[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 32 (Monday, August 14, 2000)]
[Pages 1822-1825]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Dinner for Hillary Clinton

August 9, 2000

    Thank you. Thanks for the tie. You know, I got interested in ties 
when I realized that the older and grayer I got, the more it would be 
the only sort of fashion statement I could ever make for the rest of my 
life. Thank you, Tom; thank you, Pam; thank you, Brasim, and thank you, 
ladies and gentlemen, for coming.
    I'll tell you what I would like to do. I'd like to just talk for a 
couple of minutes and then just have a conversation. If you have any 
questions you want to ask, anything you want to say to me, I will be 
glad to do it. We kind of started our dinner that way.
    But I want to begin by thanking you for coming here and for helping 
Hillary. And I wanted to just give you a little background on that. I am 
immensely proud of her for making this race. And we just got a good poll 
today from Quinnipiac College, saying that she was ahead 46 to 43, which 
I think is quite good. And if you understand anything about New York 
democratic politics, if you go into election day and you're two or three 
points ahead, you're going to be just fine.
    So I feel good about that, and I'm very proud of her because, you 
know, we had actually been looking forward to this year and being able 
to relax a little bit. We knew we'd have to work hard for the Vice 
President and now for Senator Lieberman and for our crowd in Congress. 
But we also looked forward to the nights at the White House and enjoying 
our last year there and going to Camp David. And my wife gave up a lot 
of that because she understood that it was important to carry on the 
work that we have been about this last 8 years and because half a dozen 
or more New York House Members asked her to do it, and she got up and 
spent her time--she's been to every county in New York now, and she fell 
in love with it and figured out that what they needed and wanted was the 
same thing she had been working on for 30 years.
    I can tell you this, for 30 years all she ever did was help 
everybody else, and I'm kind of proud of her for sort of venturing out 
on her own now and trying to do something for herself.
    I wanted to mention just a couple of things because I think it's 
quite important. I think it's important that the people of New York 
know, the voters know that what she did as First Lady and what she did 
before. So if you can help us with that, I'd appreciate it.
    She had basically had an unprecedented level of activity in her 
present position over the last 8 years. She's been active in lobbying 
for specific pieces of legislation from the family and medical leave law 
to the Children's Health Insurance Program to the several bills we 
passed that dramatically expanded the availability of adoptions, gave 
tax credits to people who would adopt children with disabilities, did 
more for kids in foster care and for kids that are leaving the foster 
care system--which is the product of a lifetime of commitment for her.
    She has been very active in promoting a lot of our education 
initiatives. She had the first-ever White House conference on early 
childhood and brain development, which is a very important issue; on 
violence against children, we had a big meeting on that that she put on. 
And the last thing that she did as First Lady that may have, ironically, 
one of the most enduring impacts was to basically run all of our 
millennial efforts. We came up with this slogan for the millennium that 
we would ``honor the past and imagine the future.''
    And we've essentially done two things. We've had a series, probably 
10 now, of lectures and dialogs at the White House on big issues that 
will define the next several years in the new century. The last one on 
exploring the ocean depths and exploring outer space and what's in those 
black holes. And they've been followed widely all over the world. It's 
been amazing. And it was just her idea to put it together. We had the 
famous scientist Stephen Hawking, who as you may know, has lived longer 
with Lou Gehrig's disease than anybody in history, still teaching at 
Cambridge, in England, came all the way across the ocean and gave us a 
lecture and talked on his little electronic machine about the whole 
concept of time and space and how it would change in the new century.

[[Page 1823]]

    And then in terms of honoring the past, she set up this millennial 
treasures event to do everything from save the Star-Spangled Banner and 
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to specific sites in communities 
all over America. We were just up on Martha's Vineyard. There is a 19th 
century tabernacle there that was used for a hundred years for Bible 
study in the first integrated event, racially integrated event, starting 
right after the Civil War in America, to Abraham Lincoln's summer home 
at the Old Soldiers' Home in Washington.
    And last week when we were up there, 2 weeks ago, Dick Moe, the head 
of the National Preservation Historic Trust--Historic Preservation 
Trust, said that Hillary's millennium treasures effort was the single 
largest historic preservation movement in the history of the United 
States. So, she's done a good job as First Lady. She's made a difference 
in people's lives.
    Before she ever got here, the whole--every year I was Governor and 
before when I was attorney general, she gave up huge portions of her 
income as a private lawyer to devote time to public service, just like 
she gave away all the money she made on that book, which was number one 
on the New York Times bestseller list, because she always believed in 
public service.
    But she also served on corporate boards, learned a lot about 
economics, helped to bring jobs to poor areas in our State while she was 
trying to improve education and do all the things she's done. And along 
the way, she chaired the committee that rewrote all the education 
standards in our State. She's the best organized person I ever worked 
with, with the best blend of mind and heart and policy knowledge. She's 
perfect for the U.S. Senate, and I think she's going to win. She'll be 
great at it.
    But all the people that are trying to beat her will spare no effort 
or no expense. Therefore, it's critical that you've done what you've 
done. If she has the resources, she'll do just fine. She won't let you 
down, and she'll be great in the Senate.
    The only other point I want to make about that generally is, I've 
done everything I know to do to kind of turn our country around from the 
very difficult circumstances which existed in 1991 and 1992 when I was 
running. Our Nation has never had the present combination of economic 
prosperity, social progress, the absence of domestic crisis or foreign 
threat, and national self-confidence we've got now. And it's very 
important that this work continue. And that means that every Senate seat 
and every House seat is pivotally important.
    It also means, from my point of view, that this national election is 
pivotally important. A lot of you have been going to these events that I 
do, and I had this little mantra. I'll say it again. I say I always tell 
people there are three very important things you need to know about this 
election: It is a big election; there are big differences; and our party 
is the only party that wants you to know what the differences really 
are. What does that tell you about who you ought to vote for?
    But it's actually, in fact, true. If you saw what the undecided 
voter said after our friends met in Philadelphia, they said, ``Gosh, we 
like those people. They look great, and they look like they're not being 
mean and rightwing anymore. They're being inclusive. But what do they 
stand for, anyway?'' That's what they said. The undecided voters said, 
``I liked what I saw, but I didn't hear anything. I don't know what 
they're going to do if they get in.''
    And there are a lot of stories which say, ``Well, people--pretty 
relaxed about this election. After all, things are so good in America. 
Why be--you know, sort of a don't-worry-be-happy election?'' And then 
there was a huge story on the cover of--I think it was USA Today not 
very long ago, saying that the people didn't know if there was any 
difference between the two candidates on their economic policy--the two 
candidates for President.
    So I just would say to you--in addition to this incredible 
generosity tonight to Hillary, and thank you for rescheduling this, 
because I was in the Camp David peace talks before when we were supposed 
to do it--every one of you has a big network of friends and co-workers 
and colleagues. Maybe they're people that share your politics but may 
not be as energized as you are. Maybe they're people who don't share 
your politics at all or don't think about politics much. But

[[Page 1824]]

let me just say, I've lived long enough now to know that people often 
make mistakes, not because they're living under such adversity but 
because things are going along so well they just stop concentrating. And 
anybody who lives to be beyond the age of 30 can cite at least one time 
in his or her life when you have made a mistake because things were 
going so well you just stopped thinking.
    And this is a phenomenal opportunity for us to basically decide what 
we want the future to look like, and then go do it. And change is the 
only constant, particularly in today's economy. Nothing stays the same 
forever. We need to make the most of this.
    The second thing is there really are just huge differences here. I 
mean, there are big differences in economic policy, in crime policy, in 
health care policy, in education policy, environmental policy, right 
down the line. And in our policy on building one America, whether we 
should have a minimum wage, hate crimes legislation, employment 
nondiscrimination legislation, whether we should preserve or get rid of 
a woman's right to choose--all these things are at stake here. The next 
President will make two to four appointments to the Supreme Court. U.S. 
Senators will confirm them, or not. So there's a lot at stake.
    And the only other thing I want to say is let me just briefly ask 
you to think about this economic question, because their line--you can 
say their line quicker than ours, and it sounds so much better. They 
say, ``Gosh, we're going to have this $2 trillion surplus, and it's your 
money, and we're going to give it back to you in a tax cut.'' And we 
say, ``Now, wait a minute. You want a $2 trillion tax cut, but that 
leaves you nothing to provide prescription drugs for Medicare people or 
deal with long-term care or deal with the baby boomers retiring on 
Social Security or Medicare. And if you want to partially privatize 
Social Security and protect the benefits of everybody who is on Social 
Security, that alone costs another trillion dollars. And you haven't 
paid for Star Wars yet or anything else.''
    So in other words, how can you give it all away with a tax cut? We 
say, ``We'll only give about a quarter as big a tax cut as they will 
because we think we have to have money to invest in education, health 
care, the environment, and science and technology, and because we want 
to keep paying the debt down and get this country out of debt, and we're 
going to have to take care of all these baby boomers when they retire.'' 
Now, it takes me longer to say that, but let me put it to you in another 
way.
    I asked the Council of Economic Advisers to tell me what the 
difference was between the $2 trillion tax cut, being conservative and 
all--in other words, giving all the other side the benefit of the 
doubt--and the plan that I have embraced, that the Vice President and 
Senator Lieberman are now working on. They say that the Gore plan will 
keep interest rates at least--at least--one percent below the Republican 
plan every year for a decade. That is worth $250 billion in home 
mortgages, $30 billion in car payments, $15 billion in college loan 
payments; never mind the fact that it means lower business loans, which 
means more business loans, more growth, more jobs, and a better stock 
market.
    And I haven't even gotten to the main point, which is what are we 
going to do if the surplus doesn't materialize and we give it away in 
advance by giving it all away in a tax cut? I never thought--I'm up 
here--you may remember that during the primary I was actually attacked 
and, by extension, the Vice President was, for being so insistent on 
continuing to pay down the debt. I was attacked from the left. But the 
best social program is a job. And this is a more just country than it 
was 8 years ago because child poverty has dropped, income is going up in 
all quintiles, the female unemployment rate is the lowest it's been in 
40 years, the single-parent household poverty rate is the lowest it's 
been in 46 years. The economy does that for you.
    And I'm telling you, this is really--it's wrong for us to get off 
this path we've been on of driving this debt down, keeping the interest 
rates as low as we can, and letting the technology and the explosion in 
productivity, which was a 5 percent increase in the last quarter over 
the same period last year--keep taking this thing along until we bring 
everybody along in this economy.
    And I know a lot of you have heard me say this before; I would to 
tell you one more

[[Page 1825]]

time. Their position, which is, ``Let's give everybody a tax cut. It's 
your money, because we project it''--it really does remind me of these 
Publishers Clearing House, these sweepstake letters you get from Ed 
McMahon. ``You may have won $10 million.'' You may have. And everybody 
that went out the next day and spent the $10 million should seriously 
consider supporting the Republicans in this election. [Laughter] Every 
single one of them. But everybody else ought to stick with us and keep 
this thing going.
    And that's just one difference. But I'm telling you, it is--there 
really is--I've dealt with a Republican Congress now for 5 years, and 
I've found a lot of common ground with Speaker Hastert. We're going to 
pass this new markets legislation, I think, this year. We passed the 
Africa/Caribbean Basin trade bill with the help of the Republican and 
the Democratic leadership, where Senator Lott and Senator Daschle worked 
together. I work every which way I can. But I promise you, this is--it 
is a profound philosophical difference.
    They actually believe it's okay to have tax cuts based on a hundred 
percent of the projected surplus. And I can tell you--people ask me all 
the time--Bob Rubin and I were together the other day at his portrait 
unveiling, and we were talking about how we started the economic team 
and Lloyd Bentsen was my first Treasury Secretary and all that. And all 
these guys came up to me--one guy says to me, he says, ``Well, Mr. 
President, what was the principal economic reform you brought to 
Washington. What do you think was the principal thing you've done that 
led to all this incredible growth, and what was the main change?'' And I 
said, ``Arithmetic.'' [Laughter] ``We brought back arithmetic. We 
stopped spending money we didn't have. We stopped projecting in a rosy 
way. We stopped acting like all this stuff falls from trees and the sky. 
And we started working in a disciplined way to make hard choices.''
    So I'm just telling you, Hillary needs your help; the Vice President 
and Senator Lieberman need your help; America needs your help. Every one 
of you has a network. We've got a chance to keep this economy going and 
spread its benefits. But the first and foremost thing we have to decide 
is, are we going to continue the disciplined path of the last 8 years, 
taking advantage of the fact that we can do more than we could when I 
came in because we've turned it around, or are we going to back to the 
policy which says all tax cuts are good whether you've got the money or 
not, give it away, and worry about the consequences later?
    Now, we've tried it both ways. You had 12 years of one way; now 
you've had 8 years the other way. And you can add up the evidence either 
way and draw your own conclusion. But the only way we can get in trouble 
is if people don't think about it like that, if they don't really think 
it's a big election, if they think this thing is so strong you couldn't 
mess it up with a stick of dynamite, if they don't understand with 
clarity the choice there. Clarity is our friend.
    You can be positive and upbeat, and you should be. You never have to 
say a bad word about any of our opponents. Just talk about the 
differences, and let people decide. We've been around here over 200 
years now because usually the people get it right if they have enough 
time and enough information.
    The final thing I want to say is I want to thank Tom for what he 
said about Ireland and the Middle East. It's been the great joy of my 
life to labor for peace, which is the highest example of what Harry 
Truman said is the essential work of the Presidency, which is trying to 
persuade people to do what they should do without having to be asked in 
the first place. [Laughter]
    Thank you very much.

 Note:  The President spoke at 10:15 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to dinner cohosts Tom Quinn and Pam and Brasim 
Ekpone.