[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 26 (Monday, July 3, 2000)]
[Pages 1552-1560]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal 
Employees in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

June 30, 2000

    Thank you. Well, you know, I was still a little sleepy when I got 
here today. [Laughter] I'm pumped. Thank you very much. Thank you, thank 
you, thank you. Mr. President McEntee, congratulations on your 
reelection. Your job has some advantages over mine--no term limits, no 
opponents. Not bad.
    I'm delighted to be here with all your officers--Will Lucy, it's 
good to see you again, and all the AFSCME officers. I do want to say a 
special word of appreciation to the vice presidents from Pennsylvania 
who are hosting you--Edward Keller, Henry Nicholas, Dave Fillman. And I 
want to acknowledge in the audience a good friend of AFSCME's down in 
Washington whom I brought home to Pennsylvania with me today, 
Congressman Joe Hoeffel. Give him a big hand. [Applause] Joe, thank you 
for coming with me.
    Let me just say at the outset, I know everything I'm going to say 
today will not be news to you. It's almost like preaching to the saved. 
But the most important thing that I can say today is a simple thank you. 
I am so grateful for the support you've given me and for the work we've 
done together. Thank you.
    It is fitting that one of America's greatest labor unions is meeting 
here in Philadelphia in the millennial year. This city is rich in labor 
history. In 1774 the very first Continental Congress met in Carpenter's 
Hall, which was built by the very first trade guild in America. In 1792 
the shoemakers here in Philadelphia formed the first local craft union 
for collective bargaining over 200 years ago. And just as you are in a 
city with deep labor roots, you are looking at a President who feels he 
has deep roots in AFSCME.

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    When I was eligible as Governor, I was a dues-paying member of 
AFSCME. All the people who worked for me back then said it was the only 
check they ever saw me write. [Laughter] I'm grateful for the work you 
do every day, watching over our children and our parents, taking care of 
the sick and people with disabilities, helping the poor and moving 
millions of people from welfare to work, supporting our schools, 
improving our environment, making sure not just your members but all 
Americans have a better life.
    And I am very grateful, as I said, that AFSCME has stood by me since 
early in 1992, when only my mama thought I could be elected President of 
the United States. In sunshine and rain, you have never backed down; you 
have never walked away from the good fight we have waged for the 
American people and their future.
    And what a long way we've come in these 8 years. Gerry was talking 
about it before I came in. But it's worth remembering. In fact, one of 
the biggest challenges we have in this election is that things have been 
so good so long, a lot of people don't remember what it was like the 
last time they had the ball, and they carried it.
    Together, we've worked hard to give this country the longest 
economic expansion in history: 22 million-plus new jobs, the lowest 
unemployment rate in 30 years, the lowest African-American and Hispanic 
unemployment rates ever recorded, the lowest female unemployment rate in 
40 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 32 years, the lowest crime rate in 
25 years.
    And a lot of things that you care about--the highest homeownership 
in history; 90 percent of our kids immunized against serious childhood 
illnesses for the first time in history; more land protected forever in 
the continental United States than any administration since Franklin 
Roosevelt; cleaner air, cleaner water, safer food--21 million people--21 
million people have taken advantage of the family and medical leave law, 
the first law I signed and a law that was vetoed the last time they had 
the White House. Five hundred thousand felons, fugitives, and stalkers 
did not get handguns because of the Brady bill. We have a 35 percent 
drop in crime rates and in the gun crime. Not a single hunter has missed 
a day in the deer woods in spite of all their dire predictions. And the 
Brady law was another law that was vetoed the last time they had the 
White House.
    Five million families have taken advantage of the HOPE scholarship 
tax credit for the first 2 years of college. And when I leave office, we 
will have paid down almost $400 billion on the national debt.
    So the question is, what are we going to do with this? Now, I want 
to give a lot of whoop-de-doo lines, but I want you all to kind of 
listen to me now, because you've got a lot of friends, every one of you, 
who are not in AFSCME, who don't belong to any labor organization--the 
people you spend time with your kids with, the people you go to church 
with or synagogue with, maybe people you go bowling with, people you do 
other things with. And I want you to know what I think you ought to be 
telling them, because it isn't enough for you to show up and vote. It 
isn't enough even for you to get all your brothers and sisters in AFSCME 
to show up and vote. It isn't enough even to get all of the husbands and 
wives of all the AFSCME members to show up and vote. You've got to walk 
out of here determined to talk to every person you know and every person 
you run into between now and November and tell them why they ought to 
vote, for whom they ought to vote, and the reasons they ought to vote 
for them.
    So this is what I think you ought to say. There are three things 
every American needs to know about this election. Number one, it is a 
big election; it is real important. Number two, there are real 
differences between the parties that you can see in the candidates for 
President, the candidates for the Senate, the candidates for Congress, 
and obviously, the local races. Number three--and this is a dead 
giveaway in terms of who people ought to vote for--only the Democrats 
want you to know what those real differences are.
    Now, just be patient with me while I go through this. This is a big 
election. One of the things that bothers me--I had a friend from Chicago 
in to see me this week, and he is a business person, and he's been very 
successful the last 8 years. He's 41 years old, quite a bit younger than 
me--I hate it, but he is--[laughter]--and he said to me, he

[[Page 1554]]

said, ``You know, the thing that bothers me is that I talk to all these 
people that I spend time with who don't have anything to do with the 
Democratic Party, don't have anything to do with the Republican Party. 
They're people I know in my work life. And they don't think there's much 
of a difference between Vice President Gore and Governor Bush. They 
don't think there's much of a difference. And they think this economy is 
rocking along so well, you couldn't mess it up with a case of 
dynamite.''
    Now, that's what a lot of people think. So the first thing you've 
got to tell people is, ``Hey, this is a big election.'' You remember 
what it was like 8 years ago and what kind of a mess the country was in. 
But I want to tell you something. We've got some young people here, but 
there's not a person listening to me today who is over 30 years old, who 
cannot remember at least one time in your life, either in your work life 
or your personal life, when you made a big mistake not because things 
were going so badly in your life but because things were rocking along 
so well, you thought there was no penalty for the failure to 
concentrate.
    Now, every one of us has experienced that, right? Every one of us. 
So the first thing we've got to do is get America's head right about 
this. This is a big deal. How a country handles its moment of prosperity 
and opportunity is just as stern a test of our vision, our judgment, and 
our character as how we handle adversity. And in my lifetime, there has 
never been a moment like this where the economy was so strong, our 
social conditions were improving, the Nation had a lot of self-
confidence, there was no internal crisis or external threat to divert 
us, where we really have a chance to build a future of our dreams for 
our kids. And we will never be forgiven if we blow this. You've got to 
convince people this is a big election. They've got to think about it, 
and they've got to show up and stand up and be counted.
    Now, the second thing I want to tell you is what you already know. 
There are big and honest differences. This doesn't have to be a negative 
campaign, but we've got to define what negative is. Negative is what 
we've seen too many times over the last 20 years where one candidate 
tries to convince the voters that his opponent or her opponent is just 
one notch above a car thief. Now, that's negative. Pointing out the 
honest differences between you and your opponent in terms of record and 
position and statements is not negative. That's informational. There's a 
judgment here. There are consequences to the choice. That's not 
negative. We can have an honest debate. We can assume our opponents are 
honorable people and say we just have honest disagreements, but they're 
there.
    It tickles me, you know, the Republicans have given us the awfulest 
mugging over the last 20 years, time and time again, and their primary 
was the roughest primary I ever saw. The things that the Bush campaign 
did to Senator McCain made my hair stand up on the back of my neck. And 
now they're all acting like we're being mean and negative if we point 
out what their positions are. ``If you tell the American people where we 
stand and what we've done and what we want to do, how dare you do that. 
The only way you can be positive is if you let us keep that a secret 
from the American people until the election.'' No, thank you. This 
election is about the differences and the choices before the American 
people.
    You watch what I tell you. The Republicans are coming here to 
Philadelphia--smart choice by them. Good politics. And you listen to 
them. And I mean, butter won't melt in their mouth at this--you watch 
them. You'll have the awfulest time trying to figure out what the 
differences are. They're going to love everybody and help everybody and 
do everything, and it's just going to be wonderful.
    But there are differences here. We're for a prescription drug 
benefit for Medicare that all of our seniors can afford, and they're 
not. We're for a real, enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights, and they're 
not. We're for expanding the Children's Health Insurance Program, that 
some of you helped administer, so that the parents of those kids can 
have health insurance, and they're not. We're for letting people between 
the ages of 55 and 65 who lose their health insurance buy into Medicare, 
and they're not.
    We're for letting families like you, whether you're in the 15 
percent or in the 28 percent bracket, have a 28 percent deduction for 
the

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cost of college tuition, up to $10,000 a year, and they're not for that. 
We're for it. We're for expanding the earned-income tax credit, for 
lower-income working people that have three or more kids, and they're 
not. We're for equal pay for equal work for working women, and they're 
not. We're for raising the minimum wage a buck over 2 years, and they're 
not. How can we not raise the minimum wage?
    We're for building or modernizing 6,000 schools and repairing 
another 5,000 a year over the next 5 years. We're for that, and they're 
not. We're for keeping on until we have 100,000 teachers to lower class 
sizes in the first three grades, and they're not.
    On the issues that matter most, including the protection of labor 
rights, we are different--honestly different. You don't have to believe 
they're bad people, but we ought not to hide what the differences are.
     Now, you take this prescription drug issue. We think there ought to 
be coverage through Medicare that's available and affordable to all 
seniors and people with disabilities. That's what I proposed. That's 
what you've endorsed. We also think that in the balanced budget law, 
that cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates to hospitals, nursing homes, 
home health care agencies, were excessive, and we ought to put some more 
money back in there to help ensure quality care.
    Now, what's their position? This is important. Now, you're going to 
have to talk to people who don't follow this like you do. Probably a 
good thing not everybody is as interested in politics as we are; 
otherwise, we would just be beating each other up all day. We would 
probably never get anything done. But what is their position?
    Two nights ago the Republican House passed a plan designed to 
benefit the companies that make the prescription drugs, not the people 
that need to take them. Theirs is a private insurance plan that most 
seniors can't afford. Listen to this. Their own--the House Republicans' 
own Congressional Budget Office--not me, their people--say that more 
than 50 percent of the Medicare beneficiaries who need drug coverage 
won't be able to get coverage under their plan. They say the premiums 
will be 50 percent higher under their plan than ours, and the coverage 
will be 20 percent less.
    So what did they do? They voted for it so they could say they voted 
for something, and the drug companies are happy. And then they hired a 
pollster--listen to this; this is amazing--they hired a pollster to tell 
them what words and phrases to use in Philadelphia and from now until 
November to convince you and the American people that they're for 
something they're not.
    So your job is to say, ``No, thank you. There's a real difference 
here. We want the voters of this country to know what the difference 
is.''
    Now, you take this Patients' Bill of Rights. The Republicans say 
they're for it. I was tickled--you know, I've got a passing interest in 
this Senate race in New York. So the other day, the Democratic candidate 
said that she was for a real Patients' Bill of Rights, and her opponent 
wasn't. So you know what her opponent did? He goes on television and 
says, ``She's being negative. I voted for''--listen to this; they are so 
clever; you've got to watch them. They call me slick? [Laughter] Listen 
to this. Listen to this. So what did he say? You all listen to this. 
You're going to need a shovel to deal with this between now and 
November. Now, listen to this. What did he say? He said, ``How dare her 
say such a mean thing. I am for a Patients' Bill of Rights.'' ``A'' 
Patients' Bill of Rights? [Laughter] This tie here, it's got a little 
red on it. That don't mean I'm wearing a red tie. [Laughter] What is 
this?
    So what happens? The Republicans last night in the Senate, on a 
party-line vote, passed ``a'' Patients' Bill of Rights. It's not strong. 
It's not real. It is not enforceable. Now, I want to give the 
Republicans credit. There were a number of good, brave Republicans who 
voted for a real Patients' Bill of Rights in the House, and I appreciate 
what they did. [Applause] And the leader--yes, we ought to clap for 
them. I appreciate what they did, a number of them did. They broke with 
the leadership, and they voted for a real Patients' Bill of Rights. And 
because they helped, and all our crowd did, we got a majority in the 
House.
    The leader of those Republicans, Representative Norwood--here's what 
he says

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about this Patients' Bill of Rights the Republican party supports. The 
Republican leader for the real Patients' Bill of Rights called their 
bill a, quote, ``monstrosity.''
    Now, we want a real bill. They want to deflect the issue. They want 
to be able to put up these ads and say, ``I voted for `a' Patients' Bill 
of Rights.'' So, you see, you've got to help people see through all 
this. That's your job. It's my job, but it's your job, too.
    And the same thing, you know, on minimum wage. They say, ``Well, 
I'll be for a minimum wage if you make it a little less and drag it over 
3 years and put it on some regressive plan that will take care of our 
constituents.'' And let me just say this--this equal pay thing--I loved 
it when you all stood up. They're not even making a pretense of that; 
they just don't want to talk about it. They'll say, if you ask them 
they'll say, ``Well I'm for equal pay. Everybody in the wide world's for 
equal pay. But when you pass a bill, you just make it complicated.''
    That's what they said about family and medical leave, ``I hope 
people will give it, but we couldn't possibly require it. Because if we 
did, it would be just terrible for the economy; it would be bad for 
small business.'' Well, we had an exemption for the smallest businesses, 
and if it was bad for the economy, if that's what the family and medical 
leave law was designed to do, then I did a poor job of it, because we've 
got 22 million people taking advantage of family leave, and over 22 
million new jobs.
    So you've got to tell people, this is where they stand on these 
issues--on the school construction issue, on more teachers, on quality 
training for all of our teachers, on smaller classes and fewer trailers.
    Now, we just got some good news on this school construction issue. 
Again, we've got a handful of Republicans in the House that are willing 
to buck the trend, but don't forget, partly it's because we're only five 
seats away from a majority. But we got the 218th and 219th cosponsors of 
the Johnson-Rangel bill. And this is really good news. That means that 
we could pass it in the House if we could bring it to a vote. We know 
where the Republican leadership stands in the House, and in the Senate 
they're equally, if not more, vociferously opposed. So I think our kids 
deserve better than this.
    And let me tell you something. I'm giving you this speech, but 
anytime they want to meet me halfway and pass this stuff, that's good 
for America. I'd just as soon take school construction off the election-
year list. I'd a lot rather have our kids out of the house trailers and 
out of the unsafe schools and in school rooms that can be wired to the 
Internet and out of schools that are still being heated by coal, than 
have a political issue in an election year. And so would you.
    And there's a lot of labor issues, too. They won't be talking about 
where they stand and what they're going to do for the 600,000 workers 
that are injured every year because of poor ergonomics. That's a new 
economy problem, and we ought to deal with it. We ought to continue to 
protect your health and your work site environment.
    Now, look at this--where do they stand on hate crimes? We passed the 
hate crimes bill in the Senate this week, and again I want to compliment 
the handful of Republicans that voted with us. If they hadn't done it, 
we wouldn't have passed it. But the leadership is still against it. I 
think it's important that we pass hate crimes legislation, employment 
nondiscrimination legislation. I think it's long since time that we did 
that.
    Let me just say one other thing about the gun legislation, because I 
know there are a lot of AFSCME members that are hunters and probably a 
lot of AFSCME members that are NRA members. I once had one of those 
jackets you wear in the deer woods so they won't shoot you instead of 
the deer that had ``Lifetime Membership'' on it. The NRA liked me once 
upon a time when we were doing training programs for kids and solving 
border disputes between property owners and hunters.
    But you know, there is no excuse for us not trying to keep handguns 
out of the hands of criminals and children. We ought to do that. So we 
say, ``What's wrong with requiring child trigger locks on guns?'' And 
they say, ``Well, if they want to do that voluntarily, it's okay with 
us. We don't object to it.'' Don't object to it--what's the matter with 
requiring it? They talk about gun control. I don't think

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it's gun control to say if you've got a background check log that 
applies when you buy a gun in a gun store, it ought to apply when you 
buy a gun at a flea market in a city or at a gun show.
    If you've got a law that bans the sale of assault weapons that are 
meant only to kill people, I don't think there's anything wrong with 
saying you ought to also ban the importation of large capacity 
ammunition clips which you can put on a weapon that's not an assault 
weapon and turn it into an assault weapon. I don't think there's 
anything wrong with that. What is wrong with that?
    And the only way they ever make this an issue is to scare people, 
mostly male hunters, that we're for gun control. Now you know, when you 
leave here today, if you drove here and you go home and you're in a new 
car, you're in a car with seatbelts, and you may live in a State with a 
seatbelt law. If you've got a little baby, you may live in a State with 
a child restraint law, and you're certainly going to drive on a road 
with a speed limit. But you never hear anybody talking about car 
control. Car control is if I come get your car and put it in my garage. 
Otherwise, it's highway safety. And this is the same deal here. What are 
you talking about?
    Now, what they're going to say is, they're for tougher enforcement 
of the present gun safety laws, and if we would just enforce our laws, 
we wouldn't have any problems. Well, first of all, we've increased 
enforcement over what was done in the previous administration, and I 
just gave them the biggest increase enforcement budget in history, and 
guess what? The House voted against it. So they're going to say they're 
for it, but they voted against it. You need to know these things, and 
the people need to know these things.
    All right, so three points. One, it's a big election. Two, there are 
real differences. Three, only our side wants you to know what the 
differences are. What does that tell you about how you should vote?
    Now, I want to thank you for the support the New Yorkers here have 
given to my wife. I thank you for that. And I want to thank you--
[applause]. Thank you. And I want to thank all of you from the bottom of 
my heart for the support you have given to Al Gore. And I want you to--
now, here's what I think you ought to say to non-AFSCME members who ask 
you why they ought to vote for him.
    And I believe after 8 years, I know him better than anybody outside 
his family, and here's what I want you to say. I want you to make four 
points: Number one, this country has had a lot of Vice Presidents who 
were great Presidents. Thomas Jefferson was a great President who was 
Vice President. So was Theodore Roosevelt. So was--this is a test. 
[Laughter] Now, I want you to remember this. See, a lot of people don't 
know. That's a big problem. People don't know about the Vice President. 
So was Harry Truman. Right? And Lyndon Johnson gave us Medicare and 
Federal aid to education and all those civil rights laws. So we've got a 
lot of people who were Vice Presidents who did great things as 
President.
    But in the whole history of America--and I study the history of our 
country closely--there has never been, ever, a person who, as Vice 
President, had remotely the positive impact on the welfare of the people 
of the United States that Al Gore has. He's the best qualified person in 
my lifetime to run for President.
    Now, he broke the tie on the economic plan of 1993, without which we 
wouldn't all be sitting here cheering today, because that's what got the 
deficit down, the interest rates down, and the economy going. And as he 
says, whenever he votes, we win.
    He has led our efforts to run the empowerment zone program which has 
brought thousands of jobs to poor people in poor places that are left 
behind. He has led our efforts to hook all of our schools up to the 
Internet and to make sure that the poorest schools got a discount rate 
so they could afford to log on to the Internet. That wouldn't be a law 
today if it weren't for Al Gore, and that's a big deal.
    He has led our efforts in the environmental area to prove we could 
grow the economy and improve the environment at the same time, and we've 
proved you could do that, and that's a big deal. He has managed so much 
of the responsibilities where I've gotten a lot of the credit. He's 
had--for the

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first Vice President ever, he's had big responsibilities for our 
relationships with South Africa, with Russia, with Egypt, with many 
other countries. And on every tough decision I ever had to make, he was 
always there. And the American people need to know this.
    There has never been in the history of the country a Vice President 
who has had as much responsibility, done as much with it, and had as 
much of a positive impact on the people as Vice President. And they need 
to know that.
    Now, here's the second reason that I think you ought to be for him 
and what you ought to say to people. And I admit, this is self-
interested, since I'm about to become a private citizen, but I would 
kind of like to see this economic expansion go on a little while. Now, 
you need to tell people there is a huge difference in their economic 
theory. The Vice President wants a tax cut, but he wants it focused on 
the needs of working families, for child care, long-term care, college 
education, increasing the tax credit that we give to the lowest income 
folks who have got a lot of kids. He wants it focused on these things. 
And he wants us to save enough money to invest in education, in health, 
in the environment and the future of the country, and to keep paying the 
debt down in a way that saves Medicare and saves Social Security.
    Now, let me just tell you something. You need to tell people this, 
because the other guys have got a better-sounding argument the first 
time you hear it. They say, ``Hey, you've got this huge surplus, and 
we'll give you a tax cut 3 times the size of theirs, maybe 4 times the 
size of theirs.'' But here is the fact: If you add up the cost of their 
tax cut, the cost of their plan to partially privatize the Social 
Security system--which has other problems, but just the cost of them--
you let younger people start keeping 10 percent of their payroll, all 
the rest of the people retiring on Social Security, who is going to make 
up the money? The taxpayers are. They're going to put money into the 
Social Security system.
    So you add up the tax cut, the cost of privatizing the Social 
Security system, the cost of missile defense, and the cost of their 
other promises, and it adds up to more than the on-budget surplus 
projected for the next 10 years. And he says, ``Well, the economy is 
doing great. We're going to have all this money.'' Look at what they 
say.
    Now, I ought to be saying that since we produced these surpluses, 
but let me ask you something. Somebody says to you, ``I want the bigger 
tax cut,'' you ought to say two things to them. First of all, if you 
keep paying down the debt, interest rates will be lower, and one percent 
lower interest rate--listen to this--one percent lower interest rates 
over the next 10 years saves the American people $250 billion on home 
mortgages alone--on home mortgages alone.
    But here's the next point. If I ask you--you don't have to answer, 
but you answer this question in your mind. What is your projected income 
over the next 10 years? You're answering the question in your mind. How 
confident are you that that is going to be your actual income over the 
next 10 years? And let's suppose you say, ``I'm more than 50 percent 
confident.''
    Now, if I put a little desk out here and I said I want every one of 
you who has projected your income over the next 10 years and you're more 
than 50 percent confident where it is, come right up here now and sign a 
contract on how you're going to spend it, and you will be obligated--you 
will have to spend it regardless--you would think I had lost my mind, 
wouldn't you? I wouldn't have many takers. I would be sitting up here at 
this desk, all by myself, waiting for somebody to come up here and sign 
a contract to sign away your income for the next 10 years.
    That's what the Republican tax plan is asking you to do. You need to 
say, ``No, thank you. I like this economic expansion. I want interest 
rates down. I want Americans to have jobs. I want this economy to keep 
growing.''
    Okay, so the Vice President's been the best Vice President in 
history; he'll keep the prosperity going.
    The third reason: The world is changing fast; we should have a 
President who understands the future and can take us there. What does 
that mean? I'll give you a couple of examples.

[[Page 1559]]

    We just announced the whole mapping of the human gene structure, the 
human genome. Man, I had to read up for a year just so I'd understand 
the announcement I was making. [Laughter]. But you know what it means? 
Practically, it means that mothers will take little babies home from the 
hospital, and they'll have a map of what their bodies are going to work 
like. And they'll know if they're likely to get certain diseases, and 
they'll know if they raise them in a certain way, give them a certain 
diet, give them a certain medication, they can reduce the likelihood of 
that, and their kids will live longer, better lives. It means we may be 
able to cure Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and all kinds of cancers and 
diabetes. This is a big deal.
    But if somebody's got a picture of your gene structure in a computer 
somewhere, should they be able to use it to deny you a job or a 
promotion or a raise or to deny you health insurance? I don't think so. 
Don't you think we ought to have somebody in the Oval Office that really 
understands this stuff and all the complications of it? I do. I really 
think so.
    This Internet's a great deal, man. You know, when I became 
President, there were only 50 sites on the whole World Wide Web, and 
today, there are over 10 million. The Internet alone is going to give us 
the capacity to bring economic opportunity to rural areas in America 
that have been left behind. It's great. But all your health records and 
all your financial records are on somebody's computer somewhere. Don't 
you think you ought to be able to say, yes, before somebody gets into 
them?
    And wouldn't you like to have somebody who's President who actually 
helped to draft the initial legislation in Congress to spread the 
benefits of the Internet to the world, who understands this stuff? I 
think somebody ought to be President who understands this stuff.
    I'll give you another example. Everybody now concedes that the 
planet is warming, that the polar ice cap is melting too fast, that the 
water levels are rising. We're having more radical variations in weather 
events. Nine of the hottest 10 years in the history--since we've been 
measuring for 600 years--have occurred in the last 11 years. Nine of the 
hottest years in history in the last 11 years. Now, everybody just about 
accepts it, Even the oil companies, that put a lot of greenhouse gases 
in the atmosphere, they say it's real; we've got to do something about 
it. The first lunch Al Gore and I had after we took office, in 
Washington, DC, in the White House, he took out his little chart and 
showed me how we were putting more stuff into the atmosphere in the last 
30 years than we have in the previous 500, and that was going to do 
things that would change our children's future forever. It could flood 
the sugarcane fields of Louisiana, the Everglades in Florida. It could 
change agriculture in the Midwest. It could change our life forever.
    Now, we're trying to solve this in a way that keeps the economy 
going. But it's a huge deal. Don't you think we ought to have somebody 
in the White House that understands the importance of this and knows how 
to deal with it, and still grow the economy?
    Now, so he's the best Vice President; he'll keep the economy going; 
he understands the future. The fourth reason is, he'll take us all along 
for the ride. And that's a big deal to me.
    The next President gets somewhere between two and four appointments 
to the Supreme Court. They decided 20 cases this year by one vote--20. 
And the next President's going to change the balance on the Supreme 
Court one way or the other. I want somebody appointing those judges that 
believes in individual liberties, personal rights, and wants to take us 
all along for the ride.
    I want somebody that believes all working families ought to have 
health insurance and the ability to send their kids to college and the 
ability to send their kids to schools where they have preschool and 
after-school programs and real commitment to standards, that really 
understands this stuff, that will take us all along for the ride. And I 
want somebody who wants us all to go, without regard to race, religion, 
gender, sexual orientation--thinks we all ought to go along for the 
ride.
    This country is growing more diverse every day, and it will be a 
God-send in a global economy. Just look around here. Look at the picture 
of this--I wish we could see a picture of this group 40 years ago. I bet 
it looked

[[Page 1560]]

different. America looked different. This is a big deal, folks. It is 
the biggest deal of all.
    Now, we have an unusual situation this year where both the 
Presidential candidates speak Spanish. I'm probably the last President 
of the United States in the 21st century who won't speak Spanish, and I 
may learn when I get out of office and have time to do it. But there's a 
difference here. I'll just give you one example.
    There's a guy named Enrique Moreno who lives in El Paso, Texas. 
Anybody know who he is? He grew up in the barrio there, very modest 
childhood, worked hard, went to Harvard, graduated summa cum laude, did 
great in law school. Texas judges said he's one of the three best 
lawyers in west Texas. So I nominated him to the Court of Appeals. The 
two Republican Senators from Texas wouldn't even give him a hearing. 
They said he wasn't qualified.
    What they really meant is, he won't vote the way we want him to 
vote. That's what they really meant. As you know, the Governor of Texas 
is the Republican nominee. If he had asked them to give him a hearing, 
they would have done it. He didn't say a word. There was no Spanish-
speaking plea for Enrique Moreno, because he's not part of their 
America. But he is part of our America. I think we all ought to go along 
for the ride.
    So remember, I am so grateful to you. I will never be able to thank 
you enough. You were always there. You'll always be proud of the fights, 
even the one we lost on health care. We're looking smarter every day. I 
had a Congressman tell me the other day, he said, ``You know, Mr. 
President, when I voted for your health care program, they said, `Now, 
if you vote for Bill Clinton's health care program, you'll have more and 
more people insured by the Federal Government.''' He said, ``I voted for 
your health care program, and sure enough, more people are insured by 
the Federal Government. Why? Because private insurance keeps dropping 
them, and we have to pick them up.''
    But in spite of our best efforts, there's still an unconscionable 
number of people without health insurance. We were right to fight for 
that.
    But what I want you to understand is we've come too far to turn back 
now. We've changed this country too much to reverse course. And I'm 
grateful to you, and you've been wonderful to me today. But the test is 
going to be, now that we've got this great big old country turned around 
and moving in the right direction, what are we going to do with it?
    You go out there and tell everybody, big election, big differences; 
we want you to know what the differences are. You go out there and tell 
everybody, Al Gore is the best and most important Vice President we ever 
had. He'll keep the prosperity going. He understands the future, and he 
can lead us there, and he'll take us all along for the ride.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

 Note:  The President spoke at 9:13 a.m. at the Pennsylvania Convention 
Center. In his remarks, he referred to Gerald McEntee, president, and 
William Lucy, secretary-treasurer, American Federation of State, County 
and Municipal Employees; Edward Keller, executive director, Pennsylvania 
AFSCME Council 13; Henry Nicholas, president, National Union of Hospital 
and Health Care Employees Local 1199; Dave Fillman, director, Southeast 
Pennsylvania Public Employees District Council 88; and Gov. George W. 
Bush of Texas.