[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[July 31, 2000]
[Pages 1534-1540]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Luncheon
in Tampa
July 31, 2000

    Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your warm 
welcome, and I want to thank Bill Nelson for his 
introduction. It's amazing how, if you've sort of got one leg in the 
political grave, people think you're doing

[[Page 1535]]

a better job. [Laughter] Let me say how delighted I am to be here.
    I remember well the first time I came to a fundraiser in Tampa in 
1992--early, early, early, early. Some of you were there then. And I 
particularly appreciate it because at that time, my mother was the only 
voting American who thought I could win. [Laughter] And a lot of things 
have happened in the last 8 years and some odd months, and I have been 
very honored to serve. And I thank you all for coming today.
    I first want to acknowledge Congressman Jim Davis. He's doing a wonderful job for you in the House, and he's 
a real treasure. He's been a standup guy. And for someone without a lot 
of seniority, he has both had a big impact, and he's been willing to 
cast brave votes, and I'm very grateful to him. And even though the 
light is blinding my weakening eyes, I think I see Sam Gibbons out there. And I thank you, sir.
    I want to thank Mayor Greco for his warm 
welcome. I have loved my visits with him here. I'm like Jim; I like to see a person who likes his job. If there's 
anything I can't stand it's to hear somebody in public office complain. 
You know, nobody makes us take these jobs. You've got to work like crazy 
to get them, and as soon as you give one up, somebody else wants it. 
[Laughter] So he never made any pretense of the fact that he loves this 
city, and he loves his job, and he's been a dream to work with.
    I'd like to thank Ben Hill Griffin 
and Chris Hoyer and Jim Wilkes for chairing this event and for harassing the rest of you 
to give money to it. [Laughter] I'd like to thank Buddy MacKay for coming over here with me today and for 
the brilliant job he's doing as our Envoy to the Americas, and the 
leadership that he showed in passing our trade bill on the Caribbean 
Basin earlier this year. We can be very proud of that.
    I thank the other people here who are running for Congress. We just 
need five more seats to win the House, and maybe we saw a couple of them 
here today. And I thank Bob Poe for chairing the 
Democratic Party here. This is going to be a good State, I think, for us 
in November if we do the right things.
    Most important of all, though, I want to say that I'm honored to be 
here for Bill Nelson. I've known Bill for, I 
don't know, years and years and years, a long time. And he and 
Grace have been friends of Hillary and mine for 
years. They and their children came to the White House and stayed with 
us one night. And we stayed up later than we should have, talking. And 
we've had the opportunity over the years at various encounters to get to 
know one another, and I think the world of both of them. And I think 
that we need more people like them in Washington, people who are civil 
and decent and reasonable and caring, and not just in election season, 
not just as a part of a marketing strategy but because they think it's 
the right thing to do. And he's been an absolutely superb insurance 
commissioner, and he would be a superb United States Senator.
    Let me say to all of you, it has been the great--obviously--the 
great honor of my life to serve as President. I can't believe all the 
time that's passed. When I ran for President, I did so against all the 
odds, when no one thought I could win, because I believed the country 
was going in the wrong direction and was coming apart when it ought to 
be coming together. And I thought that the Washington political system 
was never going to serve America well unless it got shaken up and 
changed.
    And if we have had some measure of success up there, I think in no 
small degree it's because Al Gore and I went up there with a set of 
ideas for specific things we wanted to do, rooted in the values of 
creating opportunity for every responsible American and creating a 
community in which all Americans feel a part, in a world where we're 
still the leading force for peace and freedom and prosperity.
    Now, even though we faced intense partisan opposition at almost 
every turn of the road, it turned out the ideas worked pretty well for 
America. You know, when I passed the economic plan in 1993, without a 
vote to spare, only Democrats voting for it, to bring the deficit down, 
Al Gore breaking the tie vote in the 
Senate. As he says, his record since we've been there is a lot better 
than mine; whenever he votes, we win. [Laughter]
    I remember how our friends in the Republican Party said, oh, it 
would be the end of civilization as we knew it. My terrible, terrible 
economic program was going to bankrupt the country. It was going to 
weaken the economy. We'd have a terrible recession. The deficit would 
get worse. This was from a crowd that had quadrupled the debt of the 
country in 12 years, telling me how bad I was. And then, lo and behold, 
it didn't work out the way they said it would.

[[Page 1536]]

    By the time we got ready to pass the bipartisan balanced budget 
amendment in '97 all the hard work had been done. And we got more than 
two-thirds of both parties in both Houses to vote for that. And now 
we've had, as all of you know, the longest economic expansion in 
history. That's given us over 22 million new jobs and the lowest 
unemployment rate in 30 years, and the highest homeownership in history, 
and greater social justice--lowest child poverty rate in 20 years, 
lowest minority unemployment rate ever recorded, the lowest female 
unemployment rate in 40 years, the lowest rate of single-parent 
household poverty in 46 years. So we're moving in the right direction. 
This thing is going as it should.
    But the big question in this election is, what do we propose to do 
with our prosperity? That is the big issue. And I think that, as Bill 
Nelson goes out across this State between now 
and November, whether he wins or not--and I believe he will--depends in 
no small measure on what people believe the election's about. You might 
ask yourself just quietly, what do you think it's about? The only 
trouble we've got in this election right now, anywhere in America, is 
the confusion that exists about what the differences are between the 
candidates for President, Senate, Congress, and the two parties.
    There was a big story in one of our major national newspapers the 
other day; the American people are not sure there's much difference in 
economic policy. A big story in one of the other newspapers about 4 days 
ago about an interview system with a lot of suburban women who wanted 
more gun safety legislation had no earthly idea what the difference 
between the two candidates was.
    And I say that because I think there are three things you need to 
know about this election. One is, it's a huge, profoundly important 
election, just as important as the election in 1992. Why? Because what a 
country does with its prosperity is just as stern a test of its 
judgment, its values, and its character as what it does with adversity. 
You didn't have to be a genius to know we had to do something different 
in '92.
    I'll never forget when Hillary 
gave me that little saying that somebody gave us that said the 
definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and 
expecting a different result. [Laughter] So you didn't have to be a 
genius to figure out we had to change.
    So now we are at the time in our history, maybe unique in our 
history, when we had this unique combination of enormous economic 
prosperity, improving social progress, welfare rolls cut in half, crime 
at a 25-year low, teen pregnancy down, every social indicator going in 
the right direction. And we don't have a domestic crisis or a foreign 
threat sufficiently grave to distract us. What are we going to do about 
it? That's a big issue.
    The second thing you need to know about the election is that there 
are big differences. And the decisions the voters make in all these 
races will have significant consequences in how we live our lives and 
what we do with our prosperity and what kind of people we are.
    And then the third thing you need to know is that in this election 
year only the Democrats want you to know what the differences are--
[laughter]--which is a pretty good indicator of who you ought to vote 
for.
    Now, what do I mean by that? Well, on our side, led by Vice 
President Gore, we've got a group of men 
and women who want to keep our prosperity going by getting this country 
out of debt, continuing to invest in education and in the future of our 
economy, having affordable tax cuts, and providing drug coverage for our 
seniors on Medicare.
    On their side, their main argument, as near as I can tell is, ``We 
want to be inclusive and compassionate and spend the whole surplus on 
tax cuts, but be nice about it while we're doing it.'' And actually, 
their argument is easier to sell than ours. Their argument is, ``Hey, 
this is your money. We're going to give it back to you. Wouldn't you 
like to have it?''
    Now, then there are all these issues they don't talk about. So what 
I would like to tell you is what I honestly believe the differences are 
because I want you to share them with your friends and neighbors who 
would never come here. But it's very important. No point in having an 
election if the people don't know what the differences are and don't 
understand what the consequences are. And I'll just start with the 
economy.
    Their side says, ``We've got this big projected surplus, and we're 
going to give it back to you in tax cuts.'' And, as I said earlier 
today, every one of these tax cuts sounds good. And they're doing it--
they're smarter this year--this year's tax cut--last year was just one 
big, omnibus

[[Page 1537]]

bill. This year they're doing it salami style, passing a little along so 
they all sound good. But when you add them all up, and especially you 
put the new ones they're committing to in Philadelphia, it's the entire 
proposed surplus. So every one of them looks good, but it's kind of like 
going to a cafeteria. Every time I go to a cafeteria, everything I see 
looks good. But if I eat it all, I'll get sick. Think about it.
    So that's their position. Their economic policy is, ``Let's do what 
we did before, Who cares if we go back to deficits?'' And they'll spend 
it all on tax cuts before they even keep their own spending promises. 
Never mind what emergencies come up. Our position is different. It is, 
``Hey, let's remember how we got to this dance today. We got here by 
getting rid of this deficit, getting interest rates down, getting it 
where people could invest and grow the economy. So let's keep paying 
down the debt, save some money back to invest in education and to 
lengthen the life of Medicare and Social Security, so when the baby 
boomers retire they don't bankrupt their kids, and provide a 
prescription drug benefit for seniors on Medicare. Let's have a tax cut 
and focus it on paying for long-term care, for college, for child care, 
helping working people with a lot of kids, and helping people with their 
retirement. Ours costs 25 percent of what theirs does and does way more 
good for 80 percent of the people.''
    And then we say, ``Then let's save several hundred billion dollars 
of this projected surplus and let the next President and the next 
Congress decide what to do over the next several years as we see whether 
the money comes in.'' Now, this--I can hardly tell you how important 
this is.
    We've worked really hard to get this country turned around, to get 
this economy going. And their position is, ``Let's spend all the 
projected surplus.'' Did you ever get one of those letters in the mail 
from Ed McMahon, you know, from the Publishers Clearing House? ``You may 
have won $10 million.'' [Laughter] Did you go out and spend that $10 
million the next day? [Laughter] If you did, you should support them in 
this election. [Laughter] But if you didn't, you'd better stick with us. 
If you want to live like a Republican, you've got to vote for the 
Democrats this year. [Laughter] This is important. This is a big deal.
    Now, the second issue, education--what's our program? Our program is 
that we should take the limited Federal dollars we have and spend it on 
more teachers in the classrooms, training those teachers better, 
modernizing and repairing schools--because you know here in Florida how 
many schools you have--right here in Tampa, I've been to a school, a 
high school right here in Tampa, just full of housetrailers behind, in 
back. We need to help deal with this issue.
    We want to help people go to college. And we want to say to schools 
all over America, school districts, ``You've got to turn these schools 
around or shut them down. No more failing schools.''
    Now, here's the good news: Student performance is going up. All over 
America failing schools are turning around. I was in Spanish Harlem in 
New York City the other day, in a school that 2 years ago had 80 percent 
of its kids--listen to this, now--80 percent doing English and math 
below grade level--2 years ago. Today, 74 percent of them are doing 
English and math at or above grade level, in 2 years.
    I've been in schools in Columbus, Ohio, and rural Kentucky, all over 
America, that were failing that are turned around, without regard to the 
racial or economic backgrounds of the kids in the school. We know how to 
do it. That's our position.
    Their position is, the Federal money investment in education should 
be spent on block grants and vouchers. I think we're right. You have to 
decide. But we have some evidence that our plan works. And in the 
economy, we've sure got all the evidence we need. All you've got to do--
we tried it their way for 12 years and our way for 8 years. Compare our 
8 years to their 12 and make up your mind.
    In crime, let's talk about that. Our position is, more police on the 
street, do more to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and kids. And 
they said when I signed the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban--they 
terrified all these hunters and said I was going to take their guns away 
and how awful it was. I heard all that stuff all over America. It's one 
of the reasons we lost the House in 1994. When I went back to New 
Hampshire in 1996, where they beat one of those Congressmen, I said, 
``You know, you guys beat your Democratic Congressman up here because he 
voted for my crime bill. And if a person in this audience''--and I got 
all these hunters together--I said, ``If one of you missed a day in the 
deer woods, I want

[[Page 1538]]

you to vote against me, too, because he did it for me. But if you didn't 
miss a day in the deer woods, they didn't tell you the truth, and you 
need to get even.'' And our margin of victory in New Hampshire went up 
by 12 percent in 4 years. [Laughter]
    This country has a lower crime rate than we've had in 25 years. Gun 
crime has gone down by 35 percent. So what do we say? We say, ``Let's 
put more police on the street in the high crime neighborhoods. Let's 
close the gun show loophole in the background check law''--which you 
voted to do in Florida, overwhelmingly--``have mandatory child safety 
locks, and stop importing these large capacity ammunition clips which 
allow the manufacturers to get around the assault weapons ban.'' That's 
what we say.
    What do they say? Throw the book at anybody that violates the law 
and have more people carrying concealed weapons, even in church. Now, 
you have to decide which side you agree with. But it's not like you 
don't have any evidence here. We tried it our way, and we tried it their 
way. And crime goes down more our way.
    Now, the third thing I would like to say something about is health 
care. I said we're for adding a voluntary prescription drug benefit to 
Medicare. They are for making people buy private insurance and 
subsidizing it for people up to 150 percent of the poverty line. The 
only problem with their program is, even the insurance companies say 
there is no way to have stand-alone health insurance for prescription 
drugs.
    Nevada passed a program just like the ones the Republicans in 
Congress passed, and not a single, solitary insurance company would 
offer the drugs because it won't work, and they didn't want to 
participate in a fraud. Now, this is a huge deal in Florida, but it's a 
big deal all over America for the elderly, the disabled.
    Our program is for the drug users; theirs is for the drug makers. It 
is not a complicated thing. You just have to decide how important this 
is and whether you're willing to pay the price of our seniors never 
getting it if you don't support the Democrats. And you need to go tell 
people in Florida we're for a Patients' Bill of Rights, and they're not.
    Let's take the environment. I've worked real hard here on a program 
that would balance all the interests to save the Florida Everglades. I'm 
really proud of it. The Vice President 
worked hard on it. We really have labored to try to support you in what 
you're doing in Florida. And we saved a lot of Yellowstone Park from a 
gold mine, and we set aside more land in perpetuity in the lower 48 
States than any administration in history except those of the two 
Roosevelts. And we proved, I think, that you could have cleaner air, 
cleaner water, and safer food and still have a stronger economy, because 
we raised all the environmental standards. We just did it in a sensible 
way.
    Now, what's their position? Their position will be to weaken that 
direction, to repeal--one specific commitment they've already made is to 
repeal my order setting aside 43 million roadless acres in the national 
forests. The Audubon Society says it's the most significant conservation 
move in the last 40 years. They say they'll get rid of it. And they'll 
allow oil drilling in some places where we haven't. And apparently, 
they're committed to weaker regulations on the chemical industry.
    Now, I've done everything I could to create jobs and be pro-
business. But I think we've got to be pro-environment and pro-business. 
And you just have to decide which side you want to be on and what you 
think the best thing is for America. And these are the kinds of 
questions people have to be asked.
    The same thing is true with regard to one America. One of the things 
that I want to do is make sure that we're all going along for the ride 
here. We're for raising the minimum wage for people that can never 
afford to come to a dinner like this but may be serving it. I think it's 
unconscionable that it's still below what it was in 1982 in purchasing 
power terms when we've got 4 percent unemployment. It's just wrong. 
Nobody ought to work full-time for a living and have kids that are still 
below the poverty line. It's wrong. But they're not for it.
    Now, they're sort of being quiet on it now because the last time 
they fought me on it 4 years ago, they said it would cost jobs, and we 
created 11 million jobs since we passed it. So they really don't have a 
justification anymore. They can't--they're kind of embarrassed to say 
they're not for it, but they're not for it yet. If we turn up the heat 
enough between now and election, they will get it. But it's a big 
difference.
    We're for hate crimes legislation, and they're basically not for it. 
Oh, a few of them are, but the leadership is not, and the nominee is

[[Page 1539]]

not because it protects gays. Well, I think everybody ought to be 
protected from hate crimes, which is a crime, an assault on you just 
because of who you are. But you can decide whether you agree with that 
or not. But that's where we are.
    And there will be a big impact on the courts. The next President 
will appoint two to four judges on the Supreme Court, and the Senate 
will have to decide whether to confirm them or reject them. This is a 
huge decision. Their nominee says his favorite judges are Justice Thomas 
and Justice Scalia, by far the most conservative judges on the Court. 
That's what he said. And so you have to decide, because there will be 
big consequences.
    So if you just go back, here we are with this--a whole future before 
us, with all these opportunities out there, and you should be happy. We 
don't have to have one of these negative campaigns like we used to have 
for 20 years that were mostly brought to us by their side, trying to 
convince you that whoever their opponent was was just one step above a 
car thief. [Laughter] I recommend we just call timeout and say everybody 
running this year is a good, patriotic American. They are men and women 
who love their families and love their country and will do what they 
think is right, but they have honest disagreements. They disagree over 
economic policy and educational policy and health care policy and 
environmental policy and crime policy and civil rights policy, and what 
it means to be an American citizen and what kind of individual rights 
you should have as guaranteed by the Supreme Court. And we want to have 
a debate over that.
    Now, their strategy is to blur all that. I'll be very surprised if 
you hear anybody say this week at their meeting what I just said to you, 
even though I have tried to be exceedingly faithful to the differences 
between the two parties. And their strategy is to talk about compassion 
and all. It's a brilliant strategy. It's a pretty package, and they're 
hoping if they wrap it tight enough, nobody will open it before 
Christmas. [Laughter]
    And what we've got to do is try to make sure that the American 
people open the package in September and October, so they will know. I 
trust the American people. They almost always get it right. Otherwise, 
we wouldn't still be here after over 200 years. And if everybody 
understands exactly what the choices are and the Vice President doesn't win or Bill Nelson doesn't win, we'd be all right about that. But the truth 
is, if everybody understands exactly what the choices are, Bill Nelson 
will be the next Senator; Al Gore will be the next President; we will 
win the House of Representatives. Why? Because our economic policies, 
our educational policies, our health care policies are right for the 
country. Because the idea of building one America, not just with words 
but with deeds, and giving everybody a chance to participate in this 
brilliant future of science and technology in this global economy is the 
right thing for the country and the right thing for our children's 
future. That's why.
    I'm telling you, as much, as many good things that have happened in 
the last 8 years, believe me, all the great stuff is still out there. 
But there are big challenges. Look at Florida's school kids, how diverse 
they are. If you want this country to be where it ought to be, every one 
of them has got to be able to get a good education. We have to figure 
out how, when all us baby boomers retire and the average 65-year-old can 
look forward to living to be 83, we're going to manage that without 
bankrupting our kids and grandkids.
    We have to figure out how to make the most of this scientific and 
technological revolution. One of the reasons I want Al Gore to be President, apart from my personal 
relationship with him, is that I have studied very hard the impacts of 
the information technology revolution, the impacts of the genome 
revolution, what's likely to happen over the next 10 years. It seems to 
me that you want somebody that can make the most of the computer 
revolution and still protect your financial and medical records and not 
let somebody get at them unless you say okay. It seems to me you want 
somebody who can help make the most of this scientific revolution 
without letting somebody deny you a job or promotion or raise or health 
insurance because of your little gene map. It seems to me we ought to 
have somebody in the White House that understands the future.
    And I know we ought to have people in the Senate who have the values 
and the judgment and just the way of operating that Bill Nelson does. Believe me, I've done everything I could to turn 
this country around, and the only thing now we have to decide is, what 
is this election about? If people really say, this election is about 
what shall we do with this moment of prosperity,

[[Page 1540]]

how can we meet the big challenges and seize the big opportunities out 
there, Bill Nelson will be just fine.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 2:04 p.m. in the Audubon Ballroom at the 
Hyatt Regency Westshore. In his remarks, he referred to Bill Nelson, 
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Florida, and his wife, Grace; 
Mayor Dick A. Greco of Tampa; former Representative Sam M. Gibbons; Ben 
Hill Griffin III, Chris Hoyer, and Jim Wilkes, luncheon cohosts; and 
Republican Presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush of Texas.