[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 3 (Monday, January 25, 1999)]
[Pages 89-94]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the Western New York Community in Buffalo

January 20, 1999

    Thank you very much. I think you got so excited that you melted the 
snow for a mile around this arena. Let me ask you, have you ever seen 
the Vice President so fired up in your life? [Laughter] I want you to 
know that just before we came in here, we went off into a little room, 
and he had a quick hit of buffalo wings and Flutie Flakes; that's what 
he did.
    I want to thank the Mayor and Dennis Gorski and Connie Eve and the 
whole Eve family. Eric worked for us for a long time, then decided to go 
out and get rich. We forgive him. I want to thank all the community 
heroes who are here. I want to thank Reverend Smith for that magnificent 
invocation, which I will remember all my life. I want to thank our 
wonderful friend, Congressman John LaFalce, one of the most outstanding 
Members in the House of Representatives, a truly wonderful human being. 
And I am delighted that Pat and his son, Martin, are here with us today.
    I think you could see that Tipper and Al and Hillary and I, we're 
sort of like a big family. We like going places together. And I love it, 
because now I don't have to talk about 90 percent of the issues anymore 
because they already covered them, which was really good. We work 
together. And we have tried to model what we want America to do.
    You know, no one has ever spoken as passionately and consistently 
for the cause of mental health as well as Tipper Gore has done. I think 
it's fair to say that at least no one since Eleanor Roosevelt has done 
as much with the Office of First Lady as Hillary has done. And I am 
grateful for that. And I am quite confident that in the entire history 
of the United States no Vice President has had remotely the 
responsibility and had the positive impact on the people of the United 
States that Al Gore has had. And I am very grateful to him.
    Now, we are here today in this magnificent arena--and I've just got 
to say one thing about that Vice President. He compared me to the goalie 
for the Sabres. I was flattered, but I thought--you know, he kept 
talking about how I was swatting away those flying hockey pucks in 
Washington. I was flattered, but I thought, I just wish one day they 
would give me a mask and a few pads when I dodge that stuff.
    Anyway, we're delighted to be here. We're here because we are 
grateful to New York, to western New York, to Erie County, to Buffalo, 
grateful for the support we received in 1992, grateful for the support 
we received in 1996, and even more grateful for the fact that this 
community every day is trying to live and work in the way we want 
America to live and work in the 21st century.
    I know that many of you heard my speech last night. I know that you 
have listened to the previous speakers. I only want to speak to you 
about one of the issues, and that is how we're going to meet the 
challenge of the aging of America, because that affects all of us, not 
just the old but the very young as well. And I want everyone to 
understand exactly what I was trying to say last night and why.
    But let me make the bigger point. It was, as has already been said, 
6 years ago today at noon that I took the oath of office as President. 
And it seems impossible to me that those 6 years have flown by. They 
have been, to put it mildly, quite eventful. But I am very, very 
grateful that we had the chance to serve, grateful for your support, 
grateful the state of the Union is strong.
    But I want you to focus on this: You know as well as I do the world 
is changing rapidly. You know this community and its economic base and 
the nature of its society bears not

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all that much resemblance to the way it looked 30 years ago in terms of 
how people make a living, what the diversity of the population is, how 
we relate to each other, and where we imagine we're going in the future.
    So I believe that we can't afford just to sit around and pat 
ourselves on the back and say, ``Isn't it great? We've got the longest 
peacetime expansion in history. Isn't it great? We've got the lowest 
peacetime unemployment since 1957. Isn't it great that we've got the 
lowest welfare rolls in 29 years, that all the social problems, all of 
them, virtually, are getting better?'' That's fine.
    But the real issue is, what are we going to do with this? Do we 
seriously believe the crime rate is low enough? Do we believe the 
schools are good enough? Do we believe all our kids are getting an 
education? Do we really believe that the rate of drug use among our 
young people is low enough? Do we believe all these things? I don't 
think so.
    So what I want to say to you is, we ought to be focused on two big 
things. Number one, bringing the opportunities that the last 3 years 
have brought to most of America to the rest of America. Just like, last 
night, I said--we put before the American people last night a plan to 
develop more communities by putting more private capital in the 
neighborhoods that haven't received it.
    Now, let me ask you something. If we've got the lowest unemployment 
rate in 29 years, and the lowest in peacetime in 41 years, how are we 
supposed to keep growing the economy without inflation? We have to find 
new markets. Now, if a lot of the world beyond our borders is in 
recession, where are we going to find the new markets? I'll tell you 
where. In the urban neighborhoods and the rural counties where the 
unemployment rate is still twice the national average.
    And I want to emphasize just one of the suggestions I made last 
night, that we ought to have an American private investment company or a 
series of them, that would provide guarantees from the National 
Government to get private capital into urban and rural areas where there 
has been underinvestment--$15 billion of it.
    You know we have today--we have an Overseas Private Investment 
Corporation. Why shouldn't we have an ``American Private Investment 
Corporation,'' when our most important markets are here at home?
    I want to say just this one thing about Senator Schumer. The Vice 
President mentioned him, but before I came here he reminded me. He said, 
``When you go to Buffalo, you have got to tell the people that I pledged 
to them I would bring more jobs and more opportunity to western New 
York. And you tell them I'm going to be your very best partner.'' So I 
have kept my word to Senator Schumer.
    Now, let me give you some other examples, though. There are people 
in our midst who have not fully participated, even in areas which are 
doing well. And I'll just give you a couple of examples; one of them has 
been mentioned already. We have millions of Americans in the work force 
that do not read very well. Many of them are first-generation 
immigrants, and their first language is not English.
    I know Mrs. LaFalce has been very involved in the adult literacy 
program. I asked last night for a huge increase in Federal support to 
have a national campaign for adult literacy, to make sure all of our 
workers can read well enough to keep the jobs they've got, get better 
jobs, and if they lose their jobs, get new jobs. And I think that's 
very, very important.
    Now, your other Senator, Senator Moynihan, is the cosponsor of a 
bill that is very important to me because I have worked hard, since I 
was a young Governor, to try to give people with disabilities the 
ability to live up to the maximum amount of independence and self-
fulfillment that was possible. And one of the problems we have today is 
that people with disabilities that have high medical bills cannot afford 
to go to work, even if they are capable of working, because under the 
present law you lose the Government support for your medical insurance 
if you take a job. So Senator Moynihan is one of the cosponsors of a 
bill that says, if a disabled person is able to go to work, we will let 
them keep their health insurance so they can be healthy and at work. And 
that's good for us. So that's the first thing we need to do.
    The second thing we need to do is to deal with the large long-term 
challenges of America. The previous members of our team have

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talked about the long-term environmental challenges, the long-term 
health care challenges, the long-term education challenges, the long-
term community development challenges. I want to talk about the aging of 
America. And I was pleased when I read a lot of the stories today about 
my speech last night. I thought they were very good stories, but the 
implication was that I was speaking to the seniors. That's not true. The 
aging of America affects everybody.
    Why? First of all, the seniors today, by and large, have no sweat 
unless they live to be 120 years, because--old--because Social Security 
is fine now, and we have the system that we need. But when we baby 
boomers retire, there will be a senior boom. In 30 years, the number of 
senior citizens, people over 65, in America is going to double. Now, 
that just doesn't affect those of us who hope to live that long. That 
affects all of our children and all of our grandchildren and society at 
large.
    How will we manage this? We have a lot of responsibilities. We've 
got to work harder to stay in better shape and be healthier so we try to 
minimize the burden of our health care bills on the rest of you. It will 
be very important. There are a lot of implications to this.
    But I want you to know that--I grew up in a middle class home in a 
middle class community where half of my high school classmates, or more, 
didn't go on to college. And I still keep up with a lot of them, and 
most of them have very modest incomes. But every single one of us, 
without regard to our income or background, are obsessed with the notion 
that our aging should not put an unbearable burden on our children and 
their ability to raise our grandchildren. This is an issue for all 
Americans.
    Now, here's the problem. Social Security alone keeps half the 
seniors in America today out of poverty. So it's real important. But 
Social Security is not enough for the vast majority of our seniors to 
have a comfortable life and maintain the lifestyle they had before they 
started drawing Social Security.
    Medicare is subject to the same pressures that Social Security is 
and its cost as more and more people retire, live longer, and use more 
medical care. So the trick is, how do you preserve Social Security; how 
do you preserve Medicare; how do you give seniors the ability to have 
other sources of income; and how do you do it in a way that's fair to 
their kids and their grandkids; and how do we get it done by the time 
the baby boomers start retiring? That is the issue. So, you see, it's 
not just a seniors issue. It's an issue for all Americans.
    Now, we're going to have a big argument about this. And we should, 
and I hope it will be a good debate. But I believe, since we have--as 
the Vice President said--this $70 billion surplus from last year and a 
bigger one coming this year, since it's projected that over a 25-year 
period we will average substantial surpluses on an annual basis--now, 
they'll go up and down with the economy, but the point is we have no 
permanent deficit anymore, the natural condition is a surplus, okay--so 
the question is, what do we do with it?
    We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right. But I 
think--here's the problem. If you don't spend it right, here's what's 
going to happen. In 2013--that's just 14 years away--the taxes people 
pay on their payroll for Social Security will no longer cover the 
monthly checks. So we have to get into the Social Security Trust Fund, 
the savings account. By 2032, it will be gone. After that, if we haven't 
done something, we can only pay a little over 70 percent of the 
benefits. By then, the cost of living will be higher and it will be 
devastating.
    Even before that, by 2010, the Medicare fund will run out of money. 
Why? Because the fastest growing group of people--this is a high-class 
problem; this is a high-class problem; we should be so lucky to have 
only problems like this--the fastest growing group of people in America 
are people over 80. And I hope to be one some day, and so do you, right? 
And so does--I hope, every child in this audience will live to be over 
80. The kids in this audience actually will have a life expectancy of 
about 85 years if medical science keeps advancing.
    But the older you get, the more you need a doctor, or the more you 
need drugs or the more you need something just to kind of get through 
the day. I'm finding that out already. [Laughter] Everything kind of 
hurts when it's

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cold, and you've got to stretch your legs more. So that's going to 
happen by 2010.
    So what I said last night is not as popular as what others can tell 
you. Others can say, ``We've got this surplus now. I just want a big tax 
cut. I'll give it back to you. You'll figure out what to do with it.'' 
But I believe if we save 60 percent of this surplus for Social Security, 
here's what we can do. We can make the Trust Fund all right to 2055. We 
can protect Social Security for 55 years. We have a list of other 
options that are all a little controversial, but if we can get the 
Republicans and Democrats to hold hands, we could do it. It wouldn't 
hurt anybody very much. They're really good things for the program over 
the long run.
    And if we did that, we could protect Social Security for 75 years, 
and we could reduce the poverty rate among elderly women on Social 
Security. They're twice as likely to be poor. And we could remove the 
earnings test which now limits what seniors on Social Security can earn 
for themselves. So I think that's a good use of the surplus that will 
help our parents, our children, our grandchildren.
    Now, same thing with Medicare. If we just save one-sixth--one in 
very $6 of this surplus--for 15 years, and set it aside for Medicare, 
then we save Medicare to 2020. Then if we can get the Republicans and 
Democrats together--and in March we're going to have a report from a 
bipartisan commission that will start the debate--we can make a few 
other changes, save it till 2020, and begin to provide for prescription 
drugs. It's the single, biggest need that senior citizens on Medicare 
have.
    Now, let me tell you what else you'll get. You're going to have 
everybody say that Government doesn't know how to spend this money. 
Look, folks, Social Security and Medicare work. I'm not talking about 
spending this money, I'm talking about saving it.
    Now, here's what I think about it. This is the other thing I want 
you to understand. If we save three-quarters of this surplus for 15 
years only, to solve Social Security and solve Medicare well into the 
21st century, what else will happen? We will, by holding this money--
we've got to do something with it. What do you do with this money? You 
buy back the privately held debt. We will be reducing the debt of the 
country. We will take the debt of America in relationship to the size of 
our economy, the level of debt held by the public, to its lowest level 
since before World War I in 1917.
    Now, why should that matter to you? You say, ``Fine, Mr. President, 
give me the money, I'd rather have a new car. I don't care about World 
War I. Why does that matter?'' Here's why it should matter to you. If we 
keep driving the debt down, then you will keep interest rates down; you 
will keep home mortgage rates low; you will keep credit card interest 
rates low; you will keep the interest rates that you pay on your car 
payments low; you will keep more investment coming in to Buffalo and 
Erie County; you will have more jobs here. And that's something we have 
to do together. It will protect us.
    You see all this financial upheaval around the world. That's because 
these countries, their budgets are out of balance, and if people run off 
with their money, they have to put their interest rates through the roof 
just to get the money to come back. If we start paying down on our debt 
a little bit--which I remind you, we quadrupled the debt, quadrupled the 
debt between 1981 and 1993--if we just started paying down on it a 
little bit, saving this money, protecting Social Security and Medicare, 
then you would be somewhat more protected from these global economic 
events, and long after I'm gone from the White House, you would have 
stable interest rates, affordable lives, and the knowledge that 
investment would come into Buffalo and Erie County to build a better 
future. So I hope you will support what I have advocated last night.
    Now, let me just say two other things I think we ought to do to deal 
with the aging of America that help not just the elderly but the rest of 
us. Number one, Social Security was never intended to be the sole source 
of income. Even when President Roosevelt signed it, he said we need more 
pensions; we need more private savings. But a lot of people retire today 
and don't have any.
    And a lot of you young people today--I don't know how many people--
young people I talk to, in their twenties or late teens or even up to 
their early thirties, who say, ``You know, this is not going to be 
enough.'' Last

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night, I proposed setting aside more than 10 percent of the surplus to 
actually give people an incentive to save, a targeted tax cut to say, if 
you will set up this universal savings account, a USA account, the 
Government will give you, in effect, a tax cut; we will match the money 
in your savings account; and you can invest it however you want for your 
own retirement.
    And if you have--now, this is very important. And very low income, 
working people who have great difficulty saving, it takes every penny 
they've got to put clothes on their kids' back and pay the utility bills 
and the rent and make the car payment. We have a provision in our plan 
to give extra help for those least able to save. I want every American 
to have a savings account and to have a part of this country's wealth. 
If everybody was a part of the wealth, you would see the income gap 
shrinking instead of growing, and that's what this is about. This is a 
good way to have a tax cut because it's a tax cut that benefits you 
today and tomorrow and 10 years from now and 30 years from now.
    So let me also say, when you hear the tax cut debate, remember, 
we've got tax cuts in our plan, a $1,000 tax credit--that's a $1,000 tax 
cut for long-term care for seniors, for disabled people, for ailing 
people, or the families that care for them. That's one of the biggest 
problems families have today. And with the aging of America, it will get 
bigger and bigger. We ought to support and give people a tax cut for 
long-term care.
    We ought to have tax cuts for child care including, as was said 
earlier, for people who provide care by being stay-at-home parents for 
very young children. We ought to have these tax cuts. We ought to give 
people tax incentives to deal with our environmental problems. Every one 
of the tax cuts that are in my budget we have paid for so we can keep 
the budget balanced, keep the surplus coming, and deal with the long-
term problems.
    So I'm sorry if I made the atmosphere too serious. We've had a lot 
of fun today. But I want you to think about this. We cannot afford to 
squander this moment. When have we ever had this many resources, this 
many things going right at one time in this country? It has been a long, 
long time. We have to make the most of it. We have to look at the long-
term challenges facing America.
    So I ask you to think about this. I ask you to talk to your friends 
and neighbors about it. When people come out and disagree with my 
approach, listen to them and sit down and have a discussion about it. 
But you just remember this: We've been in debt for 30 years. And for the 
12 years before I became President, we were so deep in debt, we couldn't 
even think about the kind of money we've invested in Buffalo for police 
on the streets, to help more housing projects, people have houses, to 
deal--all the things that have been done. And we are out of debt now, 
but we have a big responsibility now to think about the long-term 
challenges.
    This country is going to change in a breathtaking way. We're on the 
verge of finding cures or preventions for diseases from Alzheimer's to 
Parkinson's to arthritis to all kinds of cancers. I think it will 
happen, probably in my lifetime. There are children here in this 
audience who either they or their contemporaries will be walking not on 
the Moon but on Mars. This world is going to change.
    And we have to do our very best to prepare. So I will say again, it 
may sound good if somebody says, ``This is your surplus, and we ought to 
give it back to you.'' But you ought to ask yourself, what's America 
going to look like 10, 20, 30 years from now? How are all the families 
going to deal with the retirement of the baby boom generation? How are 
we going to deal with our responsibilities for the medical care of our 
parents through Medicare? And can we keep interest rates low and the 
economy going?
    If you like this improving economy, what I'm trying to do is to give 
you a way that will maximize the chances that we will have a strong 
economy for the next 10 to 15 to 20 years and prepare for the aging of 
the baby boomers. I hope you will support it.
    I thank you for one of the great days of my Presidency here. God 
bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 1:04 p.m. at the Marine Midland Arena. In 
his remarks, he referred to Mayor Anthony M. Masiello; Erie County 
Executive Dennis T. Gorski; Constance Eve, chairperson and founder, 
Women for Human Rights and Dignity, Inc., and her son, Eric; Rev. 
Bennett W. Smith, who delivered the invocation;

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and Patricia LaFalce, wife of Representative John J. LaFalce, and their 
son, Martin. The transcript made available by the Office of the Press 
Secretary also included the remarks of Vice President Al Gore.