    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 15 (Monday, April 17, 2000)]
    [Pages 828-833]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks at a Reception for Representative Cynthia A.
    McKinney in Atlanta

    April 14, 2000

        The President. Thank you. Well, first of all, I'm glad to see you.
    [Laughter] And I'm glad to see you in such good spirits. And I want to
    thank you for being here for Cynthia and thank her for giving me a
    chance to come here and be with you.
        I think we ought to give another hand to our hosts, the Sadris, for
    letting us come into their beautiful home today. [Applause] Beautiful
    place. I appreciated Governor and Mrs. Barnes and Mayor Campbell for
    being here. They had to leave. And as Roy and Bill said on the way out,
    ``We've got to go, and besides, we've heard this speech before.''
    [Laughter]
        That reminds me of something Tina
    Turner said once. Tina Turner is my favorite political philosopher.
    [Laughter] I went to a concert of hers, and she sang all of these new
    songs. And at the very end, she started singing ``Proud Mary.'' It was
    her first hit. And the whole crowd just went nuts, you know, clapping
    for her. So she didn't start singing; she just waited until they quit
    clapping. She said, ``You know, I've been singing this song for 25
    years, and it gets better every time I do it.'' [Laughter] So I thank
    the rest of you for hanging around.

    [[Page 829]]

        I want to acknowledge--in the audience we have Mayor Jack Ellis of
    Macon and Mayor Patsy Jo Hilliard of East Point and Representative
    Tyrone Brooks, thanks for being here. And my old friend and '92
    cochairman, Calvin Smyre; Representative Robert Brown. And Billy
    McKinney is here, Cynthia's daddy. And Senator Butler, thank you for
    coming. And there may be other members of the legislature here we've
    missed. State Representative Vernon Jornes--Jones--I can read Cynthia's
    handwriting; she can't read mine. [Laughter]
        And Dikembe, I want to thank you for coming. He came to the White
    House once with his whole family. And I went out to meet him. And you
    know, I'm not a small man. I felt like a total shrimp standing there.
    [Laughter] You know, all these members of the other party, they've been
    trying for 8 years to humiliate me. If they'd just gotten the Mutombo
    family standing around--[laughter]--they could have done it in a day. It
    would have been no problem.
        Let me say to all of you, I am here basically for three reasons. One
    is, I wanted to thank Cynthia McKinney, in front of her constituents,
    for the support that she has given to our efforts to make America a
    better place, with a stronger economy, a stronger social fabric, greater
    equality and opportunity for people; an America that is truly one
    America across all racial, religious, and other lines that divide us.
    And you can see by the crowd today that that's the kind of person she's
    been, and that's the kind of America I've tried to build. And I thank
    her for that.
        The second reason that I'm here is to thank all of you for the work
    you do here and the example you set. I was listening as the--I saw
    Iranian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Pakistani-Americans, Sikhs
    introduced. I was glad to see so many members of the Muslim community
    here. I think that I am the first President ever to consistently give
    messages on the Eid to the Muslim community around the world, to have
    Muslim Americans come into the White House and meet with us.
        I look around the world--and I'll just start--the third reason I
    came here is to tell you what I think this election this year is about.
    And I feel free to say it since it's the first time in 25 years I'm not
    running for anything. [Laughter] And I'm okay about it most days.
    [Laughter] I'm okay.
        But let me begin by saying this. Everybody knows what's going well
    today, and I won't go back over it except to just briefly say that we
    not only have the longest economic expansion in our history and the
    lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 30
    years, the lowest crime rate in 25 years, the lowest poverty rate in 20
    years, the lowest female unemployment rate in 40 years, highest
    homeownership in history, the lowest African-American and Hispanic
    unemployment rates ever recorded--we also have a sense, I think, of
    optimism and that we can do certain things. And as Cynthia said, we've
    tried to be a force for peace and freedom around the world.
        But since we've got all these folks here, let me say, I think it's
    very interesting that in this most modern of ages, where we're thrilled
    that our kids are on the Internet, and they can go to school with people
    of different cultures and backgrounds, and we're about to decode the
    mysteries of the human gene--just in the next few weeks, we'll be able
    to announce the whole gene sequence that's been completed. And after
    that happens, it won't be long before we'll be able to block the genetic
    flaws that cause Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. We'll be able to identify
    certain kinds of cancers when they're--just a few cells congeal. We may
    even find out early in the next century what's in those black holes in
    the universe. It will be the most modern of ages.
        No country can be isolated from it. Two years ago there were 2
    million Internet users in China. Last year there were 9 million. This
    year there will be over 20 million. Within 2 years, there will be over
    100 million, and the country will never be the same again.
        I just came back from the Indian subcontinent. I went to Bangladesh
    and Pakistan and India. And I was in this--and in India, the per capita
    income is $450 a year. And I was in this little village--I mean, a
    little village--you may have seen the pictures on the television of me
    dancing with the village women, and they were pelting me with flowers.
    It's better than other things I could be pelted

    [[Page 830]]

    with. [Laughter] I was delighted. But anyway, let me say, so here I am
    in this little remote village. And in the sole public building in the
    village, I met with the city council, 11 men and 4 women, representing
    10 different tribes and castes. And I saw the village's computer. And
    this new mother comes in to the village computer. And it was in Hindi,
    although they have these in all the various languages spoken in India.
    So she calls up the health department's webpage. And she's just had a
    baby, and she runs it out to the instructions for what the best care for
    a newborn is for the first 3 months of his life. And then she hits the
    print button, and they have this fabulous software, and this beautiful
    program printed right out on a world-class printer. And she took home
    information as good as you could take home from any obstetrician in
    Atlanta. So it's wonderful. This is a very modern world.
        I went to another city where they give 18 government services on the
    Internet--nobody buys a driver's license in a revenue office anymore. I
    told Governor Barnes if he did that here, there would be no term limits
    and he could stay until he was 95. [Laughter]
        So that's the sort of picture we imagine for these children. And
    it's all modern, it's about science and technology, and we're relating
    to each other and how interesting it is. Don't you think it's also
    interesting that the biggest problems the world faces are rooted in the
    oldest difficulties of humankind? That we're still basically scared of
    people that aren't like us?
        I mean, I see these Sikhs here, I thank them for coming here. The
    most heartbreaking thing that happened on my trip to the Indian
    subcontinent is that about 40 Sikhs were murdered in Kashmir. And I'm
    sure they were murdered because I was there. Those people lost their
    lives because I went to India and to Pakistan. And people who don't want
    their turmoil to be eased used my trip there as a pretext to highlight
    the difficulties. And somebody, we don't know who, killed 40 perfectly
    innocent people who, I might add, had never before been targeted in all
    the conflicts in Kashmir.
        In Rwanda--Cynthia talked about Rwanda--Rwanda's not like a lot of
    other African countries that were formed in 1885 by European powers.
    It's basically been a coherent country for 500 years, with two dominant
    tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis--for 500 years. And they fought from
    now and then, but they basically worked it out to get along. And in 100
    days, 800,000 people were killed, almost with no guns.
        In the Middle East, we still are seeing these tensions between the
    Israelis and their neighbors. In the Balkans, a million Islamic
    Albanians were driven from their homes like cattle, driven from their
    countries, in a matter of weeks, until we stopped it and turned it
    around in Kosovo. Even in Northern Ireland, where the people voted
    overwhelmingly for peace, the leaders are still so in the grip of their
    problems they can't get along.
        Well, we know about India. We know that--I said before, I think the
    situation--here's an interesting story. The situation in Kashmir is
    interesting from an American's point of view for the following reason:
    Indian-Americans and Pakistani-Americans, of the 200 ethnic groups that
    exist in America today, both rank in the top 10 in per capita income and
    education. Obviously, if the difficulties over Kashmir could be
    resolved, people from South Asia would explode. There is literally no
    limit to the potential of the life that could be had there.
        But they are sort of kept back from the modern world by this ancient
    tension or at least the tension that grew out of the founding of the
    nations of India and Pakistan. I say that to make this point only--I'm
    basically, you know, a very optimistic person. And I always have been,
    and I remain so today.
        But let's take it closer to home. Isn't it interesting that here in
    Atlanta, is the home of more international companies than any other
    American city, and we're still fighting in the South about whether there
    ought to be a Confederate flag on our flag. [Laughter] So there's
    something wrong with this picture here, you know? [Laughter] At least we
    can put it on a website. [Laughter]
        What's the point of all? Here's the point of all this--not to get
    you down, but to get you back up--but to remind you that our progress
    and our good fortune is the product of constant effort, good values,
    good people, good ideas, hard work. It is not an accident,

    [[Page 831]]

    nor is it inevitable, nor can you depend on it to last forever.
        A time like this for any country comes along once in a blue moon.
    And so the election is not about whether Cynthia McKinney had a good
    voting record, or Bill Clinton was a good President. The real issue is,
    what are we going to do with this moment?
        And you know, I feel very strongly that the American people should
    be humbled by this good fortune. And I think we should say, we're going
    to take on the big challenges facing our country. One, we've got to keep
    the economy going, because if we don't, the wheels will start to run
    off, and then we'll not be able to think about big things. That's why I
    want to keep paying the debt down. We can be debt-free for the first
    time since 1835. I want to do that.
        Number two, we ought to bring economic opportunity to people and
    places that have been left behind in this country. That's why I want to
    give people the same incentives to invest in poor areas in America they
    have to invest around the world. That's why I want to close the digital
    divide and bring computer opportunities to schools and work places and
    entrepreneurs in distant rural places, Indian reservations, inner-city
    neighborhoods.
        Number three, we ought to give a world-class education to every one
    of our children. We know how to do it now, so we don't have an excuse.
        Number four, we ought to help people whose parents work to better
    balance the demands of work and family--equal pay for women and men;
    improved tax treatment for lower income working people; more health care
    coverage for children and for their parents if they can't afford it now.
    We have a program I want to expand; a long-term care tax credit for
    people that are caring for their elderly relatives or disabled
    relatives--a lot of people are doing that now, and it's a terrible
    burden on them. And we want to keep families together, but we ought to
    help them do that. We ought to help them balance work and family.
        Number five, we ought to make America the safest big country in the
    world. You know, Georgia and my home State of Arkansas are States with a
    strong hunting culture. But there's no excuse for not doing a background
    check every time somebody buys a handgun. There's no excuse.
        The law we've had has kept half a million felons, fugitives, and
    stalkers from getting handguns, and we got gun crime down 35 percent to
    a 30-year low in the last 7 years. But we can make America the safest
    big country in the world if we work at it.
        Number six, we ought to prove we can improve our environment and the
    world's and grow the economy. If we don't do that, we will never get
    out--50 years from now, the children of the children in this audience
    will be living on a planet that will be much more difficult to navigate
    if we do not meet the environmental challenges of our time. And we don't
    have to mess up the economy to do it.
        Number seven, we ought to keep in the lead in science and
    technology.
        Number eight, we ought to do more to be good citizens in the world.
    I've been trying to pass a bill to buy more products from Africa and our
    neighbors in the Caribbean Basin. We can afford it in America, and a
    little bit of effort here does a phenomenal amount of good there.
        And I want to relieve the debts of the world's poorest nations. I
    want to head a global effort to develop vaccines for AIDS and malaria
    and TB. It could save millions of lives.
        You know what the number one killer in poor countries still is?
        Audience member. I believe it's malaria, no?
        The President. No.
        Audience member. What is it?
        The President. Well, malaria is the second. It's basically problems
    related to the absence of clean water. Still, problems related,
    including total dehydration, which kills a lot of kids.
        I think we ought to do these things. I think we ought to keep trying
    to help people solve their racial and ethnic and religious problems. I
    think it is worth it. I also believe we ought to bring China into the
    world's trading system, because if we don't, they'll think we're
    isolating them, and there's a greater likelihood of a war there.
        I just finished reading President Woodrow Wilson's private
    secretary's memoirs of the

    [[Page 832]]

    end of World War I, and how the Congress ran off and left him and they
    stiffed all of our opponents, and how it made World War II inevitable.
    Somebody asked me the other day, ``What have you learned about foreign
    policy since you've been President?'' And I said, ``I've learned it's a
    whole lot more like life than I thought it was.'' What do I mean by
    that? That people everywhere, across all different cultures are far more
    likely to respond to the outstretched hand than they are to respond to
    the clenched fist.
        Now, there are some people who do things that I think require us to
    clench our fist. When Mr. Milosevic did what he did in Bosnia and
    Kosovo, we clenched our fist. But on the whole, we ought to encourage
    the positive developments around the world and try to help people get
    together. I think this is important.
        And the last point I want to say is what I started with, if we want
    to do good around the world, we've got to be good at home. We've got to
    keep working. You know, we haven't solved all of our problems here. We
    still have racial prejudice; we still have religious prejudice; we still
    have people who are shot because of their race or because they're gay or
    for some other reason. And we have to keep working on this.
        If I received a message from God tonight and He said, ``You can't
    finish your term. I'm checking you out tomorrow, and you get one wish.
    I'm not a genie; you don't get three wishes. You get one''--I would not
    even wish for continued prosperity. I would wish for us to be truly one
    community, one Nation, because--because just look around this room here.
    Look at all the intelligence, the experience, the understanding, the
    energy in this room, from the youngest to the eldest and all in between.
    If we can just keep our bearings, if we can keep our spirits, if we can
    keep centered, there is no limit to what we can do.
        And what I want you to understand is, that means that we have to pay
    very close attention in this election. The last thing I will say to
    you--you have to pay very close attention. People get in a lot of
    trouble when times are good because they think there are no consequences
    to what they do. Sometimes you can get in more trouble in good times
    than you can in bad times because you break your attention. You've
    worked so hard, you've labored, you've worked, and you think, ``Gosh, I
    just want to forget about this now.''
        And I was just talking to Tyrone Brooks. He was at Selma when I was
    there, celebrating the 35th anniversary of the march over the Pettus
    Bridge, and it put me to thinking--I will close with this point--when we
    celebrate the longest economic expansion in American history in
    February, I got all my advisers together and I said, ``Now, when was the
    longest economic expansion in history?'' When many of you weren't here--
    it was between 1961 and 1969. You either weren't born or you were in
    another country. I was here. [Laughter]
        Now, let me tell you what happened. Let me tell you what happened.
    In the full bloom of expansion in 1964, I graduated from high school.
    And yes, we were sort of peripherally involved in Vietnam, and yes, we
    did have a big civil rights challenge. But unemployment was low,
    inflation was low, growth was high, productivity was high. Most
    everybody than thought that our new President, Lyndon Johnson, with the
    great sympathy the country had after President Kennedy had been killed,
    would solve the civil rights problems of America in the Congress, and
    those that wouldn't be solved in the Congress would be solved in the
    courts. And no one believed Vietnam would tear the country up. And we
    all thought in the course of time we would win the cold war, and we
    would always just be prosperous.
        Now, 4 years later, I graduated from college in Washington, DC--4
    years; 2 days after Senator Kennedy was killed, 2 months after Martin
    Luther King was killed, 9 weeks after Lyndon Johnson couldn't run for
    reelection because the country was split down the middle. And within
    just a few weeks, the longest economic expansion in American history was
    itself history.
        What's the point? Not to be down but to be determined, to realize it
    makes a difference who is in the Congress, to realize it makes a
    difference who is the President, to realize it makes a difference what
    people think the subject of this election is. The subject of this
    election is, what are we going to do with this magic moment in our
    history?

    [[Page 833]]

        I've done the best I could to turn this country around and to get us
    moving in the right direction. But the best is still out there. That's
    what I want you to believe. And forget about me being President; as a
    citizen, I have waited 35 years for my country again to be in the
    position to build the future of our dreams for our children.
        And it is a so much more interesting country now because so many of
    you are here. And the world is more interesting, and the potential is so
    great. But whether we seize it depends upon whether we understand what
    the issue is about, whether we work and vote, and whether people like
    Cynthia are in the United States Congress.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:40 p.m. at a private residence. In his
    remarks, he referred to reception hosts Saeid and Sudabeh Sadri; Gov.
    Roy Barnes of Georgia and his wife, Marie; Mayor Bill Campbell of
    Atlanta; State Representatives
    Tyrone Brooks, Calvin Smyre, and J. E. (Billy) McKinney; State Senators
    Gloria S. Butler and Robert Brown; President Slobodan Milosevic of the
    Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro); and NBA Atlanta
    Hawk Dikembe Mutombo.