[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 13 (Monday, April 3, 2000)]
[Pages 678-683]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner in New York City

March 30, 2000

    You know what I want to do? I want to tell you this is Michael--
birthday. It's also--George, where are you? Is that your name, George? 
It's his birthday, also, and he came all the way from Alaska to be here. 
[Laughter] So I'm trying to think about what I should do when I leave 
office, and I think I'll do birthday parties. [Laughter] Birthday 
parties--no, this is good.
    John and Margo have been so good to us, and this is going to be such 
a long, arduous

[[Page 679]]

campaign. and Brian Snyder said to me when Ed Rendell was talking about 
how we just had this wonderful party here, Brian said, ``Well, why don't 
you just stand up and suggest to Margo that she just leave the table 
settings out''--[laughter]--``and we'll be back several more times.'' 
[Laughter]
    Let me say to all of you, I'm grateful for your presence here, but 
I'm particularly grateful to John and Margo for being so good to me and 
to the Vice President and to the DNC and also to Hillary. It means a lot 
to me. And their son, I'm grateful to him, because he keeps me in 
Pokemon cards--[laughter]--which I give to my nephew, which raises my 
status within our family. Far more important than being President is 
being able to give your nephew Pokemon cards. So I am profoundly 
grateful for that as well. [Laughter]
    Let me say to all of you, this is my speech--see, I made my big 
speech here. [Laughter] I know that many of you have come to a lot of 
these; others may be at your first one. But I wanted to tell you that 
I'm working very hard in this election and not only because I like and 
admire and am grateful to my Vice President but because I think he 
understands the future and has the knowledge and experience to lead us 
there, not only because I want desperately to become a member of the 
Senate spouses' club--[laughter]--but because I believe in what we've 
done in the last 7 years.
    I didn't run for President the first time I had a chance to run, 
because I didn't think I was ready to run. And I had been Governor for 
quite a long time in 1988, when the election was open, and it looked 
like we had a good chance to win, and I almost ran. And I realized that 
no one should run for President who does not have a very clear idea, not 
only of what the conditions of the country are and the challenges facing 
it but of what you would do on the day after the inauguration, across a 
whole broad range of issues.
    All of you, in your own ways, have been quite successful in life or 
you wouldn't be here tonight. And one of the things that I always tell 
people when they ask me about this job is, I say, ``Well, I think a lot 
of folks get in trouble because they forget it is a job.'' I mean, it's 
a job like other jobs. And the only difference is, you have to 
completely define to some extent what it is for you. That is, how you 
will allocate your time, what you believe the priorities are, and what 
you intend to do.
    So I speak to you tonight as someone who is not on the ballot. For 
the first time in nearly a quarter century or more, I won't be an active 
participant in an election as a candidate. Most days, I'm okay with it. 
[Laughter] So I'm here--as much as I'm here as President, I'm here as a 
citizen of this country who desperately loves America, who is grateful 
for the good fortune that we enjoy at this moment but who has had the 
unique perspective, I believe, to know a few things about where we are 
and where we're going and what's really at stake here.
    So I just want to make a couple of points. Point number one is, 
there are real differences between these two parties. And they're not 
the differences people used to believe existed. One of the things I 
promised myself when I got elected is, when I left, nobody would ever be 
able to say that the Democrats were weak on spending, weak on deficits, 
weak on taxes, weak on defense, weak on crime, weak on welfare, couldn't 
be trusted to run the country. Well, you don't hear anybody even talking 
about that in this election.
    But--so what are the real differences? And I would just like to talk 
to you about them. And I know you understand it, but I think it's worth 
focusing on. First of all, we have real differences on the budget, what 
we do with your money. We believe that we can afford a tax cut but that 
it has to be targeted and limited so that there is enough money left to 
keep paying down the debt, to save Social Security and Medicare when the 
baby boomers retire, and to continue to invest in what works in 
education, in science and technology, in health care, in the 
environment, and the other things we have to go forward with together as 
a people. That's what we believe.
    They believe that we should have a tax cut bigger than the one I 
vetoed last year, one which would--frankly, it speaks well of you that 
you're here, because all of you would come out better with their deal in 
the short run. But what would happen is, I mean, I

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think--give yourself a few points here for being here. You would all 
come out better with their deal in the short run. But what would happen 
is, we would go back to the bad old days of deficits, and then they 
would have to have big cuts in education, in health care, in the 
environment, science and technology, a lot of which is powering this 
economic boom we're in. And in addition to that, they would not have the 
funds to guarantee that when all the baby boomers retire, we wouldn't 
impose an unconscionable burden on our children and grandchildren, 
through the cost of medical care, Medicaid, Social Security.
    Now, this is a huge thing. And let me say, I think it's important 
because it's not like we don't have any evidence. We tried it their way 
for 12 years, and we had high interest rates, high unemployment, low 
growth. We quadrupled the debt, and we were in a terrible fix.
    Now, we have the longest economic expansion in history, 21 million 
new jobs, a 30-year low in unemployment and welfare, a 20-year low in 
poverty, a 25-year low in crime. So it's not like there's not evidence 
here, and yet, that is the issue. That is the issue in the Presidential 
race. That is the issue in the Senate race in New York. That is the 
issue. Who is right on the economy and the budget? Are they right, or 
are we right?
    To pretend that there are no consequences because things are going 
well would be the height of folly. It's a huge issue. Now, there are 
other issues. We have a different view about America's role in the 
world. We agree on some things, my administration and the Republican 
leaders; I'll give them credit for that. They're trying to help me pass 
the bill that would permit China to become a member of the World Trade 
Organization.
    I think it's important to our national security and real important 
to our economy. And one of the things I want all of you to understand, 
since you may not have been thinking about it is, we have to lower no 
tariffs; we have to lower no trade barriers. This entire bill involves 
our letting China into the WTO in a way that they lower tariffs; they 
lower trade barriers; they let us sell things like automobiles and 
automobile parts and have distributorships in China, they didn't used to 
do; and we don't have to agree to transfer our technology or put 
manufacturing plants up there or anything.
    It's a one-way street. It's 100 percent in our favor. The only 
reason they do it is that in turn, they get full membership in the World 
Trade Organization, which is good for us, because that means if they 
violate their trade obligations, we have an international body to take 
it to.
    So the Speaker of the House is trying to help me pass a bill that 
literally could save democracy in Colombia by increasing their capacity 
to fight the drug traffickers and the guerrillas and reducing their 
ability to import drugs into this country and helping the farmers to 
find something besides coca to grow.
    But on other areas, we're very different. I think we ought to 
support the U.N. and get people to share our burdens more than they do. 
I believe in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and they don't. That's a 
big issue in the Senate race here, a big issue in the Presidential race. 
I think it would be folly for us to walk away from arms control after 
the United States has led the way not just in my administration, but in 
previous administrations, Republicans and Democrats.
    This is a departure for the Republicans. To walk away from the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and say we'll just always be able to build 
bigger, more sophisticated bombs, and instead of just a few countries 
with nuclear weapons, there turn out to be a few dozen, who cares? I 
care. And I think it's a big issue. And you ought to care. You shouldn't 
assume that there will never be another nuclear weapon exploded, no 
matter what, if instead of a few countries with nuclear weapons, you 
have a few dozen. So there are big issues here.
    I think we ought to raise the minimum wage. They don't. I think we 
ought to pass a Patients' Bill of Rights for the 190 million Americans 
in a managed care system. And at least so far, they don't. I believe 
that we ought to pass commonsense gun safety legislation to protect more 
kids from violence. And I believe we can do it without, in any way, 
interfering with the rights of sports people and hunters.
    But I got asked in my press conference what I thought about all the 
mean things

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Charlton Heston's saying about me. [Laugher] And I said I still liked 
his movies. [Laugher] I still liked his movies, and I liked him. You 
know, he came to the White House a couple of years go, and I thought he 
was a delightful man.
    I don't care what they say about me. That's part of the cost of 
doing business and being President, this being attacked by people who 
disagree with you. This is not about me and the NRA; this is about 
whether people stay alive or not. This is a big issue--huge issue in the 
Presidential race.
    Their position, the Republican position in Washington is that guns 
are the only thing in our national life where there should be no 
prevention; it should all be punishment. Now, if you raised your 
children on the theory that there should never be any prevention, there 
should only be punishment, your kids wouldn't turn out so good, even if 
they had welts across their back from being 
punished.
    Or as I never tire of saving--they always say, ``Just enforce the 
laws on the books. Just punish people when they violate them.'' Well, we 
have increased gun law enforcement over what the previous 
administrations have done. And in my budget, I've asked for a lot more 
people to help us enforce the gun laws more strongly. And there's 
something to be said for that. You would be amazed what a small number 
of gun dealers are responsible for selling guns to such a large number 
of criminals. So there's something to be said for enforcement.
    But one of the reasons that gun crime is at a 30-year low is that 
the Brady bill has kept a half a million felon, fugitives, and stalkers 
from getting handguns. And they were against that as a party. We only 
had a handful of Republicans supporting us in Washington. And Governor 
Bush and the Republican congressional leadership, they've been against 
closing the gun show loophole, against banning the importation of large-
scale ammunition clips, which makes a mockery of our law against assault 
weapons, because you just bring them in, those clips, and then modify 
the guns. And this has a lot to do with whether your kids are safe.
    And again, it's the difference in the way they think than we think. 
Suppose I said that I agree with the Republican philosophy we should 
abandon all prevention and only do punishment. For example, I've been in 
a lot of airports in my life, and nearly everybody I've ever met is 
honest in an airport--99.9 percent of the people in airports are 
perfectly honest. They bear me no ill will, and they're overcrowded 
anyway, and people are frustrated, and they're often late. And if you 
walk through one of those metal detectors and you've got a big, heavy 
money clip or an elaborate belt or something, you're liable to set it 
off three or four times, and you're angry and frustrated. And I'm just 
sick of it, and so I just think we ought to take those metal detectors 
out of the airport. And the next time somebody blows up an airplane, we 
ought to throw the book at them. [Laughter] That's the philosophy.
    This is a big deal here. It's a different way of thinking. I do not 
believe it is necessary to demonize them the way some of us have been 
demonized in the past and still are. I don't want us to have our 
counterpart of Richard Viguery, who represents the hard-core far right 
and does Mayor Giuliani's fundraising letters. You know, thinks my wife 
is basically up there with a Communist brigade or something. [Laughter]
    We don't have to do that. We can talk about the honest differences. 
But I'm telling you, there are big differences here. And it's not like 
we don't have any evidence. What they're saying is, ``Don't bother me 
with the evidence. We know where the money is. We know where the votes 
are. We know where the intensity is. Don't bother me with the 
evidence.'' And to be fair, they just disagree. I'm not willing to let 
another child die for their theory. I think we ought to have a safer 
country.
    And so--and I think it would be a disaster for us to give up the 
fiscal responsibility that has brought us this far when we can take this 
country out of debt in a dozen years for the first time since 1835 and 
guarantee all the young people another generation of prosperity. And I 
could give you lots of other examples.
    But the point I want to make is: There are big differences, and the 
record is clear. The evidence is in. And I hope you will share that with 
people. And I just want to make

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one other point, which I try to say at every turn. In February, we had 
this big celebration of beating the longest economic expansion in 
history. Now, we've got the longest economic expansion in history, and 
there was not a war in it, which I'm especially proud of.
    So when this happened, being kind of obsessive about American 
history, I asked my Council of Economic Advisers--we were in there 
talking about it, and I said, ``When was the last longest economic 
expansion in history?'' And they said 1961 to 1969, which many of you in 
this room remember well and participated in.
    Now, I want to tell you something about that, why this election is 
so important. I graduated from high school in 1964 at the high water 
mark of that economic expansion. President Kennedy had just been killed, 
and the country was heartbroken, but we united behind President Johnson. 
He was wildly popular, won an historic victory in 1964. Inflation was 
low. Unemployment was low. Growth was high. Optimism was rampant about 
the ability of Congress and the courts to resolve the civil rights 
challenge of the country in a peaceful manner. Everybody thought we were 
going to win the cold war as a result of the superiority of our system, 
and nobody would have believed that Vietnam would tear the heart out of 
the country--1964. And so, we all just went merrily along our way.
    Now, within a year, there was the terrible incident in Selma, 
Alabama, at Bloody Sunday, which I just celebrated the 35th anniversary 
of. Within 2 years, there were riots in our cities and the country began 
to split apart over Vietnam. Four years later, in 1968, I graduated from 
college, 2 days after Robert Kennedy was killed, 2 months after Martin 
Luther King was killed, 9 weeks after Lyndon Johnson couldn't run for 
President anymore because the country was split right down the middle 
over Vietnam.
    Then President Nixon won the election on one of those divisive 
campaigns. He said he represented the Silent Majority, which, by 
definition, meant that the rest of us were in the loud minority. And so 
it was one of those things of ``us'' versus ``them.'' And that's 
something the Republican Party was very good at. They demonized us real 
well and quite effectively all during the eighties, and they still make 
a lot of votes making people think that we somehow don't share their 
values because I'm for things like the hate crimes bill and ``Employment 
Non-Discrimination Act,'' and I don't think gay people ought to be 
bashed if they're good citizens.
    But that happened. And then, shortly after that election in early 
1969, the longest economic expansion in American history vanished. And 
we went on to the oil price shocks, the inflation of the seventies, the 
stagflation of the late eighties, and everything that's happened ever 
since. What's the point of all this? The point is that I've lived long 
enough to know nothing lasts forever, nothing can be taken for granted, 
and I have waited for 35 years for my country to be in a position to 
build the future of our dreams for our
children.
    This is a big election. And you cannot let people believe that this 
is something that they can approach casually, just because times are 
good. When times are good, you have to look to the next generation. We 
can take this country out of debt. We can save Social Security and 
Medicare for the baby boom generation. We can dramatically reform our 
schools. We can provide opportunities in areas that haven't participated 
in this recovery. We can lead the world toward greater peace and 
freedom, but we cannot do it unless we have leadership who understands 
the future, has the knowledge and experience to take us there, and is 
committed to it.
    We dare not risk, by our inaction or our cavalier attitudes, blowing 
what is, I know, the chance of a lifetime. I've worked as hard as I 
could as President to turn this country around. I am grateful for the 
chance I've had to serve. But I really think as a country, we should 
view this as the beginning, not the end, that we've sort of turned this 
thing around. And now, we have a chance to paint on a canvas our dreams 
for tomorrow. That's what this whole deal is about.
    So if somebody asks you tomorrow why you were here tonight, say, 
``There's a difference between the parties. I think the last 7 years 
were right, and the stakes could hardly be higher.'' And those of you 
that are about

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my age, you just think about it. We've waited for 35 years, and we need 
to seize the chance.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 7:42 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to
Michael Sherman, president, M.J. Sherman Group; dinner guest George 
Beirne; dinner hosts John and Margo Catsimatidis and their son, Yianni; 
Brian Snyder, investor, Biocraft Laboratories; Edward G. Rendell, 
general chair, Democratic National Committee; Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of 
New York City; Charlton Heston, president, National Rifle Association; 
and Gov. George W. Bush of Texas.