[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 13 (Monday, April 5, 1999)]
[Pages 539-545]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Electronic Industries Alliance Dinner

March 30, 1999

    Thank you. First of all, I want to thank you all for giving me a 
chance to come tonight. I thank my longtime friend Dave McCurdy for his 
introduction and for his leadership of EIA. You made a good decision 
when you named him your president. And I know what you're laughing about 
out there. [Laughter] Two or 3 years from now, you'll think it's an even 
better decision. [Laughter]
    I want to also pay my respects to your vice president, John Kelly, 
who went to Georgetown with me, although he's a much younger man. 
[Laughter] John--when I was a senior, John was actually president of the 
freshman class. And I've been trying to think out of respect for the 
will of the people--the only people we knew back then--whether I should 
still address him as ``Mr. President.'' [Laughter] But then that would 
confuse the EIA, so I didn't do it.
    Mr. Major, thank you for your invitation. Mr. McGinn, thank you for 
your remarks. That was very impressive. I couldn't even keep up with all 
the new things you announced tonight.
    I'm glad that our FCC Chairman, Bill Kennard, is here, and I think 
Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera is also here. And General Jones, I 
thought you gave a terrific invocation. Thank you very much. I 
appreciate that.
    You know, I was trying to think tonight whether there was any way I 
could say what I originally wanted to come here and say, which is to 
talk about some of the technology policies that we're trying to pursue 
that I hope will help you, but in the process will strengthen our 
democracy and the sweep of opportunity and freedom around the world, and 
at the same time say a few words, as I feel I must, about our important 
mission in Kosovo.
    And before I came over here tonight, I had a long meeting, and I 
went and had what has now become almost my daily phone call with Prime 
Minister Blair. And I sat down and I thought about it. I thought about 
how grateful I am to the members of this organization for the phenomenal 
successes you have enjoyed in these last few years and the major 
contributions you have made to the economy of the United States, the 
opportunities you have given our people. And I thought about this 
terrible brutality that is going on in Kosovo, replaying what happened 
not so long ago in Bosnia, and in a way, replaying what we see around 
the world, the modern world, that seems to be troubled with ancient 
hatreds rooted in racial and ethnic and religious differences.
    If you think about the major forces alive in the world today, the 
move toward globalization and the explosion in technology, especially in 
information and communications, they really not only, as all of you know 
better than I, are dramatically changing the way we work and live and 
relate to each other and to the rest of the world. They represent both a 
pull toward integration and a dramatic force toward decentralization. 
And I would argue to you that both forces have within them the potential 
for enormous good and enormous trouble for the world of the 21st 
century.
    If you think about the forces toward integration of the global 
economy, for example, that's a wonderful thing. But it can be very 
destabilizing if we leave whole countries and vast populations within 
countries behind.
    If you think about the explosion in technology and how wonderful it 
is in empowering individuals and small firms and communities, and 
enabling communities--little schools I've seen in poor African and Latin 
American villages--to hook up to the Internet and have access to 
learning that would have taken them a whole generation, at least, to 
achieve through traditional economic development processes in their 
countries. It is breathtaking.
    But looked at another way, it also provides access to technology for 
every terrorist in the world to have their own website, and for 
independent operators to figure out how to make bombs and set up 
chemical and biological labs.
    And when married together with the most primitive hatreds, like 
those we see manifest in Kosovo today, the advent of technology

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and decentralized decisionmaking and access to information can be a very 
potent but destructive force.
    When I ran for President in 1992, what I was seeking to do was to 
articulate a vision to the American people of the way I wanted America 
to look in the 21st century, in a world I hope we would be living in 
then, and what I thought the President and the Government of the United 
States should do: to take advantage of the benefits of globalization and 
the explosion of technology and to provide those policies and bulwarks 
necessary to guard against the deepest problems of the modern world. 
There are so many things bringing us together and so many things 
breaking apart. We have to decide a lot of new questions.
    And if I could just say a word about what we tried to do--and Dave 
McCurdy and I have been working on this through the Democratic 
Leadership Council for more than 15 years--I believe that if we could 
create a country in which there was genuine opportunity for every 
responsible citizen, and in which we had a real sense of community, of 
belonging, of mutual responsibility, one to another, so we all felt we 
would be better off if everybody had a chance as well; and that if we 
could maintain America's sense of responsibility for leading the rest of 
the world toward peace and prosperity and harmony, both with the 
environment and with others across all the lines that divide us, that 
the best days for our country and the best days for humanity were still 
ahead. I still believe that.
    Every story you can tell about every company represented in this 
room reflects that. But we cannot forget that there will never be a time 
when life is free of difficulties and where the organized forces of 
destruction did not seek to move into the breaches of human conduct for 
their own advance.
    And that is what we see in Kosovo. It is a sad commentary, indeed, 
that on the edge of a new millennium there are still people who feel 
they must define their own self-worth and merit in terms of who they are 
not; and who believe that their lives only really count not when they 
are lifting themselves up but when they are holding someone else down; 
and sometimes who believe that it is literally legitimate not only to 
uproot totally innocent civilians from their homes and their villages 
but to kill them in large numbers.
    This is, of course, not confined to the Balkans; it is still at the 
root of the troubles in the Middle East; it is still at the root of the 
problems we are oh so close to getting finally resolved in Northern 
Ireland; it was at the root of an ancient tribal difference that led to 
the deaths of somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000 people in 100 days 
in Rwanda just a few years ago.
    We see it everywhere, the fear of the other. It led a couple of 
demented people in a little Texas town to dismember and drag an African-
American to death and a couple of other people in Wyoming to kill a 
young man at the dawn of his life, apparently because he was gay.
    We have to find a way to use all this technology in a way that 
celebrates our differences instead of uses them for destructive ends. 
And the only way to do that, I am convinced, is to somehow reaffirm that 
amidst all our differences, what it is we have in common as human beings 
is more important.
    And ultimately, that is the liberating logic of the 
telecommunications revolution, so much of you have powered. The idea 
that if we just gave everybody a chance, ordinary people would do 
extraordinary things, and so they have.
    And so I ask all of you tonight to support what the United States 
and our 18 other NATO allies are trying to do in the Balkans--first, 
because of all the little people who may never even see most of the 
things you invent and sell and market, but who could if they could live 
in peace. Second, because the problems could spread, and you see them 
beginning to spread with the outflow of refugees. And third, because the 
United States and our allies will always have to provide for some order 
in a world where you want to maximize freedom and individual initiative. 
There have to be some limits beyond which we collectively do not wish to 
see our country go, our world go.
    I know you had Congressman Davis and Governor Gilmore here today. 
The White House, as all of you know, is quite close to the Potomac 
River. Right across the river in Virginia--I used to run down there 
every day

[[Page 541]]

and look at this and just be amazed--in the Fairfax County School 
District, there are children from 180 different racial, ethnic, and 
national groups. They speak about 100 different languages as their first 
language. It is the most diverse of all American school districts; but 
what they represent is happening everywhere.
    I went home a couple of weeks ago to the little town in Arkansas 
where I was born. There are about 9,700 people there now. It's a lot 
bigger than it was when I was born there. And there is a little grade 
school in this little town in southwest Arkansas named for me--which I 
appreciate; usually you have to die before they do that. [Laughter] And 
anyway, in this little grade school in my little hometown there are 27 
immigrant children, first generation immigrant children whose parents, 
by and large, were migrant farmworkers who settled there.
    This is an incredible asset for America. But we have to say to 
people, whatever your national background, whatever your racial 
background, whatever your religious convictions, you can have a home 
here in this country and you ought to be safe in the world if you are 
willing to abide by the norms of civilized conduct everywhere. We must 
not allow, if we have the ability to stop it, ethnic cleansing or 
genocide anywhere we can stop it, particularly at the edge of Europe.
    So I ask you to support our men and women in uniform, but to support 
the proposition that the 21st century world will be a case of--yes, 
there will be a lot more decentralization, there will be a lot more 
individual empowerment, but it will not be a time of chaos and madness. 
We will not let it descend into the vision of the darkest of the science 
fiction writers, because we believe our common humanity is better than 
that. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you; thank you.
    Now I want to say what I came to say. [Laughter] But it relates to 
what I just said. I believe in the information age the role of 
Government is to empower people with the tools to make the most of their 
own lives, to tear down the barriers to that objective, and to create 
the conditions within which we can go forward together.
    Now, the answers to all the questions will not always be easy. But 
at least I want you to know that's how I think about this. I see myself 
trying to help create the conditions of dynamic balance so we can get 
the maximum benefit from market economics without giving up the idea of 
community and without leaving anyone behind who's willing to try to do 
the right thing.
    And I see our environmental policy in the same way. I think we have 
to take on the challenge of climate change because I'm convinced the 
science is real; but I believe we can do it in a way that grows the 
economy, not undermines it. And all the big questions we're facing this 
year as a country require that sort of decisionmaking. You don't have to 
agree with the decision I make, but you ought to ask yourself what is 
the basis of your decision.
    We're dealing with the challenge, for example, of the aging of 
America. And the older I get, the better I like that challenge. 
[Laughter] I've never understood all this handwringing about Social 
Security and Medicare, this is a high-class problem. [Laughter] Some of 
you have helped to bring it about. [Laughter] We're living longer, and 
that's good, isn't it? And there's more medicine, and that's good, isn't 
it? But as a consequence, you know, the average age in America is 76.7 
years.
    Anybody in this room over 60 who still doesn't have any life-
threatening conditions has probably got a life expectancy well in excess 
of 80 years already. Any child born in America that's under the age of 
15 that's healthy and stays healthy has probably got a life expectancy 
of about 84. And with the baby boomers retiring, this is an issue we 
have to deal with.
    Now, I'll tell you how I think about this. I believe we should make 
maximum use of technology, maximum use of modern business organizations 
and competition. I think that we have to be willing to reform the 
Medicare system. But I don't believe we should turn the Medicare system 
into, in effect, a defined contribution, as opposed to a defined benefit 
plan, because health care is not like retirement, and it's a lifesaver 
for people.
    And I'm willing to work with Congress to save it. And we'll have 
some philosophical

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differences, but I'm trying to achieve the dynamic balance of maximizing 
the change while maximizing the sense of community and the fact that 
it's a lifesaver for so many people.
    Social Security--we're going to have an interesting debate. By 2030 
we'll only have two people working for every one person drawing Social 
Security. Now, by 2034, 35 years from now, the Social Security system is 
projected to run out of money, the Trust Fund, which means you only have 
three choices: You can raise revenues, reduce benefits, or increase the 
rate of return on what we're investing.
    And there are a lot of people who believe that we should, in effect, 
take this surplus and give it back to the American people as mandatory 
individual retirement accounts; let them invest it in the stock market, 
because the stock market always outperforms the Government bonds over 
any long period of time. And if you happen to be one of those 
unfortunate people who retire in a period like we had between--in the 
1960's and early seventies, where the value of the stock market is going 
down, then the Government would make up the difference between what you 
would have gotten under the old Social Security program and what you in 
fact get.
    The other way to do it is to do what Canada does, which is set up an 
independent board, like the Federal Reserve, and let the whole Trust 
Fund earn money. And then you'll know you'll always be able to have 
uniform, but higher, returns for people.
    None of us want--no Republican or Democrat I've talked to believes 
we should raise payroll taxes, because the tax is regressive. More than 
half the working people in the country already pay more in payroll taxes 
than they do in income taxes; and small businesses just getting started 
have to pay that, whether they make money or not, unlike the income tax. 
So we don't believe that's an acceptable thing.
    So when you hear this debate, think of the dynamic balance; think of 
how you can maximize the market forces that are good and still preserve 
a sense of community so--and maybe even improve it. For example, I want 
to lift the earnings limitations because people are living longer, and I 
think once you earn Social Security, you ought to be able to work. I 
want to do something about single women, because the poverty rate among 
elderly single women, if they're living alone, is about twice the 
poverty rate for other seniors in our country. That's the framework in 
which I hope this debate will play itself out and get resolved this 
year.
    The last issue I'll tell you is that I firmly believe we ought to 
deal with Social Security and Medicare in a way that maximizes the 
amount of the surplus we use over the next 15 years to buy down the 
public debt.
    Now, that is much less popular than the alternative proposal by the 
congressional majority, which is to give most of the surplus away right 
now in a tax cut. It's your money anyway, they say. And of course, it 
is. It is your money anyway. But keep in mind, our country quadrupled 
the national debt between 1981 and 1993. And in an uncertain economic 
climate in the rest of the world, with all the financial troubles you've 
seen in Asia, it seems to me to be given a chance to pay down our debt 
to the lowest level we've had since before World War I is better for 
most of you than a short-term impact of a tax cut.
    Why? Because it will give us lower interest rates, lower inflation; 
it will lower interest rates for countries that have to borrow money 
that you want to sell your products to; it will maximize growth; it 
will, therefore, maximize income and job-generating potential in 
America. And to me, the benefits of having an America that could be out 
of debt in 17 years, that's quite staggering. Because we might have to 
borrow money ourselves someday, again, and we don't ever want to do--
ever get back to the way we were when we were having to borrow money 
just to pay the bills.
    Most of your companies have borrowed a lot of money, but presumably, 
you didn't do it very often just to make payroll. And that is what we--
that's the decision we've been given the opportunity to deal with. So it 
seems to me that's the right decision to do.
    And I think that--when I look at our technology policy, I think 
about that. I think about how can we have the dynamic balance, how can 
we maximize this. This is almost 100 percent positive good. And if there 
is something that has to be done to limit it in any

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way, shape, or form, how can we minimize the damage to the economy and 
to the rapid spread of opportunity.
    Now, that's what we've tried to do for 6 years, and it's worked 
pretty well. So we've cut the deficit and balanced the budget, but 
almost doubled investment in education and training.
    I believe very strongly that we have to continue to expand trade. 
That's another issue. Most of you support that position. Most of you 
believe the President should be given fast-track authority. And most of 
you believe if we can get an agreement with China that is good for the 
American economy, we should extend the opportunity to them to join the 
World Trade Organization. I believe that.
    But I ask you to think about how are we going to get this passed in 
a Congress where there are some people who are afraid of trade and some 
people who are basically--they're afraid trade hurts more of the people 
they represent than it helps--and others just are afraid trade gives 
power to countries that they feel will be adversaries of the United 
States over the long run. Some people feel that about China now, that 
they're inevitably our adversary.
    I say there has to be a dynamic balance here. We should be trading 
more. We should be opening our markets more. We should be getting more 
open markets, but we should make sure we're investing what is necessary 
here to help people who are dislocated by trade through no fault of 
their own, and we should support the same thing in other countries. When 
we elevate trade, if we increase national income it should lift the 
incomes of all working people. It should be a race to the top, not a 
race to the bottom.
    And when we deal with China, we should recognize that we're 
advantaged when we open China more, economically, informa- tionally, 
culturally; but if we have honest differences with them over political 
and human rights, we ought to say it. And we ought to encourage them to 
air their differences with us but not in a way that isolates us one from 
another.
    Keep in mind what I said to you about these ethnic wars. There are 
people who cannot bear to live without somebody to be afraid of or look 
down on. And there are--sometimes I have the feeling that we're looking 
for a new enemy in America. I'm not looking for a new enemy. I didn't 
pick Mr. Milosevic, for example. His conduct made him the adversary of 
the United States and people who believe in the inherent dignity of 
every religious and ethnic group in the world. I did not look for a new 
enemy.
    So I say to you, if you want us to go forward with China, then 
remind everybody the same debates we're having about China today are 
being held about the United States in China. I promise you there are 
people inside the high councils of government who say, ``Those Americans 
don't want us to amount to a hill of beans. Those Americans want us to 
be their enemy so they will have a way to increase the defense budget. 
Those Americans will do everything they can to promote discord in our 
country; that's why they're all for political and human rights. They 
want us to just pure disintegrate, just like we did once before.'' And 
by the time--you know, you just keep on talking like that, and there is 
enough mutual misunderstanding until finally you get the political 
equivalent of a divorce.
    So I say we should be careful. We should evaluate our partners, our 
friends, our potential adversaries based on the facts at hand. But we 
should always be working for the best future, even as we prepare for 
something we might not like. And that's where I think you are.
    So I ask you to work with us to help to fashion a fast-track bill, 
for example, that will reflect a new consensus on trade; that will be 
able to say: we want more trade, but we want to lift people up and we 
don't want to tear the environment up, and there is a way to do that. 
And, yes, we would like to have a good relationship with China that 
includes a frank, sometimes even uncomfortable airing of our 
differences, but we recognize that the Chinese people will be better 
off, and we'll be less likely to have conflict in the 21st century if 
there is more constructive relationships--not just commerce, but also 
culture, education, all kinds of information. And so let's try to build 
that sort of relationship.
    And that again I say, it seems to me you folks are in a unique 
position to make these arguments because if you take--well, Rich

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was giving his speech tonight, and I was thinking about what his company 
does in Newark, New Jersey. Now, most of the people there helping in 
Newark, New Jersey, will never work for Lucent. But it will be a more 
successful company if everybody is at least literate enough to make a 
decent living, have a good job, and buy those products. And life will be 
a lot better if every inner city in this country has a set of thriving 
businesses beyond the drug trade, and where the children feel safe 
walking on the street, and where the schools are functioning at a high 
level and people aren't dropping out of school. And so they invest in 
that; not because it immediately shows up on the bottom line, but 
because they have a sense that life is of a whole texture and you have 
to understand what these relationships are. That's what we have to do as 
Americans. And that's how we have to look at this.
    So let me just mention two or three specific things that I think we 
should do in your area--and I ask you for your help. First, we have to 
work to keep America's lead in science and technology, which means you 
have to do your part, but we have to do ours. Basic Government 
investment in research and development is important and fulfills a role 
fundamentally different from that done by most companies.
    Tonight I ask you to help us to increase our investment for the 
seventh straight year in research and development. Our budget provides 
those kinds of investments that will spur the next generation of 
information technology, meet the challenge of climate change, find new 
cures for medical difficulties, explore space, protect our 
infrastructure against terrorist attacks.
    The budget resolution passed by the congressional majority would 
inevitably lead to big reductions in many of these investments. It is 
not necessary for us to do this. We can find a way to be fiscally 
responsible without cutting our R and D investments, and I ask for your 
help in that regard.
    Second, I ask you to work with me to maintain the right conditions 
for entrepreneurship in electronics. Just a few years ago, E-commerce 
did not exist. In 4 years, retail trade on the Internet could reach $100 
billion, business-to-business trade above a trillion. Two years ago the 
Vice President and I released a framework for seizing the potential of 
global electronic commerce. We said the Internet should be a free-trade 
zone, with incentives for competition, protection for consumers and 
children, supervised not by Government but by the people who use the 
Internet every day. Most of you thought that was a pretty good idea.
    Now, in the coming months we've got to fill in the blanks of that 
nice sounding general statement. I want to work with you to find ways to 
give consumers the same protection in the virtual mall they now have at 
the shopping mall, to enhance the security and privacy of financial 
transactions on the Internet, an increasingly deep concern of citizens 
everywhere, and to bring advanced, high-speed connections into homes and 
small businesses.
    I may not know as much about cable modems or T-1 lines as the Vice 
President--[laughter]--``may'' is a misleading word there. [Laughter] 
But I know what this can do for our children's future.
    The third thing I'd like to ask you to do relates to something Dave 
McCurdy talked about. I want you to help us continue to work to bridge 
the digital divide. We have to have shared prosperity and leave no one 
behind. Today, affluent schools still are more likely than disadvantaged 
ones to have Internet access in the classrooms. And white households are 
more than twice as likely to own a computer as black or Hispanic ones. 
The digital divide has begun to narrow, but it won't disappear on its 
own. We'll have to work at it.
    Dave talked about the first NetDay in 1996. Listen to that--before 
that day, only 8 percent of our classrooms were wired to the Internet. 
Today, well over half of them are, and we are well on our way to 
connecting every classroom to the Internet by the end of next year.
    I'd like to ask you to do one other thing, as well. A lot of you 
have had a hard time finding sufficiently trained workers in the United 
States to do the work you need done. Last year I agreed to increase the 
number of H-1B visas as an emergency measure. But over the long run, the 
answer to this problem of the lack of skilled workers cannot simply be 
to look beyond our borders. Surely, a part

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of it has to be to better train people within our borders to do this 
work.
    For many years, your foundation has made this a top priority, and 
many individual firms have, as well. Cisco Systems is now working to 
establish a networking academy, for example, in every empowerment zone 
high school that wants one. These academies will provide students with 
the skills they need to get certified for jobs in information 
technology. It's like giving a student a first-class ticket to a high-
skill, high-wage future. We have to do more of that.
    Because you have done so well, I would argue that you have larger 
responsibilities as citizens than those who have not. And many of you 
are fulfilling them remarkably.
    The last thing I'd like to say is this: You were very kind when I 
spoke about Kosovo earlier--kind to stand, maybe just hoping I was 
through with my speech. [Laughter] I believe there is a hunger for 
substantive information on the part of our citizens greater than I have 
ever seen before. And the more you give them ways to get information, 
the more hungry they feel. But keep in mind, you can sit in front of 
your television and channel-surf all night long. You can have 50 
channels, or 70 or 80 or 90. You may pick up a lot of facts, and you may 
go to bed bleary-eyed at 3 in the morning, and the next day your 
understanding of what it is you have seen or heard might not be any 
greater.
    And so the last thing I would like to say is, with your employees, 
with those in the community with whom you work, help people to 
understand that the forces of globalization can be good, but they 
present challenges that must be met. Help people understand that the 
forces of decentralization, of the breaking up of old blocs can be a 
magnificent story of individual empowerment and democratization, but 
they, too, present challenges that must be met.
    I have done everything I could to fashion a Government that could do 
its part to meet those challenges. It's the smallest Government we've 
had since President Kennedy was here. It has given more power to States 
and localities. It works more with community groups and churches and 
social programs. It does a lot of things that need to be done badly, and 
I'm sure we can do better.
    But in the end, there will be these gaps, and someone must be 
standing in the gap to reaffirm our basic devotion to freedom and 
democracy, to peace and prosperity, and to the principle that we must be 
a community, that out of many we are one, and that we are still about 
the business of our Founding Fathers, forming a more perfect Union.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 8:25 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the J.W. 
Marriott Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to John E. Major, chairman, 
Electronic Industries Alliance; Richard A. McGinn, chairman and chief 
executive officer, Lucent Technologies; Brig. Gen. Hiram (Doc) Jones, 
USAF, Deputy Chief of Chaplains, who gave the invocation; Prime Minister 
Tony Blair of the United Kingdom; Gov. James S. Gilmore III of Virginia; 
and President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 
(Serbia and Montenegro).