[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[September 28, 2000]
[Pages 1980-1983]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Reception for Representative Richard E. Neal
September 28, 2000

    Thank you. First of all, after what Richard Neal said, if I had any 
sense, I would just shut up and sit down. [Laughter] I'm delighted to be 
here with you and Maureen and the whole clan of 
your family. And thank you, Senator Kennedy, for what you said.
    I want you to know one thing about Ted Kennedy. He's a good friend of mine. I think, in a lot of ways that 
I could never even describe, he's been there for me and for Hillary, and 
he's just been wonderful. And I've just got 4 months to be President, 
right? Every single time, for 8 long years, I have seen him, he says 
hello; he is polite; he says hello--[laughter]--then, within 30 seconds 
I get a card like this. [Laughter] And this card tells me what I haven't 
done as President that I should have done and that, if I would just do 
these things, the whole world would be a much better place. [Laughter]
    I have all these cards. [Laughter] I must have done 90 things in the 
last 8 years on Ted Kennedy's wish list, 
and I'm still getting it. [Laughter] That ought to tell you something. 
He's been there a long time, but he's not tired of the job. He is still 
doing a great job, and I'm very proud of him. And you should be proud of 
him.
    I'd like to thank Father Leahy, the 
president of Boston College, for being here. You know, I'm going to be 
unemployed after January, and I'm looking for somebody to ask me to come 
give a talk every now and then. [Laughter] They say I'll get lost on the 
way for 3 or 4 months because nobody will play a song when I walk in a 
room anymore. [Laughter] But I'm interested in it.
    I'm glad that our FAA Administrator, Jane Garvey, has come here in support of you, Congressman Neal. And 
your colleague, Lloyd Doggett, from Texas, is 
either here or was here. He and his wife, Libby, they represent Austin, Texas, and that's a long way 
from Springfield, Massachusetts, but it's a great place.
    And I want to thank Peter King for coming. 
I always wonder whether every time I appear with Peter King, how long he 
can use Ireland as an excuse to keep from being thrown out of the 
Republican caucus. [Laughter] But I want to tell you, I love this guy 
and his family and his mother. And these two men have been anchors for 
America's role in the Irish peace process and the support I've gotten in 
the House of Representatives. And of course, so has Senator 
Kennedy, Senator Dodd, and others in the Senate.
    But it was, to put it mildly, a sea change in American foreign 
policy when I took the position I did and we got involved in the Irish 
peace process, and I was mildly unpopular in Great Britain for a day or 
two. And there are all kinds of crazy theories about it. And finally, I 
told the British Prime Minister, whom I actually like very much, ``Mr. 
Major,'' who was Mr. Blair's predecessor, I said, ``you know, this is going to be 
good for you because you just can't have this thing going on forever, 
and there are 44 million Irish-Americans, Catholic and Protestant. It's 
the big diaspora. And we can help Ireland if they can make peace. And 
you should be glad we did this. In the end, it will be good.''
    I think now most people in Great Britain would tell you that it was 
a good thing the United States got involved and tried to bring about 
some, first, movement and then reconciliation. We're not entirely there 
yet. They're having a few minor arguments about the details of the 
Patton report. But for those of you who care about it, you should be 
very grateful to the people on this stage, including your representative 
in Congress, Richard Neal. They

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were great, and we could never have done it without him.
    Now, I must say, the only bad thing about the Democrats winning the 
majority in the House of Representatives and increasing his influence 
is, I hate to see Peter King cry. [Laughter] 
Otherwise, it would be a total unmixed blessing for America if we won 
the majority.
    Let me say, too, how grateful I am to the people of Massachusetts 
for what you've done and been for me and Hillary and Al and Tipper Gore. 
In 1996, I got--Ted Kennedy never tires of 
telling me--the highest percentage of the vote in the country in the 
State of Massachusetts. You were good to me, and I appreciate it. And 
the second highest in '92, but as he always says, ``Massachusetts is 
bigger than my home State, so I got more votes out of Massachusetts.'' 
He's always working an angle, Ted is. [Laughter] That's what I heard 
when I got the first letter. [Laughter]
    Let me say to all of you, one of the things I admire about your 
Congressman, besides the fact that he's a really good person and 
wonderful to be around, is that he has, I think, the right kind of 
balance in a Representative. He cares about all the local issues. 
There's not a single local issue in your congressional district that can 
be dealt with in any way, shape, or form at the Federal level that he 
couldn't stand up here and give a discourse on. He cares about national 
policy and how it affects people who live in his district.
    But he also cares about how America relates to the rest of the world 
and whether we are a stronger, more secure, more decent country. And he 
knows that that helps people all over America, including the people who 
live in his district. And that's about all you can ask for somebody in 
Congress. If everybody thought that way, if everybody worked that way, 
if everybody had the same willingness to work with people who have good 
ideas, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, and if everybody would 
rather get something done than have another fight and get 15 more 
seconds on the evening news, we'd get more done here, and we'd move even 
faster.
    This is the first time in 26 years I haven't been on the ballot. 
Most days, I'm okay about that. [Laughter] My party has a new 
leader. My family has a new 
candidate. [Laughter] I'm sort of the 
Cheerleader in Chief in America now. But as I think about all the 
progress our country has made, first, I'm grateful for whatever role 
that our ideas and actions had in it, and our administration. But 
secondly, I'd just like to say that, to me, when the Vice President 
says, ``You ain't seen nothing yet,'' it sounds like a campaign slogan, 
but I actually believe that.
    The country is kind of like a big ocean liner, and it's hard to turn 
it around. That's how come the Titanic hit the iceberg. They saw it, but 
not in time. So we've been working for 8 years to turn this thing 
around. And you heard--Richard gave you all the statistics; we're going 
to pay off $360 billion off the national debt before I leave office--not 
just get rid of the deficit--to pay the debt down.
    But the question is before us here, in the national races--the race 
for President, in every Senate race, every House race--is, now what? 
Okay, so unemployment is down; poverty is down; business starts are up; 
homeownership is at an all-time high. The poverty rate among minorities 
is the lowest ever recorded. The poverty rate among women is the lowest 
recorded in 46 years. Unemployment rate among women the lowest in 40 
years, which is truly astonishing since the participation of women in 
the work force is so much higher today than it was 40 years ago. Crime 
is at a 30-year low. Welfare is at a 32-year low. We've proved you can 
improve the economy and the environment, because the air is cleaner; the 
water is cleaner; the food is safer. We've set aside more land than any 
administration except Theodore Roosevelt's, in the history of the 
country.
    So what are you going to do with that? That's really the big issue 
here. I say this all the time, but sometimes it's harder to make a good 
decision in good times than it is to make a good decision in bad times. 
I'm sure a lot of people voted for me in 1992 thinking, ``God, I'm 
really taking a chance. This guy, he doesn't look old enough be 
President.'' I didn't have gray hair then. [Laughter] ``He's from this 
little State. I'm not sure I know where it is. His opponents all say 
he's terrible. I'm really taking a chance here.'' But you really weren't 
taking much of a chance, because the country was in trouble, and we had 
to do something different.
    Now, the country is in good shape, and you have to decide what to 
do. There are a lot of young people here, but I think I'm confident in 
saying that, maybe even including Father Leahy, there's not a person in this room who's

[[Page 1982]]

over 30 years of age who hasn't at least on one occasion in your life 
made a significant mistake, not because times were so tough but because 
times were so good you didn't think you had to concentrate. That happens 
to countries as well as people.
    So the reason I'm going around the country trying to help people 
like your Congressman and talking everywhere I can about this: I just 
don't want America to miss this magic moment. You heard Richard say, we 
can be out of debt in 12 years. Should we do it? I think we should. Why? 
Because if we do, if we keep paying that debt down, interest rates will 
stay lower; businesses will borrow more money, expand more, hire more 
people, raise wages more; the market will be higher. And if you keep 
interest rates a percent lower, it's worth about $390 billion in lower 
home mortgage payments, $30 billion in lower car payments, $15 billion 
in lower student loan payments in 10 years. That's pretty good money.
    We could revolutionize our schools over the next 10 years. We could 
have every child in a school that's functioning at a national level of 
educational efficiency and excellence. We could have all the kids that 
need to be in Head Start, in Head Start. We could have all the kids that 
need to be in after-school programs and not on the street, in after-
school programs getting mentoring, new computer instruction, all that 
stuff. We could do it.
    We could provide health care coverage to all the working families in 
this country who don't have it. We could reverse the tide of global 
warming and actually increase the rate of economic growth by an 
explosion of the development of new engines, new fuels, and new 
conservation technologies in America. We could do it.
    We could use the human genome project to tell every mother what her 
newborn baby's future health will likely be like, what all the problems 
are, by the time she brings the baby home from the hospital. It could 
change childrearing and take life expectancy, within 10 to 15 years, to 
90 years. We could do it.
    We could become a much greater force for ending the plagues of AIDS, 
TB, malaria, poverty in the world in a way that would actually increase 
America's wealth because we'd have better trading partners. And that's 
just a partial list of what we could do. I also think you're going to 
find out what's in the black holes in outer space and the deepest depths 
of the ocean, which, ironically, may be even more surprising.
    But you have to decide to do it. It means you've got to make the 
right decisions in these elections based on economic policy, crime--you 
can make America the safest big country in the world. Gun crime down 35 
percent; crime has dropped 7 years in a row for the first time ever. You 
could make America the safest big country in the world. You could do all 
this stuff, but you've got to decide to do it.
    And I know I'm a Democrat, and I know I'm prejudiced--[laughter]--
but that's the only thing I'm prejudiced about. But I think you've got a 
good person representing you in Congress. And I think I know now; after 
8 years, I know.
    And I also agree with what Richard Neal said about Ted 
Kennedy. He is probably the most effective 
legislator in the Congress, I think. I've said this before, and I like 
to turn his Irish face red, but I think that I'm something of an 
American history buff. I think I know a little bit about the history of 
this country, and I believe that any historian who is well informed who 
had to list the 10 greatest United States Senators in the history of the 
Republic would have to put his name on that list. I want you to know why 
I said that. Because every time I say that, I earn the right to hand him 
a little card for something. [Laughter]
    So I want you all to be happy. I want you to be happy about this 
good time. But I don't want you to be careless about the election. It's 
not so much a matter of party as it is philosophy. I really believe that 
this country works best when we say, ``Everybody counts. Everybody 
deserves a chance. We all do better when we help each other.''
    And I'll just close with this thought. There's a new book out which 
is selling reasonably well, called ``Non Zero,'' by a man named Robert 
Wright. He wrote a book a few years ago some of you probably read, 
called ``The Moral Animal.'' And ``Non Zero'' is a reference to game 
theory. A zero-sum game is like the Presidential race: In order for one 
person to win, somebody has to lose. A non-zero-sum game is a game in 
which in order for you to win, the other person playing the game also 
has to win. And the argument of the book is that as societies become 
more and more complicated and we become more and more interdependent, 
both

[[Page 1983]]

within our Nation's borders and beyond our borders, humanity has a 
chance to improve and progress because we are inevitably forced to try 
to find more and more non-zero-sum solutions where we all win.
    You know, I never thought I was right about everything. And on those 
important occasions--all too few--when I could work across party lines, 
I think I've learned some things, and America has been strengthened. 
I've learned some things about Ireland from Peter King. I think we made a good balanced budget agreement, because 
it was bipartisan. I could go through a lot of others. But this country 
does not need dividers. This country needs unifiers, and it needs people 
who have enough sense to understand the connection between what goes on 
in Springfield, Massachusetts, connected to Washington, DC, connected 
not just to Ireland but what happens half a world away.
    You're lucky enough to have a person like that in Congress. I hope 
you'll leave him there forever, and I hope between now and November you 
will share some of these thoughts with your friends not only in 
Massachusetts but in other States.
    This is a very important opportunity for the American people to make 
a good decision. In my lifetime we've never had a chance like this to 
build the future of our dreams for our children--never. We've never had 
so much prosperity and social progress with the absence of internal 
crisis or external threat. It may not roll around again for another 50 
years, so you make the most of it. And meanwhile, take care of him.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 8:06 p.m. at the Phoenix Park Hotel. In his 
remarks, he referred to Representative Neal's wife, Maureen; Father 
William B. Leahy, president, Boston College; and former Prime Minister 
John Major and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the of the United Kingdom. 
Representative Neal was a candidate for reelection in Massachusetts' 
Second Congressional District.