[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 24 (Monday, June 19, 2000)]
[Pages 1378-1380]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at Abigail Adams Elementary School in New York City

June 16, 2000

    Thank you very much. I think we ought to give Mary Minnick another 
hand. She did a great job. [Applause] And I want to thank her, the other 
faculty members, the staff members of P.S. 131 and their families, and 
your principal, Walter O'Brien. Thank you for making us feel welcome 
today.
    And I want to thank Zahra Mohamed and Andrew Wood, the 
covaledictorians of the sixth grade. They remind us of what this is all 
about. And you can see from the student cheers who has the votes here. 
[Laughter]
    Chancellor Levy, thank you very much. Representative Lowey, 
Representative Meeks, Representative Crowley, thank you all for your 
leadership for this worthy cause. To all the local officials who are out 
there, but especially my long-time friend, the Queens borough president, 
Claire Schulman; Superintendent Michael Johnson; School Board President 
Bill Johnson. And I'd like to recognize Randi Weingarten again, the 
president of the United Federation of Teachers--the teachers are helping 
us so much here--along with Ed Malloy, the president of New York 
Building and Trades Union, and Dennis Hughes, the president of the New 
York AFL-CIO. They're also trying to help us get our kids in world-class 
buildings.
    Let me say to all of you, as so often happens when I get up to 
speak, everything that needs to be said has already been said. But I 
want to say a couple of things to put this in perspective from my point 
of view. First of all, I want to thank you. Thank you, New York; thank 
you, New York City; thank you, Queens, for being so good to me and to Al 
Gore, to Hillary and Tipper, for these last 8 years. Thank you for 
giving us the chance to serve.
    For 7\1/2\ years now, we've worked hard to turn the economy around, 
to get the crime rate down, to help people move from welfare to work, to 
help people balance work and family, to clean up the environment as we 
grow the economy, to make this country one America across all these 
incredible racial and ethnic and religious and other lines that divide 
us, to make our country a force for peace and freedom around the world. 
And we're in good shape today. We're having the longest economic 
expansion in our history. We have the lowest minority unemployment in 
our history. We're going to have 3 years of back-to-back surpluses for 
the first time in anybody's memory.
    And here's the point I want to make. What are we going to do with 
these good times? I've got a simple question. What is it that

[[Page 1379]]

you as citizens propose to do? I've done everything I could do to turn 
our country around, to build that bridge to the 21st century that all of 
us can walk across together, to leave our country in good shape so that 
you, the American people, could decide, what are you going to do for the 
future. And I think the answer is simple. Look at these kids here. Just 
look at them. Look at all the different ethnic groups they come from. 
Look at their different heritages. Look at the different countries their 
parents come from. This is America's future. This is America's future.
    Now, if I had come to you 8 years ago and said, ``In 5 years, we're 
going to have the largest number of kids in our schools in history, and 
we've got a lot of them in old buildings, a lot of them in overcrowded 
buildings, a lot of them in downright unsafe buildings, a lot of them in 
buildings that can't be hooked up to the Internet, and I want to do 
something about it,'' you might have said then, ``Well, Mr. President, 
that's very nice, but the country is in too much trouble, and the 
Government is broke.'' But that's not true anymore. We have the money to 
give all our kids a world-class education. The only issue is, do we have 
the vision; do we have the will; do we have the compassion to give our 
children a world-class education?
    Randi was telling me right before we came up here--and Chancellor 
Levy confirmed it--we've got a program now to put 100,000 more teachers 
out there for smaller classes in the early grades. We've only finished a 
third of it, and New York can't take any more. Queens certainly can't 
take any more because you don't have any classrooms to put the teachers 
in, in the smaller classes.
    We've got a program now that would provide after-school programs for 
every kid who needs it in America, but if you don't have the facilities, 
where are they going to go to the programs? The Vice President persuaded 
Congress to enact something called the E-rate, which allows you to have 
discounts at schools with a lot of poor kids in it so every child in 
America can afford to be in a classroom that's hooked up to the 
Internet. But if you don't have the space--and some schools can't even 
be wired for the Internet--so what good is the program?
    Now, I am proud of the progress that's been made in education in 
this city, in this State, and in this Nation. But if we think that we're 
going to build the future of our dreams, making these kids go to school 
in places where they don't have computer labs, they don't have music 
rooms, they're suffocating, their buildings are being heated with coal, 
and their teachers are trying to teach 40 kids when they ought to be 
teaching 20, we're living in a dream world, and we need to do something 
about it to give them a better future.
    Now, here's what I've tried to do for 2 years. This is the third 
year I've proposed this. I want the Congress to pass a bill that would 
provide tax breaks so that we could help communities build, from 
scratch, 6,000 schools. I want the Congress to pass money every year for 
the next 5 years so that every year we can do major repairs on 5,000 
more schools every year. It's not very complicated. But what you have to 
understand is, we can afford it. We can afford it. It's just a question 
of whether we think it's important enough to do.
    Now, Nita is for it. Greg is for it. Joe Crowley is for it. Charlie 
Rangel is for it. We even have a few Republicans for it. Representative 
Nancy Johnson from Connecticut is for it, and I thank Nancy Johnson. 
This ought to be a bipartisan issue. When the kids show up there at 
school, they don't have to put their party affiliation down. We just 
know they need an education. We don't care whether they're Republicans 
or Democrats or Greens or Reforms or no affiliation.
    So I want to tell you that we have a bipartisan majority actually 
ready to pass the bill in the House of Representatives. So you might 
wonder: Well, this is a democracy; if a majority of the people want it 
and a majority of their elected representatives want it, where is the 
bill, and show me the money? [Laughter] Well, unfortunately, the people 
who control the rules and when bills come up, don't want it. That's what 
this is about. We have not been able to persuade the leadership in the 
House and the Senate, the other party, to bring this up in a way that 
will enable us to pass it.
    What I want you to know----
    Audience member. [Inaudible].

[[Page 1380]]

    The President. ----that's not a bad idea, thank you. What I want you 
to know is that the leadership of the House is trying to keep these good 
people from having a vote on school construction. They don't want their 
Members to have to vote against it for the obvious reasons that you 
might notice, but they don't want it to pass.
    We have too many bills where we've got a majority for it, like the 
Patients' Bill of Rights, that we can't get up. So I am asking you, by 
your voices today, over the media, to the American people, and every day 
from now on as long as the Congress is here, by your support for your 
Representatives to say, ``Hey, we love this school, but it's not enough. 
And we love our kids, and you have our money. Spend it on their future. 
Spend it on their future.''
    Again, I say, this is not complicated. It's about political will and 
vision. And I want you to know, folks, I get really frustrated when 
Washington plays politics just because they think times are good and 
there are no consequences. But these kids will grow up before you know 
it.
    My little girl just got home from college--going to be a senior next 
year. I remember when she was that size. It doesn't take long for a 
child to live a childhood. And we don't have a child to waste. And 
you've got all these dedicated teachers and all these dedicated parents 
and all these dedicated school people out there, and we keep trying to 
put them in smaller and smaller and smaller boxes. This is wrong.
    Now, we have genuine philosophical differences over some things in 
Washington, but this shouldn't be a philosophical issue. Are we going to 
build these buildings or not? We've got the money. Some people say, let 
them do it at the local level. Well, you know as well as I do that we've 
got more kids in schools than ever before, but we've got a smaller 
percentage of property taxpayers with kids in schools than ever before, 
and it's hard, if not impossible, to raise the money to build and repair 
the schools only at the local level. The National Government has the 
resources. This is a limited program. These children deserve it.
    So I implore you all, by your voices today, and every day, say, 
``Thank you, Nita Lowey. Thank you, Greg Meeks. Thank you, Joe Crowley. 
Thank you, Charlie Rangel. Congress, give our kids the future they 
deserve. The whole country's riding on it, we can afford it, and we owe 
it to them, and we'll be awful glad we did.''
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 12:12 p.m. in the school courtyard. In his 
remarks, he referred to Mary Minnick, teacher, Abigail Adams Elementary 
School (Public School 131); Harold O. Levy, chancellor, New York City 
Public Schools; and Michael A. Johnson, district administrator, 
Community School District No. 29.