last time we had the longest economic expansion in history. 
And it's when I graduated from high school, in 1964, where everybody 
thought the economy would go on forever; we would never get mired down 
in Vietnam; the cold war would be over before you knew it because we 
were good and strong; and civil rights would be solved in the courts and 
in the Congress--1964, middle of the big expansion.
    When I graduated from college 4 years after that, it was 2 days 
after Robert Kennedy had been killed, 2 months after Martin Luther King 
had been killed, 9 weeks after Lyndon Johnson said he couldn't run for 
President because the country was too divided over the Vietnam war. Mr. 
Nixon got elected President. He was a very able man, but he got elected 
President on one of these ``us'' and ``them'' divisive campaigns. He 
represented the Silent Majority, and those of us that were on the other 
side, we were in the loud minority. We were kind of out of the club 
there. And a few months later, the longest expansion in American history 
was over, boom! And we blew a chance to solve a lot of our problems in a 
wholesome, peaceful way.
    Now, I'm not running for anything, but as an American citizen, I 
want to tell you, I've waited 35 years for that opportunity to roll 
around again for my country, where we could build the future of our 
dreams for our children. Ideas matter; there are differences. We've got 
to do this together.
    The most important thing right now is that we focus on the 
importance of this election. Do not take our prosperity for granted. Do 
not take our social progress for granted. Do not take your ability to 
even come to something like this for granted. We've got to make the most 
of this. If we do, we'll be proud for the rest of our lives. If we 
don't, we'll never forgive ourselves. This is a moment for making 
tomorrow. That's why you came today. If somebody asks, you tell them 
that.
    Thank you very much.

 Note:  The President spoke at 1:05 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to luncheon hosts Arnold and Celia Lupin; Harry 
Lee, sheriff, Jefferson Parish, LA; Edward G. Rendell, general chair, 
Democratic National Committee (DNC); luncheon cochair Ray Reggie; David 
Nelson Young, Louisiana DNC national committeeman; Mary Lou Winters, 
vice chair, Louisiana State Democratic Party; Louisiana State 
Representative Karen R. Carter; Sybil Morial, wife of Mayor Marc H. 
Morial of New Orleans; and Representative William J. Jefferson and his 
wife, Andrea.