[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 31 (Monday, August 7, 2000)]
[Pages 1760-1766]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Luncheon in Tampa

July 31, 2000

    Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your warm 
welcome, and

[[Page 1761]]

I want to thank Bill Nelson for his introduction. It's amazing how, if 
you've sort of got one leg in the political grave, people think you're 
doing a better job. [Laughter] Let me say how delighted I am to be here.
    I remember well the first time I came to a fundraiser in Tampa in 
1992 early, early, early, early. Some of you were there then. And I 
particularly appreciate it because at that time, my mother was the only 
voting American who thought I could win. [Laughter] And a lot of things 
have happened in the last 8 years and some odd months, and I have been 
very honored to serve. And I thank you all for coming today.
    I first want to acknowledge Congressman Jim Davis. He's doing a 
wonderful job for you in the House, and he's a real treasure. He's been 
a stand-up guy. And for someone without a lot of seniority, he has both 
had a big impact, and he's been willing to cast brave votes, and I'm 
very grateful to him. And even though the light is blinding my weakening 
eyes, I think I see Sam Gibbons out there. And I thank you, sir.
    I want to thank Mayor Greco for his warm welcome. I have loved my 
visits with him here. I'm like Jim, I like to see a person who likes his 
job. If there's anything I can't stand it's to hear somebody in public 
office complain. You know, nobody makes us take these jobs. You've got 
to work like crazy to get them, and as soon as you give one up, somebody 
else wants it. [Laughter] So he never made any pretense of the fact that 
he loves this city, and he loves his job, and he's been a dream to work 
with.
    I'd like to thank Ben Hill Griffin and Chris Hoyer and Jim Wilkes 
for chairing this event and for harassing the rest of you to give money 
to it. [Laughter] I'd like to thank Buddy MacKay for coming over here 
with me today and for the brilliant job he's doing as our Envoy to the 
Americas, and the leadership that he showed in passing our trade bill on 
the Caribbean Basin earlier this year. We can be very proud of that.
    I thank the other people here who are running for Congress. We just 
need five more seats to win the House, and maybe we saw a couple of them 
here today. And I thank Bob Poe for chairing the Democratic Party here. 
This is going to be a good State, I think, for us in November if we do 
the right things.
    Most important of all, though, I want to say that I'm honored to be 
here for Bill Nelson. I've known Bill for, I don't know, years and years 
and years, a long time. And he and Grace have been friends of Hillary 
and mine for years. They and their children came to the White House and 
stayed with us one night. And we stayed up later than we should have, 
talking. And we've had the opportunity over the years at various 
encounters to get to know one another, and I think the world of both of 
them. And I think that we need more people like them in Washington, 
people who are civil and decent and reasonable and caring, and not just 
in election season, not just as a part of a marketing strategy but 
because they think it's the right thing to do. And he's been an 
absolutely superb insurance commissioner, and he would be a superb 
United States Senator.
    Let me say to all of you, it has been the great--obviously--the 
great honor of my life to serve as President. I can't believe all the 
time that's passed. When I ran for President, I did so against all the 
odds, when no one thought I could win, because I believed the country 
was going in the wrong direction and was coming apart when it ought to 
be coming together. And I thought that the Washington political system 
was never going to serve America well unless it got shaken up and 
changed.
    And if we have had some measure of success up there, I think in no 
small degree it's because Al Gore and I went up there with a set of 
ideas for specific things we wanted to do, rooted in the values of 
creating opportunity for every responsible American and creating a 
community in which all Americans feel a part, in a world where we're 
still the leading force for peace and freedom and prosperity.
    Now, even though we faced intense partisan opposition at almost 
every turn of the road, it turned out the ideas worked pretty well for 
America. You know, when I passed the economic plan in 1993, without a 
vote to spare, only Democrats voting for it, to bring the deficit down, 
Al Gore breaking the tie vote in the Senate. As he says, his record

[[Page 1762]]

since we've been there is a lot better than mine; whenever he votes, we 
win. [Laughter]
    I remember how our friends in the Republican Party said, oh, it 
would be the end of civilization as we knew it. My terrible, terrible 
economic program was going to bankrupt the country. It was going to 
weaken the economy. We'd have a terrible recession. The deficit would 
get worse. This was from a crowd that had quadrupled the debt of the 
country in 12 years, telling me how bad I was. And then, lo and behold, 
it didn't work out the way they said it would.
    By the time we got ready to pass the bipartisan balanced budget 
amendment in '97 all the hard work had been done. And we got more than 
two-thirds of both parties in both Houses to vote for that. And now 
we've had, as all of you know, the longest economic expansion in 
history. That's given us over 22 million new jobs and the lowest 
unemployment rate in 30 years, and the highest homeownership in history, 
and greater social justice--lowest child poverty rate in 20 years, 
lowest minority unemployment rate ever recorded, the lowest female 
unemployment rate in 40 years, the lowest rate of single-parent 
household poverty in 46 years. So we're moving in the right direction. 
This thing is going as it should.
    But the big question in this election is, what do we propose to do 
with our prosperity? That is the big issue. And I think that, as Bill 
Nelson goes out across this State between now and November, whether he 
wins or not--and I believe he will--depends in no small measure on what 
people believe the election's about. You might ask yourself just 
quietly, what do you think it's about? The only trouble we've got in 
this election right now, anywhere in America, is the confusion that 
exists about what the differences are between the candidates for 
President, Senate, Congress, and the two parties.
    There was a big story in one of our major national newspapers the 
other day; the American people are not sure there's much difference in 
economic policy. A big story in one of the other newspapers about 4 days 
ago about an interview system with a lot of suburban women who wanted 
more gun safety legislation had no earthly idea what the difference 
between the two candidates was.
    And I say that because I think there are three things you need to 
know about this election. One is, it's a huge, profoundly important 
election, just as important as the election in 1992. Why? Because what a 
country does with its prosperity is just as stern a test of its 
judgment, its values, and its character as what it does with adversity. 
You didn't have to be a genius to know we had to do something different 
in '92.
    I'll never forget when Hillary gave me that little saying that 
somebody gave us that said the definition of insanity is doing the same 
thing over and over again and expecting a different result. [Laughter] 
So you didn't have to be a genius to figure out we had to change.
    So now we are at the time in our history, maybe unique in our 
history, when we had this unique combination of enormous economic 
prosperity, improving social progress, welfare rolls cut in half, crime 
at a 25-year low, teen pregnancy down, every social indicator going in 
the right direction. And we don't have a domestic crisis or a foreign 
threat sufficiently grave to distract us. What are we going to do about 
it? That's a big issue.
    The second thing you need to know about the election is that there 
are big differences. And the decisions the voters make in all these 
races will have significant consequences in how we live our lives and 
what we do with our prosperity and what kind of people we are.
    And then the third thing you need to know is that in this election 
year only the Democrats want you to know what the differences are--
[laughter]--which is a pretty good indicator of who you ought to vote 
for.
    Now, what do I mean by that? Well, on our side, led by Vice 
President Gore, we've got a group of men and women who want to keep our 
prosperity going by getting this country out of debt, continuing to 
invest in education and in the future of our economy, having affordable 
tax cuts, and providing drug coverage for our seniors on Medicare.
    On their side, their main argument, as near as I can tell is, ``We 
want to be inclusive and compassionate and spend the whole surplus on 
tax cuts, but be nice about it while we're doing it.'' And actually, 
their argument is

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easier to sell than ours. Their argument is, ``Hey, this is your money. 
We're going to give it back to you. Wouldn't you like to have it?''
    Now, then there are all these issues they don't talk about. So what 
I would like to tell you is what I honestly believe the differences are 
because I want you to share them with your friends and neighbors who 
would never come here. But it's very important. No point in having an 
election if the people don't know what the differences are and don't 
understand what the consequences are. And I'll just start with the 
economy.
    Their side says, ``We've got this big projected surplus, and we're 
going to give it back to you in tax cuts.'' And, as I said earlier 
today, every one of these tax cuts sounds good. And they're doing it--
they're smarter this year--this year's tax cut--last year was just one 
big, omnibus bill. This year, they're doing it salami style, passing a 
little along so they all sound good. But when you add them all up, and 
especially you put the new ones they're committing to in Philadelphia, 
it's the entire proposed surplus. So every one of them looks good, but 
it's kind of like going to a cafeteria. Every time I go to a cafeteria, 
everything I see looks good. But if I eat it all, I'll get sick. Think 
about it.
    So that's their position. Their economic policy is, ``Let's do what 
we did before, Who cares if we go back to deficits?'' And they'll spend 
it all on tax cuts before they even keep their own spending promises. 
Never mind what emergencies come up. Our position is different. It is, 
``Hey, let's remember how we got to this dance today. We got here by 
getting rid of this deficit, getting interest rates down, getting it 
where people could invest and grow the economy. So let's keep paying 
down the debt, save some money back to invest in education and to 
lengthen the life of Medicare and Social Security, so when the baby 
boomers retire they don't bankrupt their kids, and provide a 
prescription drug benefit for seniors on Medicare. Let's have a tax cut 
and focus it on paying for long-term care, for college, for child care, 
helping working people with a lot of kids, and helping people with their 
retirement. Ours costs 25 percent of what theirs does and does way more 
good for 80 percent of the people.''
    And then we say, ``Then let's save several hundred billion dollars 
of this projected surplus and let the next President and the next 
Congress decide what to do over the next several years as we see whether 
the money comes in.'' Now, this--I can hardly tell you how important 
this is.
    We've worked really hard to get this country turned around, to get 
this economy going. And their position is, ``Let's spend all the 
projected surplus.'' Did you ever get one of those letters in the mail 
from Ed McMahon, you know, from the Publishers' Clearinghouse? ``You may 
have won $10 million.'' [Laughter] Did you go out and spend that $10 
million the next day? [Laughter] If you did, you should support them in 
this election. [Laughter] But if you didn't, you'd better stick with us. 
If you want to live like a Republican, you've got to vote for the 
Democrats this year. [Laughter] This is important. This is a big deal.
    Now, the second issue, education--what's our program? Our program is 
that we should take the limited Federal dollars we have and spend it on 
more teachers in the classrooms, training those teachers better, 
modernizing and repairing schools--because you know here in Florida how 
many schools you have--right here in Tampa, I've been to a school, a 
high school right here in Tampa, just full of housetrailers behind, in 
back. We need to help deal with this issue.
    We want to help people go to college. And we want to say to schools 
all over America, school districts, ``You've got to turn these schools 
around or shut them down. No more failing schools.''
    Now, here's the good news: Student performance is going up. All over 
America failing schools are turning around. I was in Spanish Harlem in 
New York City the other day, in a school that 2 years ago had 80 percent 
of its kids--listen to this, now--80 percent doing English and math 
below grade level--2 years ago. Today, 74 percent of them are doing 
English and math at or above grade level, in 2 years.
    I've been in schools in Columbus, Ohio, and rural Kentucky, all over 
America that were failing that are turned around, without regard to the 
racial or economic backgrounds

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of the kids in the school. We know how to do it. That's our position.
    Their position is: The Federal money investment in education should 
be spent on block grants and vouchers. I think we're right. You have to 
decide. But we have some evidence that our plan works. And in the 
economy, we've sure got all the evidence we need. All you've got to do--
we tried it their way for 12 years and our way for 8 years. Compare our 
8 years to their 12 and make up your mind.
    In crime, let's talk about that. Our position is: More police on the 
street, do more to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and kids. And 
they said when I signed the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban--they 
terrified all these hunters and said I was going to take their guns away 
and how awful it was. I heard all that stuff all over America. It's one 
of the reasons we lost the House in 1994. When I went back to New 
Hampshire in 1996, where they beat one of those Congressmen, I said, 
``You know, you guys beat your Democratic Congressman up here because he 
voted for my crime bill. And if a person in this audience''--and I got 
all these hunters together--I said, ``If one of you missed a day in the 
deer woods, I want you to vote against me, too, because he did it for 
me. But if you didn't miss a day in the deer woods, they didn't tell you 
the truth, and you need to get even.'' And our margin of victory in New 
Hampshire went up by 12 percent in 4 years. [Laughter]
    This country has a lower crime rate than we've had in 25 years. Gun 
crime has gone down by 35 percent. So what do we say? We say, ``Let's 
put more police on the street in the high crime neighborhoods. Let's 
close the gun show loophole in the background check law''--which you 
voted to do in Florida, overwhelmingly--``have mandatory child safety 
locks, and stop importing these large capacity ammunition clips which 
allow the manufacturers to get around the assault weapons ban.'' That's 
what we say.
    What do they say? Throw the book at anybody that violates the law 
and have more people carrying concealed weapons, even in church. Now, 
you have to decide which side you agree with. But it's not like you 
don't have any evidence here. We tried it our way, and we tried it their 
way. And crime goes down more our way.
    Now, the third thing I would like to say something about is health 
care. I said, we're for adding a voluntary prescription drug benefit to 
Medicare. They are for making people buy private insurance and 
subsidizing it for people up to 150 percent of the poverty line. The 
only problem with their program is, even the insurance companies say 
there is no way to have stand-alone health insurance for prescription 
drugs.
    Nevada passed a program just like the ones the Republicans in 
Congress passed, and not a single, solitary insurance company would 
offer the drugs because it won't work, and they didn't want to 
participate in a fraud. Now, this is a huge deal in Florida, but it's a 
big deal all over America for the elderly, the disabled.
    Our program is for the drug users; theirs is for the drug makers. It 
is not a complicated thing. You just have to decide how important this 
is and whether you're willing to pay the price of our seniors never 
getting it if you don't support the Democrats. And you need to go tell 
people in Florida. We're for a Patients' Bill of Rights, and they're 
not.
    Let's take the environment. I've worked real hard here on a program 
that would balance all the interests to save the Florida Everglades. I'm 
really proud of it. The Vice President worked hard on it. We really have 
labored to try to support you in what you're doing in Florida. And we 
saved a lot of Yellowstone Park from a gold mine, and we set aside more 
land in perpetuity in the lower 48 States than any administration in 
history except those of the two Roosevelts. And we proved, I think, that 
you could have cleaner air, cleaner water, and safer food and still have 
a stronger economy, because we raised all the environmental standards. 
We just did it in a sensible way.
    Now, what's their position? Their position will be to weaken that 
direction, to repeal--one specific commitment they've already made is to 
repeal my order setting aside 43 million roadless acres in the national 
forests. The Audubon Society says it's the most significant conservation 
move in the last 40 years. They say they'll get rid of it. And they'll 
allow oil drilling in some places where we

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haven't. And apparently, they're committed to weaker regulations on the 
chemical industry.
    Now, I've done everything I could to create jobs and be pro-
business. But I think we've got to be pro-environment and pro-business. 
And you just have to decide which side you want to be on and what you 
think the best thing is for America. And these are the kinds of 
questions people have to be asked.
    The same thing is true with regard to one America. One of the things 
that I want to do is make sure that we're all going along for the ride 
here. We're for raising the minimum wage for people that can never 
afford to come to a dinner like this but may be serving it. I think it's 
unconscionable that it's still below what it was in 1982 in purchasing 
power terms when we've got 4 percent unemployment. It's just wrong. 
Nobody ought to work full-time for a living and have kids that are still 
below the poverty line. It's wrong. But they're not for it.
    Now, they're sort of being quiet on it now because the last time 
they fought me on it 4 years ago, they said it would cost jobs, and we 
created 11 million jobs since we passed it. So they really don't have a 
justification anymore. They can't--they're kind of embarrassed to say 
they're not for it, but they're not for it yet. If we turn up the heat 
enough between now and election, they will get it. But it's a big 
difference.
    We're for hate crimes legislation, and they're basically not for it. 
Oh, a few of them are, but the leadership is not, and the nominee is not 
because it protects gays. Well, I think everybody ought to be protected 
from hate crimes, which is a crime, an assault on you just because of 
who you are. But you can decide whether you agree with that or not. But 
that's where we are.
    And there will be a big impact on the courts. The next President 
will appoint two to four judges on the Supreme Court, and the Senate 
will have to decide whether to confirm them or reject them. This is a 
huge decision. Their nominee says his favorite judges are Justice Thomas 
and Justice Scalia, by far the most conservative judges on the Court. 
That's what he said. And so you have to decide, because there will be 
big consequences.
    So if you just go back, here we are with this--a whole future before 
us, with all these opportunities out there, and you should be happy. We 
don't have to have one of these negative campaigns like we used to have 
for 20 years that were mostly brought to us by their side, trying to 
convince you that whoever their opponent was was just one step above a 
car thief. [Laughter] I recommend we just call timeout and say everybody 
running this year is a good, patriotic American. They are men and women 
who love their families and love their country and will do what they 
think is right, but they have honest disagreements. They disagree over 
economic policy and educational policy and health care policy and 
environmental policy and crime policy and civil rights policy, and what 
it means to be an American citizen and what kind of individual rights 
you should have as guaranteed by the Supreme Court. And we want to have 
a debate over that.
    Now, their strategy is to blur all that. I'll be very surprised if 
you hear anybody say this week at their meeting what I just said to you, 
even though I have tried to be exceedingly faithful to the differences 
between the two parties. And their strategy is to talk about compassion 
and all. It's a brilliant strategy. It's a pretty package, and they're 
hoping if they wrap it tight enough, nobody will open it before 
Christmas. [Laughter]
    And what we've got to do is try to make sure that the American 
people open the package in September and October, so they will know. I 
trust the American people. They almost always get it right. Otherwise, 
we wouldn't still be here after over 200 years. And if everybody 
understands exactly what the choices are and the Vice President doesn't 
win or Bill Nelson doesn't win, we'd be all right about that. But the 
truth is, if everybody understands exactly what the choices are, Bill 
Nelson will be the next Senator; Al Gore will be the next President; we 
will win the House of Representatives. Why? Because our economic 
policies, our educational policies, our health care policies are right 
for the country. Because the idea of building one America, not just with 
words but with deeds, and giving everybody a

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chance to participate in this brilliant future of science and technology 
in this global economy is the right thing for the country and the right 
thing for our children's future. That's why.
    I'm telling you, as much, as many good things that have happened in 
the last 8 years, believe me, all the great stuff is still out there. 
But there are big challenges. Look at Florida's school kids, how diverse 
they are. If you want this country to be where it ought to be, every one 
of them has got to be able to get a good education. We have to figure 
out how, when all us baby boomers retire and the average 65-year-old can 
look forward to living to be 83, we're going to manage that without 
bankrupting our kids and grandkids.
    We have to figure out how to make the most of this scientific and 
technological revolution. One of the reasons I want Al Gore to be 
President, apart from my personal relationship with him, is that I have 
studied very hard the impacts of the information technology revolution, 
the impacts of the genome revolution, what's likely to happen over the 
next 10 years. It seems to me that you want somebody that can make the 
most of the computer revolution and still protect your financial and 
medical records and not let somebody get at them unless you say okay. It 
seems to me you want somebody who can help make the most of this 
scientific revolution without letting somebody deny you a job or 
promotion or raise or health insurance because of your little gene map. 
It seems to me we ought to have somebody in the White House that 
understands the future.
    And I know we ought to have people in the Senate who have the values 
and the judgment and just the way of operating that Bill Nelson does. 
Believe me, I've done everything I could to turn this country around, 
and the only thing now we have to decide is, what is this election 
about? If people really say, this election is about what shall we do 
with this moment of prosperity, how can we meet the big challenges and 
seize the big opportunities out there, Bill Nelson will be just fine.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

 Note:  The President spoke at 2:04 p.m. in the Audubon Ballroom at the 
Hyatt Regency Westshore. In his remarks, he referred to Bill Nelson, 
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Florida, and his wife, Grace; 
Mayor Dick A. Greco of Tampa; former Representative Sam M. Gibbons; Ben 
Hill Griffin III, Chris Hoyer, and Jim Wilkes, luncheon cohosts; and 
Republican Presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush of Texas.