[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 36 (Monday, September 13, 1999)]
[Pages 1699-1700]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Labor Day Picnic
in Newport News, Virginia

September 6, 1999

    Thank you very much. Let me just begin by saying how grateful I am 
for the wonderful reception you have given me. You know, I can't tell 
you how much I appreciate the kindness and friendship that you have 
given to me and my family, my Vice President and his family, and our 
administration, through two Presidential elections and 6\1/2\ years of 
our 8-year term. I thank you.
    I want to thank Congressman Sisisky and Delegate Crittenden here, 
who gave a pretty good reason for keeping Senator Robb in office, and I 
hope you'll listen to her.
    I want you to know what we were doing before we came here. We were 
actually working on a school, to highlight one of the things I'm trying 
to get this Congress to do, which is to pass a bill that would help us 
to build or modernize 6,000 new schools so our kids, whether they're 
rich or poor, will have world-class places to go to school in.
    So I want to thank the Secretary of Education, the national head of 
the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney and Secretary Riley, and the leaders of our 
two great teachers' organizations, the NEA and the AFT, Bob Chase and 
Sandy Feldman. They're all over here with me. Give them a hand. 
[Applause]
    Now, you know, somebody asked me the day before yesterday why I was 
coming down here. They said, ``You're not running for anything anymore; 
you can't.'' And I said, ``Well, yes, but I haven't lost my memory, and 
those people gave me two great terms as President. I wanted to go down 
and thank them.''
    And these two guys are--I want you to take care of Bobby Scott. He 
is a great resource for you and for the country. And I want you--you 
know, every time Senator Robb runs, he has a challenging race. You know 
why? Because he sticks up for you, that's why. Because he makes the hard 
decisions for the long run, because he was one of those guys who stood 
up in 1993. We didn't have a vote to spare. If he had changed his vote, 
I would have lost that economic plan that's given us 19.4 million jobs 
and the biggest surplus in history. And they tried to beat him 2 years 
later because he stood up for you. Because he believes we all ought to 
go forward together. And I've known him for nearly 20 years now, and 
he's always standing up. So next time the election comes around, I want 
you to stand up for him. Will you do it? [Applause]
    Now, let me say this. This is Labor Day, so I want to make some 
remarks about labor. There are a lot of big issues in this country 
today, but when I got elected President, it was after 12 years of people 
in the other party running the White House saying they were pro-business 
and good for the economy, and we had the worst recession since the Great 
Depression and the biggest deficit in history, and we quadrupled the 
debt in 12 years.
    I said I'm pro-business, but I'm pro-labor, too. I don't think you 
can help the economy if you hurt the working people. Guess what? We beat 
off all their efforts to weaken unions. We beat back all their efforts 
to hurt the fundamental interests of working people. We passed the 
Family and Medical Leave Act. We raised the minimum wage once. We helped 
people with child care who were working more, and we got 19.4 million 
jobs, record numbers of new small businesses every year, the lowest 
minority unemployment rate ever recorded. It works. If you take care of 
ordinary people, it works.
    So on this Labor Day, as we go back to work, I'd like to just 
mention some things that relate to you. Number one, we ought to raise 
the minimum wage again. Number two, we ought to do a better job of 
enforcing the law that says there should be equal pay for equal work 
between men and women. Number three, we ought to do more to help workers 
with children at home, working full-time, succeed by helping them with 
their child care expenses more. Number four, we ought to give investors, 
people with money, the same tax incentives to invest in poor 
neighborhoods in America we give them to invest overseas in poor 
neighborhoods, because we all know that not every neighborhood has been 
fully benefited by this economic expansion. I've been out there across

[[Page 1700]]

the country, in the cities, in the small towns, in the rural areas, on 
the Indian reservations, up and down the Mississippi River. You know as 
well as I do that in every part of America, there are still people in 
places who would work or work harder and better if they had a chance to 
do so, and I am determined to see that we don't stop this until 
everybody's involved. Number four, we ought--before we have this big tax 
cut the Republicans have proposed--we ought to take care of the big 
challenges facing America. We ought to make sure Social Security and 
Medicare are going to be all right when all the baby boomers retire. 
We've got the largest number of children in our schools in history, and 
they're more diverse than ever before. We ought to make sure they've got 
a world-class education before we give the money away. And I think that 
we ought to get this country out of debt for the first time since 1835, 
before we give the money away.
    Now, let me tell you why that ought to matter to you. Because if the 
Government is not borrowing money, that means that you're not in 
competition with the Government; that means you can borrow cheaper; that 
means home mortgages are lower; that means car payments are lower; that 
means credit card payments are lower; that means college loan payments 
are lower; that means more businesses, more jobs, a stronger economy for 
the future. That's why I want to get America out of debt, because it's 
good for little people.
    You know, I'll be retired pretty soon; debt will be good for me. 
I've got a good pension; I can buy those Government bonds all day long. 
I can make money out of debt. You'll make money if we get out of debt 
and your interest rates are lower and the economy grows more. And I want 
these children to have a good economy to grow up into. So you just 
remember this. Nothing that has happened in this country in the last 
6\1/2\ years that I have achieved as President could have been possible 
without others, beginning with the people that work with me, starting 
with the Vice President, going to the people in Congress like Senator 
Robb and Bobby Scott and Norm Sisisky; and going all the way down to the 
grassroots in America, the people like you that voted for us.
    So, on this Labor Day, as you leave here, if somebody asks you, what 
did the President say, tell them he said, ``We had an idea and it 
worked. That helping ordinary people works, and it requires people like 
you to be good citizens and keep people like them in office. And if you 
do, it will keep right on working.''
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:10 p.m., at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to State Delegate Flora Davis Crittenden.