[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 9 (Monday, March 8, 1999)]
[Pages 338-341]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Unity Meeting With Democratic Congressional Leaders

March 3, 1999

    Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. This has been a wonderful 
morning for me. When I listened to Maureen Marshall and Edwin Beale and 
Michael Saylor speak, I was again confirmed in my conviction that our 
principal responsibility here is to give the American people the tools 
and create the conditions within which they can make the most of their 
own lives. And if we do that, they will do it every time. These 3 people 
represent more than 200 million Americans who deserve our best efforts.
    I want to thank Senator Daschle and Congressman Gephardt for their 
truly outstanding leadership, for their personal friendship, and for 
their honest commitment to the cause that we meet to discuss today.
    I thank the Vice President for being the best partner and friend, 
adviser and prodder any President could ever have. I can't believe he 
passed up a chance to remind us all today that in 1993, he cast the 
decisive vote on the budget plan, and whenever he votes, we win. 
[Laughter]
    You know the real, sort of political story out of this meeting today 
may be that we will have to retire that famous old Will Rogers quip, ``I 
don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat.'' The fact 
is we are organized, and we are united. And we are united around an 
agenda for America's future: to meet the long-term challenges of this 
country at the edge of a new century and new millennium; to build on 
what we have done for the last 6 years.
    The new agenda is rooted in the same ideals with which we began in 
1993, to bring opportunity to every American, to challenge every 
American to be a responsible citizen, and to build a community of all 
American citizens.
    When you look around at this Democratic caucus, the Members of the 
House and the Senate, as the speakers were speaking, I had the 
opportunity to just scan both sides of this wonderful room today. You 
all really do look like America. You think like America, and you reflect 
America. As perhaps the only one of you who is term-limited, and 
therefore, faces the prospect of making the most of this next 2 years 
and leaving the rest to you, I felt enormously good, not just for my 
party but for my country, to look at all of you, to know what I know 
about all of you, to know about your backgrounds and your perspectives 
and your experience and your commitment, and to see how in this caucus 
we have bridged every divide of America that will help us to bring our 
country together and go forward. And I'm very proud to be here with you 
today.
    Let me say that when I ran for President in 1991 and 1992, I used to 
say something that seems almost strange today. I said one of the reasons 
that I left a job at home that I loved and undertook this campaign is 
that I didn't want to see my daughter's generation grow up to be the 
first generation of Americans not to do as well economically or in terms 
of quality of life as their parents had done. Nobody worries about that 
anymore, but we did then.
    And what we had before that was more than a decade in which the 
leaders of the other party talked tough but took the easy way out. We 
were unashamed to be compassionate, unashamed that we cared about those 
who needed a hand up in life. But we were unafraid, when it came down to 
it, to take the tough decisions that cost many of our fellow Democrats 
their seats in Congress but gave the American economy and the

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American people a new lease on the 21st century.
    So what we came here today to talk about builds on what has happened 
in the last 6 years. It builds on our way of approaching our political 
responsibilities here, to put people ahead of partisanship and common 
sense ahead of ideology. Now, we've already talked about how we turned 
the red ink to black--that that helped to produce the longest peacetime 
expansion in our history, the lowest peacetime unemployment since 1957.
    We ought to point out that we did it in a way that looked to the 
future, not only reducing the deficit but doubling our investment in 
education and training, putting 100,000 more police on our streets, 
making dramatic increases in medical research, immunizing 90 percent of 
our children from basic childhood diseases for the first time ever, 
providing millions and millions of people with the benefit of the family 
and medical leave law, and making our environment cleaner. We showed, in 
other words, that we could balance the budget and honor our common 
values as Americans.
    Now that, to use Senator Daschle's phrase, America is working again, 
the question is: What shall we do? And we're here to say that, as proud 
as we are of the record of the last 6 years, this is not a time to boast 
about the past but to fulfill our solemn duty to the next generation, to 
meet the long-term challenges our Nation faces.
    We're for stronger families, with our child care program and our 
after-school learning, for a strong, enforceable Patients' Bill of 
Rights, for the bipartisan legislation to help people with disabilities 
move into the workplace, for tax relief to help families provide long-
term care, for an increase in the minimum wage and equal pay for men and 
women, and more free enterprise in our poorest inner-city and rural 
communities. We're for 50,000 more police on the street and better 
technology for police, especially in the areas where crime is still too 
high. We stand together to pass the Earth on to our children with our 
livability initiative for less traffic congestion and more green space. 
We stand together, as the Vice President has said, for strong, modern, 
more accountable schools, for giving teachers like Maureen the support 
they need to do even better.
    Last winter, as has already been said, we issued our call, for the 
first time, for 100,000 more highly trained teachers, to bring class 
size down in the early grades. And last fall the Republicans in Congress 
finally agreed to make a significant downpayment toward that goal. Now, 
in the next few days, the Senate will vote on whether to finish the job 
of hiring 100,000 new teachers to reduce class size. It will be our 
first big chance this year to prove to the American people that we are 
prepared to put people over party. Let's say politics stops at the 
schoolhouse door.
    Now, I'd also like to ask that politics stop and that the Republican 
majority in Congress stand with us in meeting the greatest challenge we 
face, the aging of America. Life expectancy is rising; the number of 
older Americans will double by the year 2030. There will be only two 
people working for one person drawing Social Security by that time. Even 
before then, because people over 80 are the fastest growing group of 
Americans as a percentage of our country, Medicare will run out of money 
within 9 years.
    Now, I particularly appreciated what Edwin Beale said about this 
being an issue facing younger, as well as older, Americans and not only 
because younger Americans would like to know they will have health care 
in retirement when they reach their retirement years, but also because 
the quality of life of the children of people on Medicare and Social 
Security and their ability to raise their grandchildren will be directly 
dependent upon whether they had to take needed resources away from their 
own family to care for their parents in ways that previous generations 
have not. This is a big issue.
    But I want to say again--and I feel this with greater conviction as 
I grow older by the day--this is a high-class problem. We face this 
challenge because we're living longer. We face this challenge because of 
the fruits of the medical research that the Congress has funded. We 
should not be hand-wringing here. We should be embracing this with joy. 
This is the inevitable result of our efforts to not only lengthen life 
but to improve its quality. And because the Democrats took the lead so 
many years ago, first in Social

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Security and then in Medicare, we have a special responsibility to the 
American people to take the lead in resolving this.
    Now, let me restate clearly our principles and where I think we are 
in this debate now because how we resolve these issues will shape how we 
resolve the other issues in this session of Congress. First, we should 
devote 62 percent of the surplus for the next 15 years to saving Social 
Security, to guarantee the soundness of Social Security for the next 55 
years, and to enable us to make further choices, some of which will be 
difficult, to extend Social Security for 75 years, provide help for 
elderly women, too many of whom are in poverty, and lift the earnings 
limit on people on Social Security.
    Second, we should devote another 15 percent of the surplus to 
Medicare, to secure that vital program until the year 2020. And again, I 
believe we should go further, with broader reforms to strengthen and 
improve Medicare and to meet the greatest growing need of our seniors, 
affordable prescription drugs.
    If we do this, that will still leave funds for other investments or 
for tax reduction. I believe we should devote over $500 billion of this 
surplus to give working families tax relief, creating universal savings 
accounts, USA accounts, that will help all Americans share in the 
Nation's wealth and build nest eggs for retirement. If we do these 
things--saving Social Security, saving Medicare, empowering more 
Americans to save for their own retirement--we will fulfill our historic 
challenge to meet the difficulties and the opportunities of the aging of 
America in a way that provides a stronger economy and more stable 
families for our children.
    If we use the surplus to save Social Security and strengthen 
Medicare, we will for the next 15 years and beyond, be paying down the 
national debt, if we follow the proposal that we have made. We can 
reduce publicly held debt to its lowest level since 1917, before we 
moved into World War I.
    Let me say, for a Member of Congress what that means is, 15 years 
from now, Congress will be allocating only 2 cents of every tax dollar 
to pay interest on the debt, instead of the 13 cents you have to take 
off the top today, before you can pass another bill to do another thing. 
That means--and again, I was glad to hear Michael Saylor, who told that 
astonishing story of his company starting with $132 and winding up with 
1,000 employees and hundreds of millions of dollars of wealth that have 
been created. You remember what he said? He said what they need from 
Government is a responsible set of rational decisions that keep interest 
rates low and the economy strong. That is the most important thing. And 
if we do this, we will drive down interest rates for the next 15 to 20 
years. We could actually have our country completely out of debt, under 
this policy, in 18 years. And in a world in which the economy of other 
countries is obviously troubled at the moment and in which future events 
are not predictable, we know one thing for sure: If we pay down this 
debt and things are troubled beyond our borders, we'll do a lot better 
and interest rates will be a lot lower than they otherwise would have 
been. If things go well in the global economy, because of our efforts 
and others, we will do even better than we otherwise would have done.
    And we know that the success of the American economy has reinforced 
the budget decisions made in 1993. We have got to keep this going. So I 
say, take care of Social Security; take care of Medicare; pay down the 
debt; keep the economy going. These things are the most important things 
we can do for our children in the 21st century.
    Now, let me say where I think we are now. I have, frankly, been 
gratified to see the Republican leaders have quickly joined us in 
supporting the first idea, dedicating 62 percent of the surplus to save 
Social Security. At least, I believe the word they used was ``setting 
aside'' 62 percent of the surplus, and I'll come back to that in a 
moment. I've been further encouraged to see some of the Republicans 
backing away from the irresponsible across-the-board tax cut that is too 
costly, in favor of standing with us for targeted tax cuts benefiting 
mostly middle-class working families.
    Last week the majority leaders in Congress actually placed an ad in 
USA Today, with a nice letter promising to save Social Security, to give 
our children the world's best schools, to target tax relief to the 
middle class. That was the most welcome news I've

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read in USA Today, in terms of progress, since the NBA strike ended. 
[Laughter] And I was encouraged by it.
    But I want to make it clear, there are still strong differences in 
our approach, and we must resolve them in a way that benefits the 
American people, in the Vice President's words, that benefit Republicans 
and independents and Democrats alike. We have to do what's right for the 
country.
    First, while the Republicans are joining me in talking about setting 
aside a substantial part of the surplus for debt reduction and, 
presumably, for Social Security--and we welcome that--they still have 
said nothing about how they would extend the life of Social Security and 
whether they would dedicate all 62 percent of this surplus for that 
purpose. And that is very important.
    Second, I ask the Republican majority to join us in devoting a 
portion--15 percent--of the surplus to save Medicare. Now, this is very 
important. They have not done that so far. And as you see from the 
difficulties of others who have struggled with these issues and the fact 
that health care costs are beginning to rise again, we cannot secure 
Medicare as a guarantee for our seniors with any reasonable set of 
reforms and keep it a recognizable, universal program, unless we also 
invest some more money in the program.
    You can talk to any hospital that's administering programs that have 
Medicare patients. You can talk to any doctor. You can talk to anybody 
who's dealt with this program. We must have more money. So I ask those--
especially those who still maintain that somehow, out of the surplus, 
they can afford a very large across-the-board tax cut--where will they 
find the resources to extend the life of Medicare?
    I am not opposed to responsible reforms that enable us to secure 
Medicare for an even longer period and to begin to add this prescription 
drug benefit so that we can really help people who need it. But I'm 
telling you, we cannot deal with the Medicare problem without a greater 
investment of money.
    So, let's say, use the budget surplus to save Social Security, to 
save Medicare, to pay down the debt. Then we can have an honest and 
principled disagreement about how much and what kind of tax cut we need 
with the rest--about how much should go to education; how much should go 
to defense; how much should go to medical research. But the first and 
most important things are save Social Security, save Medicare, pay down 
the debt, secure the future of our children.
    Now, we stand today unified. We stand today well aware of the 
challenges before us. But we stand today beleaguered by beepers and 
message machines. [Laughter] This is my last line I want to say about 
this. Will Rogers also used to say something that we do not have to 
disregard. He used to say, and I quote, ``You've got to be an optimist 
to be a Democrat, and you've got to be humorous to stay one.'' 
[Laughter]
    Well, I urge you, let's bring a new energy to this session of 
Congress. When we get really frustrated by what seems to be excessive 
partisanship, let's remember these three fine American citizens who 
talked to us today and the stories they told and the hundreds of 
millions of people they represent. Let's keep our optimism, our good 
cheer, our resolve, and our unity, to give them the 21st century they 
deserve.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:35 a.m. in the Thomas Jefferson 
Building, Library of Congress. In his remarks, he referred to Maureen 
Marshall, special education teacher, Springfield Estate Elementary 
School, Springfield, VA; Edwin Beale, graduate student, Tuskegee 
University; and Michael J. Saylor, founder, president, and chief 
executive officer, MicroStrategy, Inc. The transcript made available by 
the Office of the Press Secretary also included the remarks of Vice 
President Al Gore, Senator Thomas A. Daschle, and Representative Richard 
A. Gephardt.