[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 40 (Monday, October 11, 1999)]
[Pages 1940-1942]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Reception for Representative Bart Stupak

October 6, 1999

    The President. Thank you. Well, first of all, I would like to thank 
our host for providing this magnificent room for us to meet in tonight 
in Union Station. When I was a college student in Washington, DC, Union 
Station was one of Washington's big eyesores. There's a young woman here 
nodding; she wasn't even alive when I was in college. How does she know 
that? [Laughter] But to see what's happened to it, for those of us who 
love this city and its monuments, it's a great thing, and I'm delighted 
that we're here.
    I also want to acknowledge--Bart's a good politician; he called 
everybody's name in this audience tonight who can actually vote for him. 
[Laughter] Right before I came in here, I got a call on the cell phone 
from Hillary, who is in Europe on a trip, saying to say hello to Bart 
and Laurie. They are two of her favorite people, and she loves the Upper 
Peninsula and its Representative.
    But I think if you--everybody wants to know why I'm here--if you 
want to see an indication of why Congressman Stupak has been so 
successful, I'd like for every Member of the House of Representatives 
here to raise your hand--everybody who is here in the House: one, two, 
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. That's pretty good, 
isn't it? Let's give them a hand. [Applause]
    I saw seven with my bad eyesight, and I knew that if I tried to do 
what he did--he had everybody written down--[laughter]--I'd be making a 
political mistake.
    Anyway, I want to thank them for coming. I also want to tell you 
that--Bart said I had been to the Upper Peninsula--we had a Governors 
conference in Traverse City in 1980--I said '88, maybe it was '87--'87, 
I think. And I went to--we were obviously in Traverse City, where my 
most vivid memory besides the beautiful lake is that impossible golf 
course that Jack Nicklaus built there.
    Audience member. The Bear!
    The President. The Bear--and it is--and all of the beautiful little 
towns around there, including the place where they make the biggest 
cherry pie in the world--[laughter]--in the summertime that literally 
took up the whole courthouse lawn. I got a piece of that cherry pie. 
[Laughter] And I've been trying to get back there ever since. [Laughter]
    We also went to Mackinaw Island for a Democratic Governors meeting, 
and all the then-Democratic candidates for President came and met us 
there at the Grand Hotel, where I stayed and where the then-Governor of 
Michigan, Jim Blanchard, put on a Motown revue, with Martha and the 
Vandellas and Junior Walker and the All-Stars. And they asked me to come 
play with them, and I did. It was the first time I'd played saxophone in 
3 years, and I've been playing ever since. So I feel--again, I mean, 
from my former--so I feel very indebted to the Upper Peninsula for a lot 
of things. And I have very vivid memories of running around the outside 
of Mackinaw Island jogging there in the summertime, and how much I loved 
it. So I hope I can come back.
    Let me be to the point here. When we passed the economic plan in 
1993--that did raise taxes on the wealthiest 1\1/2\ percent of the 
American people, but cut taxes for 15 million working families and 
promised to reduce the deficit at least $500 billion--the very 
announcement of the plan, before I

[[Page 1941]]

even took the oath of office, began to drop interest rates. And then 
when we introduced it, they dropped some more. And when we kept fighting 
for it, they dropped some more.
    But everybody knew what would happen if we did it, that the 
Republicans would try to convince everybody that we'd raised taxes on 
them. And sure enough, that's what happened. They decided that they 
would not give us one vote, even though they knew that these deficits 
had quadrupled the national debt, given us high interest rates, slow 
growth, and a terrible recession, stagnant earnings.
    And we all decided that we would jump off that bridge together. And 
I felt terrible about it because a third of the Senate comes up for 
election every 2 years, and every House Member does, but the President 
doesn't have to run for 4 years. And we all knew that there was a very 
good chance, if we passed that plan in August of 1993, that it would 
bring the deficit down and bring interest rates down, but people might 
not feel the improved economy or believe, even, that the deficit was 
coming down by the '94 election.
    For the Members from rural America, particularly after we passed the 
crime bill--we passed the Brady bill for background checks; we passed 
the crime bill, which banned 19 assault weapons; and we put those 
100,000 police on the street, like Bart said--they put an enormous 
burden on rural Democrats. Now--and Bart went home to run for 
reelection. And a number of our people, I think, were hoping they could 
make the election about something else.
    Bart Stupak decided to make the election about the vote he cast. He 
was proud of it. He thought it was right, and if the people wanted to 
vote him out for it, so be it. But he wanted to make sure they knew 
exactly what was in the bill, which is not at all what his opponent said 
was in the bill. So he went home and adopted an in-your-face position, 
and he's still standing here. And I admire the fact that he voted with 
us when it would have been easy for him to take a pass, because if we 
had lost one vote, the plan would have failed.
    Then I admire the fact that he was not ashamed of the vote he'd 
taken and wasn't about to run and hide from it, because he knew it would 
help to turn America around. The same thing with having been in law 
enforcement and what he said about background checks.
    Now, when I was running in '92, we just made an argument to the 
American people, those of us that came in in '92. It was an argument. We 
said, ``Give us a chance. We can put people first. We can do better. We 
can create opportunity for every responsible citizen. We can create an 
American community where we don't forget about rural America, we don't 
forget about the minorities in the inner cites, we don't forget about 
anybody. We give everybody a chance to be a part of this. Give us a 
chance.'' It was an argument.
    By the time I got to run for reelection--you should know this--the 
deficit was coming down for almost 4 years before a majority of 
Americans believed it. The economy was getting better for almost 3 years 
before a majority of Americans believed it--before they could feel it 
and feel secure. There is a lag time.
    When you have to make a very tough decision and then you try to turn 
a big country around, it's like trying to turn an ocean liner around. 
It's not like running a little powerboat with an outboard motor that you 
can turn on a dime. And there's a lot of groaning in the turn. And we 
did lose a lot of wonderful people in the United States Congress. The 
country's been paying for it ever since, I might add. [Laughter] But 
Bart stood strong. And now there's not an argument anymore.
    As we go through the 2000 election, this is what I hope all of you 
from the Upper Peninsula will say about your Congressman: When the 
future of the country was on the line, when America's future in the 21st 
century was on the line, when the children of this country had an 
uncertain future, he stepped up--he loved being in Congress; he had just 
gotten there--and he was willing to throw it all away for you. And he 
had enough confidence in himself and his wife and his family--you know, 
if I had 10 people in my family, I'd have never lost an election, 
either. [Laughter] He had enough confidence in

[[Page 1942]]

himself, in the people he represented, to believe they could take the 
truth and make the right decisions
    And it's not a debate anymore. And I want every Member of the House 
here who's with us to remember that. When you go home in 2000--we made 
an argument in '96--in '92. And in '96, we said, ``We're doing a little 
better.'' It's not an argument anymore. There is evidence.
    So when the Republicans come up for the elections in 2000, from the 
White House to the Senate to the House, you've got to tell the people, 
``If you vote for them now and what they want to do, you're doing it in 
the face of all the evidence.'' We implemented our economic policy over 
their opposition. We've got 2 years of back-to-back budget surpluses for 
the first time in 42 years, the lowest unemployment rate in 29 years, 
the lowest welfare rolls in 32 years, the lowest poverty rate in 20 
years. We implemented our crime policy with a handful of them with us, 
almost all the rest of them against us. We've got the lowest crime rate 
in 26 years. Not a single hunter's been interrupted in the hunting 
season in the Upper Peninsula, but 400,000 people did not get guns who 
shouldn't have gotten them.
    Now, these are facts. This is not an argument anymore. And we have 
worked our hearts out for over 6\1/2\ years to get this country going in 
the right direction again, to get the country together again, to do 
things that make sense again. What I want the American people to do--I'm 
not on the ballot; this is something I want as a citizen. What I want 
the American people to do in 2000 is to say, ``Okay, we turned this 
great big ocean liner around, and we're going in the right direction and 
the country is working again. Now, for the first time in our lifetimes, 
we are free to look at the big challenges out there, to paint the future 
of America we want, to deal with the retirement of the baby boomers by 
saving Social Security and Medicare, to give all of our kids a world-
class education, to get this country out of debt over the next 15 years 
for the first time since 1835, and give us a generation of prosperity.'' 
We can do big things. We've got the crime rate down to the lowest level 
in 26 years; how about the real goal? Why don't we make America the 
safest big country in the entire world? We can do these things. We've 
got 19\1/2\ million new jobs, and it's the most we've ever had in this 
period of time. But why don't we establish a real goal, to bring 
economic opportunity through free enterprise into every neighborhood in 
this country, all those rural towns that haven't felt it, up and down 
the Mississippi Delta where I grew up, in Appalachia, on the Indian 
reservations--everywhere.
    Why don't we--if we don't get around to this now, we will never do 
it. We have a couple of Members from Pennsylvania here; there are still 
towns in Pennsylvania that have had no economic recovery. So why don't 
we establish a real goal--and so we say, ``Look, great, we're growing. 
We've got a low unemployment rate. Let's bring enterprise and 
opportunity to people who haven't felt it yet.'' This is what we are 
free to do.
    What they're going to say is, ``Well, now, we learned we've got to 
be nice to everybody, and let's go back and do something else.'' And I 
just want to remind you this guy put his neck on the line and so did a 
lot of the other people here, and they tried to chop it off. But enough 
of us survived to see our argument tested, and we were right.
    Now, should America continue to change? Should we vote for change in 
2000? Absolutely. The question is: What kind of change? We've got the 
country going in the right direction. Now is the time to reach for the 
stars, not make a U-turn. Stick with this guy. He's the best.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 7:25 p.m. at B. Smith's Restaurant. In his 
remarks, he referred to Bart Stupak, candidate for Michigan's First 
Congressional District, and his wife, Mayor Laurie Stupak of Menominee, 
MI; and professional golfer Jack Nicklaus.