[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 6 (Monday, February 14, 2000)]
[Pages 269-273]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Democratic Unity Reception

February 10, 2000

    Thank you very much. Let me say how delighted and profoundly honored 
I am to be here with Senator Daschle and Leader Gephardt, with their 
colleagues in the Senate and the House who are here in large numbers, 
and all those who aren't here who are with us in spirit today; how much 
I appreciate Bob Hatcher, and Thelma--and Jenny Mae for being here to 
remind us of why we're all here in the first place. Their testimony 
makes clear that our agenda is America's agenda, and our presence here 
makes clear that we are united in our support of that agenda.
    I know some of our friends on the other side of the aisle have 
suggested that, because this is an election year, we really shouldn't do 
much. Well, I don't think that the two people who just spoke could take 
a year off

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from their jobs. And since everybody here is still drawing a salary, I 
don't think we could take a year off from our jobs either.
    I want to join with what Senator Daschle and Leader Gephardt have 
said in thanking the members of this caucus for your role in this long 
boom and so much of the social progress we have enjoyed, beginning with 
the courageous vote for the economic plan in 1993. Your commitment, 
constant over the years, to opportunity for every responsible American 
and for a community of all Americans, to a Government that gives 
Americans the tools to live their own dreams, has been absolutely 
critical to anything that our administration has achieved.
    I know that we've had a lot of different policies, but more 
important than all of the specifics was our common commitment. We wanted 
Bob and Thelma to be here today because we believe that every American 
counts. We believe every American should have a chance, and we believe 
we all do better when we help each other. That is what we believe.
    Today I received the Annual Economic Report from my Council of 
Economic Advisers. It provides further evidence that Americans have 
built a new economy and that what we believe actually works. The report 
makes clear that this is the strongest economic expansion in history, 
not just the longest, that unlike previous economic expansions which, in 
the end and somewhere in the middle, normally bring you higher deficits, 
slower productivity, and higher inflation, this one has turned it 
around, unlike the 1980's when income inequality increased and many 
hard-pressed working families saw their incomes fall while we were told 
that the expansion was going on. We now see solid income growth across 
all groups of American workers since 1993.
    All groups are sharing in the prosperity by income, by region, by 
race. Now, as my leaders said so eloquently, it is for us here in 
Washington and for the American people to decide what we are going to do 
with what is truly a magic moment. I argued in the State of the Union 
Address that we ought to be thinking about people like Bob and Thelma 
and Jenny Mae, that we ought to ask ourselves, ``What are the great 
challenges before us?'' We ought to clearly state what we believe 
America's goals ought to be and what steps we intend to take toward them 
this year. That is what we are united in doing.
    And let me say--we have a lot of young people here--I want to say 
something now and something to you at the end. Anybody over 30 in this 
audience can recall at least one time in your life and probably more 
than one time when you made a big mistake, not because you were under 
the gun but because things were going so well, you thought there were no 
consequences; you thought you could relax; you thought you really didn't 
have to think about what you knew was out there plainly before you; so 
you didn't really have to take those tough decisions; just sort of sit 
back, relax, enjoy the things that were going on.
    That is a message that some people suddenly are sending America 
today, and that is dead wrong. We will never, in all probability, have 
another time in our lifetime with so much prosperity, so much progress, 
so much confidence, and so little trouble at home and abroad, to define 
the future of our dreams for the next generation of Americans. And we 
had better take this chance and make the most of it.
    I must say, I have been quite amused by a lot of the commentators on 
both sides of our policy of paying the debt off. Some have said I sound 
like Calvin Coolidge, and others say that I'm using it as an excuse to 
spend money on Americans. All I know is, it works. If we get this 
country out of debt, it means the American people can borrow money at 
lower interest rates to invest in new businesses, to pay their home 
loans, to pay their college loans, to pay their car loans. It means that 
all the young people here for a generation will have a healthier economy 
and a more affordable life than otherwise would have been the case, and 
it will be more possible for us to meet the great challenges of this 
country. That is our united commitment, and we ought to do it.
    We are united in meeting the challenge of the aging of America. And 
believe me, this is not an option. I know things are going well, so we 
can sort of say, ``Well, we'll let this slide a while.'' The people in 
this country, the number of people over 65 are going to

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double in the next 30 years. Now, if we start to prepare for it now--to 
reform and modernize and strengthen Medicare, and to take Social 
Security out beyond the life expectancy of the baby boom generation--we 
can do it relatively painlessly.
    But make no mistake: This country will do it. And if we just fool 
around and ignore this for 10 years, who knows what the economy will be 
like 10 years from now? Who knows what the demands on the American 
people will be like 10 years from now? Now is the time to add a 
prescription drug benefit to Medicare and to take Social Security out to 
2050 and take Medicare out for 25 years--now. Do it now. Save Social 
Security and Medicare for the baby boomers' retirement.
    We know that we live in a marvelous world, where the kids with a 
good education are going to be able to do things their parents could not 
even have imagined. And yet, we know that the penalty of not having an 
education is even greater than ever. We know that it's more challenging 
than ever before because we have a more diverse group of students, from 
different racial, cultural, religious, even linguistic backgrounds. We 
know that right now. And we know that's only going to become a more 
pronounced trend.
    Within a decade, our largest State, California, will have no 
majority race. Now, we know that. We also know that there's nowhere near 
equal educational opportunity in the country, and we know what the 
challenges are. So we say, now--not later--now is the time for high 
standards, smaller classes, well-trained teachers. Now is the time for 
all the kids who need it to have the preschool and the after-school 
programs they need. Now is the time--not later, now.
    We know that more and more families will have the parents working, 
whether they're single-parent families or two-parent families. And we 
know right now that for all of our success, America gives less support 
to help people balance the demands of childrearing and work than any 
other advanced country.
    We can be proud of what we did with family and medical leave. We can 
be proud with what we did with the Children's Health Insurance Program. 
We can be proud with what we did with the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill to let 
people take their health insurance from job to job. But we know that we 
do not do enough to help people balance the demands of work and 
childrearing. And raising children, like that beautiful little girl, is 
still America's most important work. It always will be. And we know we 
have to do more.
    So we believe now is the time to increase the child care tax credit 
and make it refundable, to help parents do more to pay for college 
tuition, so that we can go beyond where we were with the HOPE 
scholarship, which opens the doors of community college to all 
Americans. With the college tax deduction at 28 percent for all income 
groups, we can open the doors of 4 years of college to all Americans.
    We know we should increase the earned income tax credit for lower 
income working people. We know we should genuinely ease the marriage 
penalty for both middle and lower middle income groups. We know we 
should do this. We don't know whether 10 years from now we will be able 
to do this, and we don't know what the consequences to countless 
families will be if we don't do it now. We are united in saying, let's 
do it now. We don't have to wait. Now is the time to help families to 
balance the demands of home and work.
    You heard Thelma's story. So you know that the one area where the 
social indicators have not gone in the right direction since 1993 is in 
the number of people who are covered with health insurance. One of the 
wits in our Democratic caucus said to me the other day, ``You know, all 
those insurance companies told me back in 1993 or `94, if I voted for 
your health care plan, the number of uninsured Americans would go up. I 
voted for it, and sure enough, that's what happened.'' [Laughter]
    We know we need a strong, enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights. And 
the Congress has fooled around with it long enough. The time is now to 
pass it. We know we should do more to help enroll more children in the 
Children's Health Insurance Program. Two million children are enrolled. 
This Congress provided enough money for somewhere between 4 and 5 
million children to be enrolled. And we know--and that's why it's so 
important.

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    You remember Thelma's story. I was 4 years old, like this little 
girl, once, with a mother who was working and, then, a single mother. 
There are people like her all over the country. One of the most 
important things we have proposed in this Congress is to let the parents 
of children who are in this CHIP program also get insurance. They need 
it. They're working out there. And we ought to do it. And we ought to do 
it now, not later.
    We know the crime rate has gone down to a 30-year low, and it's 
still too high. And we believe not later, now is the time to learn the 
lessons of Columbine and all the other things we've seen and pass 
commonsense legislation to do more to keep guns out of the hands of 
criminals and away from kids. We can do that and honor every 
constitutional provision in our founding document and every fundamental 
value in our society.
    We know we've got to keep putting more police on the street in high-
crime areas. Who knows, 5 years from now, what kind of condition this 
country will be? Why should any more children die we can save? Why 
should any more crimes be committed we can prevent? Now is the time to 
take strong action to make America the safest big country in the world.
    We know there are still too many people and places that haven't 
participated in this prosperity. We know that. That's why we favor 
increasing the number of empowerment zones, increasing the incentives to 
invest in them, and giving Americans all over this country--people like 
Bob Hatcher--we know there are inner-city neighborhoods where he might 
be able to put people to work; I think we ought to give him the same tax 
incentives to invest in those neighborhoods we give him today to invest 
in Latin America, Africa, or Asia. And we ought to do it now--not later, 
now.
    We are united in that. And as I look at Senator Feingold, I think I 
should say one other thing. Unlike the other party, we are united--
united, down to the last vote in both Houses--in saying now is the time 
to pass meaningful campaign finance reform legislation in this Congress.
    We are also united in believing we have to build one America. That's 
why we want to pass the ``Hate Crimes Prevention Act.'' That's why we 
want to end all discrimination in employment. We don't--I'll say again--
we think everybody counts; everybody ought to have a chance; we all do 
better when we help each other.
    I want to make this last point. I see all these young people here. 
The last time America had a chance like this was when I was about your 
age. I finished high school in 1964. The Nation was heartbroken when 
President Kennedy was killed. But President Johnson lifted our spirits, 
united the country, began to deal with the challenges of civil rights, 
and we believed that our economy would grow on forever. We believed we 
would meet the challenges of civil rights in a lawful, peaceful way. We 
believed we could win the cold war without what ultimately happened in 
the dividing of our country in Vietnam. And we thought it would go on 
forever, and everything was hunky-dory.
    Four years later, when I was graduating from college, it was 2 days 
after Robert Kennedy had been killed, a couple of months after Martin 
Luther King had been killed, and Lyndon Johnson said he wouldn't run for 
reelection. We had riots in the street. The economy became a cropper on 
the burdens of paying for a war and inflation. And all that we thought 
would happen was lost. And the Presidential election in that year was 
decided on the politics of division, something called the silent 
majority, which means the world and America is divided between ``us'' 
and ``them.'' ``I'm with `us,' and they're with `them.' '' And I have 
lived with that as a citizen for 30 years.
    Now I'm not running for anything. I am not on the ballot. I am 
telling you this as an American. I have waited for 30 long years to see 
my country in a position to pull together and move forward together and 
build the future of our dreams for our children. We dare not blow that 
chance.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 1:52 p.m. in the Great Hall at the Library 
of Congress. In his remarks, he referred to Robert L. Hatcher, chairman, 
Minority Business Roundtable, who introduced the President; and Thelma 
Pierce, single working mother, who enrolled her

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daughter, Jenny Mae, in the Children's Health Insurance Program.