[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 15 (Monday, April 17, 2000)]
[Pages 816-817]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Dinner

April 13, 2000

    Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator Torricelli, Senator Inouye, 
Senator Akaka, Senator Johnson, ladies and gentlemen. I think I would 
like to begin by thanking Jane for that beautiful prayer and for 
agreeing to serve on the Indian Arts Board recently; thank you very 
much. And I would like to thank all of you for your presence here and 
your support for our Senators and our Senate candidates.
    I don't know whether Bob Torricelli is right about what other people 
will remember as defining moments of my administration, but I certainly 
will remember my trip to Pine Ridge, and I'm very much looking forward 
to being at Ship Rock on Monday afternoon with Kelsey Begaye. Thank you 
for being there with us in continuing our efforts to bring empowerment 
and opportunity to Native Americans. We will be there Monday to talk 
about closing the digital divide, how to bring the power of the computer 
to lift people up rather than keep them down, in education and economic 
development and health care and so many other ways.
    I have to tell you that my association with the Native American 
tribes of our country has been one of the most important aspects of my 
Presidency, to me. I always thought that the United States had 
something--to put it politely--less than a nation-to-nation 
relationship, and that sometimes, that the existence of that 
relationship had been used by the United States to run from our own 
responsibilities for the health, the welfare, the future of the Native 
American children and the people of our country.
    And for 7 years and 3 months now, I've done everything I knew how to 
do to increase economic opportunity, to increase the quality of health 
care, to increase the support for the educational institutions, and, 
particularly in the last couple of years, to try to increase not only 
the voice and the respect for the tribal people and your leaders in our 
National

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Government's decisions and the right to make your own decisions but 
especially to try to bring more economic opportunity. And I will 
continue to do that for as long as I am in this office, and then when 
I'm not President anymore, I will have more time to work on fewer 
things.
    And one of the things I intend to work on when I'm not President 
anymore is the economic empowerment of people who had been left behind 
in this country and around the world. I believe in the potential of all 
people. I believe that intelligence is equally apportioned among all 
races and ethnic groups. But opportunity isn't. And I believe that we 
have done a lot of things over the last 120 years that, at least I for 
one, wish we could go back and undo in our relations with the Native 
Americans. But I'm proud of what--not only of what our administration 
has done but what our party has tried to do. I'm proud of the leadership 
of Senator Inouye and Senator Johnson, Senator Akaka. I'm proud that 
Senator Torricelli is leading this group and that you have joined us.
    But the last thing I would like to say is that in the end, the most 
important thing of all is empowerment and respect, and I have tried to 
have a Bureau of Indian Affairs that would move beyond where it had 
traditionally been on that score. I have tried to see that a lot of 
other decisions were made differently. But your participation in this 
endeavor and in others like it as citizens is also a form of 
empowerment, and for that I am profoundly grateful. I'm glad for the 
progress we've made. I'm glad for the things we've been able to do. I 
think this year we'll have a good year on education, on health care. I 
think we'll pass this new markets effort that will help get more 
investment in to all the people and places that have been left behind in 
this remarkable recovery.
    But the most important thing for me is that I hope when I leave 
office there will have been a fundamental seismic shift in the 
relationship between the United States Government and our tribes and our 
tribal governments throughout the country and a dramatic increase in the 
level of respect and independence and cooperation and partnership that 
you feel from your Government. I hope it will never, ever be the same. 
And if that is true, then in large measure, my service will have been 
justified. And again, if it hadn't been for you, it would not have been 
possible.
    So I ask you to keep it up, keep going, and give me every chance I 
can to be helpful, not only for the next 9\1/2\ months but for the rest 
of my life.
    Thank you very much. Thank you all. Senators, thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 8:10 p.m. in the Georgian Room at the 
Phoenix Park Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Senator Robert G. 
Torricelli, chair, Democratic Senator Campaign Committee; Jane Fawcett, 
who gave the invocation; and Kelsey Begaye, President of the Navajo 
Nation.