[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 33 (Monday, August 21, 2000)]
[Pages 1881-1887]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Remarks to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California
August 14, 2000
Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Isn't it great to be
here in California together? [Applause] Forty years ago the great city
of Los Angeles launched John Kennedy and the New Frontier. Now Los
Angeles is launching the first President of the new century, Al Gore.
I come here tonight, above all, to say a heartfelt thank you. Thank
you. Thank you for giving me the chance to serve. Thank you for being so
good to Hillary and Chelsea. I am so proud of them. And didn't she give
a good talk? [Applause] I thought it was great. I thank you for
supporting the New Democratic agenda that has taken our country to new
heights of prosperity, peace, and progress. As always, of course, the
lion's share of credit goes to the American people, who do the work,
raise the kids, and dream the dreams.
Now, at this moment of unprecedented good fortune, our people face a
fundamental choice: Are we going to keep this progress and prosperity
going? Yes, we are.
But my friends, we can't take our future for granted. We cannot take
it for granted. So let's just remember how we got here.
Eight years ago, when our party met in New York, it was in a far
different time for America. Our economy was in trouble. Our society was
divided. Our political system was paralyzed. Ten million of our fellow
citizens were out of work. Interest rates were high. The deficit was
$290 billion and rising. After 12 years of Republican rule, the Federal
debt had quadrupled, imposing a crushing burden on our economy and on
our children. Welfare rolls, crime, teen pregnancy, income inequality--
all had been skyrocketing. And our
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Government was part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I saw all this in a very personal way in 1992, out there in the real
America with many of you. I remember a child telling me her father broke
down at the dinner table because he lost his job. I remember an older
couple crying in front of me because they had to choose between filling
their shopping carts and filling their prescriptions. I remember a hard-
working immigrant in a hotel kitchen who said his son was not really
free because it wasn't safe for him to play in the neighborhood park.
I ran for President to change the future for those people. And I
asked you to embrace new ideas rooted in enduring values: opportunity
for all, responsibility from all, and a community of all Americans. You
gave me the chance to turn those ideas and values into action after I
made one of the very best decisions of my entire life, asking Al Gore to
be my partner.
Now, first we proposed a new economic strategy: Get rid of the
deficit to reduce interest rates; invest more in our people; sell more
American products abroad. We sent our plan to Congress. It passed by a
single vote in both Houses. In a deadlocked Senate, Al Gore cast the
tie-breaking vote. Not a single Republican supported it.
Here's what their leaders said. Their leaders said our plan would
increase the deficit, kill jobs, and give us a one-way ticket to
recession. Time has not been kind to their predictions.
Remember, our Republican friends said then they would absolutely not
be held responsible for our economic policies. I hope the American
people take them at their word. [Applause] Thank you.
Today, after 7\1/2\ years of hard effort, we're in the midst of the
longest economic expansion in history, more than 22 million new jobs,
the lowest unemployment in 30 years, the lowest female unemployment in
40 years, the lowest Hispanic and African-American unemployment rate
ever recorded, and the highest homeownership in history.
Now, along the way, in 1995 we turned back the largest cuts in
history in Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment. And just
2 years later we proved that we could find a way to balance the budget
and protect our values. Today, we have gone from the largest deficits in
history to the largest surpluses in history. And if, but only if, we
stay on course, we can make America debt-free for the first time since
Andy Jackson was President in 1835.
For the first time in decades, wages are rising at all income
levels. We have the lowest child poverty in 20 years, the lowest poverty
rate for single mothers ever recorded. The average family's income has
gone up more than $5,000, and for African-American families, even more.
The number of families who own stock, in our country, has grown by 40
percent.
You know, Harry Truman's old saying has never been more true, ``If
you want to live like a Republican, you better vote for the Democrats.''
[Applause] Thank you.
But our progress is about far more than economics. America is also
more hopeful, more secure, and more free. We're more hopeful because
we're turning our schools around with higher standards, more
accountability, more investment. We have doubled funding for Head Start
and provided after-school and mentoring to more than a million more
young people. We're putting 100,000 well-trained teachers in the early
grades to lower class size. Ninety-five percent of our schools are
already connected to the Internet. Reading, math, and SAT scores are up,
and more students than ever are going on to college, thanks to the
biggest expansion of college aid since the GI bill 50 years ago. Now,
don't let anybody tell you that all children can't learn or that our
public schools can't make the grade. Yes, they can. Yes, they can.
We're also more hopeful because we ended welfare as we knew it. Now,
those who can work, must work. On that, we and the Republicans agreed.
But we Democrats also insisted on support for good parenting, so that
poor children don't go hungry or lose their health care, unmarried teens
stay in school, and people get the job training, child care, and
transportation they need. It has worked. Today, there are more than 7\1/
2\ million people who have moved from welfare to work, and the welfare
rolls in our administration have been cut in half.
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We're more hopeful because of the way we cut taxes to help Americans
meet the challenges of work and childrearing. This year alone our HOPE
scholarship and lifelong learning tax credits will help 10 million
families pay for college. Our earned-income tax credit will help 15
million families work their way into the middle class. Twenty-five
million families will get a $500 child tax credit. Our empowerment zone
tax credits are bringing new business and new jobs to our hardest
pressed communities, from the inner cities to Appalachia to the
Mississippi Delta to our Native American reservations. And the typical
American family today is paying a lower share of its income in Federal
income taxes than at any time during the past 35 years.
We are a more hopeful because of the Family and Medical Leave Act, a
bill that the previous administration vetoed. They said it would cost
jobs. It's the first bill I signed, and we now have a test. Twenty-two
million new jobs later, over 20 million Americans have been able to take
a little time off to care for a newborn child or sick relative. That's
what it means--that's what it really means to be pro-family. [Applause]
Thank you.
We are more secure country because we cut crime with tougher
enforcement, more than 100,000 new community police officers, a ban on
assault weapons, and the Brady law, which has kept guns out of the hands
of half a million felons, fugitives, and stalkers. Today, crime in
America is at a 25-year low.
And we're more secure because of advances in health care. We've
extended the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by 26 years, added coverage
for cancer screening and cutting-edge clinical trials. We're coming
closer to cures for dreaded diseases. We made sure that people with
disabilities could go to work without losing their health care and that
people could switch jobs without losing their coverage. We dramatically
improved diabetes care. We provided health coverage under the Children's
Health Insurance Program to 2 million previously uninsured children. And
for the first time in our history, more than 90 percent of our kids have
been immunized against serious childhood diseases. You can be proud of
that Democratic record.
We are more secure because our environment is cleaner. We've set
aside more land in the lower 48 States than any administration since
Teddy Roosevelt, saving national treasures like Yellowstone, the great
California redwoods, the Florida Everglades. Moreover, our air is
cleaner; our water is cleaner; our food is safer; and our economy is
stronger. You can grow the economy and protect the environment at the
same time.
Now, we're more free because we are closer today to the one America
of our dreams, celebrating our diversity, affirming our common humanity,
opposing all forms of bigotry, from church burnings to racial profiling
to murderous hate crimes. We're fighting for employment
nondiscrimination legislation and for equal pay for women. [Applause]
Thank you.
We found ways to mend, not end, affirmative action. We have given
America the most diverse administration in history. It really looks like
America. You know, if I could just get my administration up here, it
would be just as good a picture as anything you saw a couple of weeks
ago in Philadelphia--the real people loving it. And we created
AmeriCorps, which already has given more than 150,000 of our young
people a chance to earn some money for college by serving in our
communities.
We are more secure, and we're more free because of our leadership in
the world for peace, freedom, and prosperity, helping to end a
generation of conflict in Northern Ireland, stopping the brutal ethnic
cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, and bringing the Middle East closer than
ever to a comprehensive peace.
We built stronger ties to Africa, Asia, and our Latin American and
Caribbean neighbors. We brought Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic
into NATO. We are working with Russia to destroy nuclear weapons and
materials. We are fighting head-on the new threats and injustices of the
global age, terrorism, narcotrafficking, biological and chemical
warfare, the trafficking in women and young girls, and the deadly spread
of AIDS. And in the great tradition of President Jimmy Carter, who is
here tonight, we are still the world's leading force for human
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rights around the world. Thank you, President Carter.
The American military is the best trained, best equipped, most
effective fighting force in the world. Our men and women have shown that
time and again in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Haiti, and Iraq. I can tell you
that their strength, their spirit, their courage, and their commitment
to freedom have never been greater. Any adversary who believes those who
say otherwise is making a grave mistake.
Now, my fellow Americans, that's the record, or as that very famous
Los Angeles detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, used to say, ``Just the
facts, ma'am.'' [Laughter] I ask you, let's remember the standard our
Republican friends used to have for whether a party should continue in
office: My fellow Americans, are we better off today than we were 8
years ago?
You bet we are. You bet we are. [Applause] Thank you. Yes, we are.
Yes, we are.
But--yes, we are--we're not just better off; we're also a better
country. We are today more tolerant, more decent, more humane, and more
united. Now, that's the purpose of prosperity.
Since 1992, America has grown not just economically but as a
community. Yes, jobs are up but so are adoptions. Yes, the debt is down
but so is teen pregnancy. We are becoming both more diverse and more
united.
My fellow Americans, tonight we can say with gratitude and humility:
We built our bridge to the 21st century. We crossed that bridge
together. And we're not going back. [Applause] Thank you.
To those who say--and I'm sure you heard this somewhere in the last
few days--to those who say the progress of these last 8 years was just
some sort of accident, that we just kind of coasted along, let me be
clear. America's success was not a matter of chance; it was a matter of
choice.
And today, America faces another choice. It's every bit as momentous
as the one we faced 8 years ago. For what a nation does with its good
fortune is just as stern a test of its character, values, and judgment
as how it deals with adversity.
My fellow Americans, this is a big election with great consequences
for every American, because the differences, the honest differences,
between our candidates and their visions are so profound. We can a have
good, old-fashioned election here. We should posit that our opponents
are good, honorable, patriotic people, and that we have honest
differences. But the differences are there.
Consider this, just this. We in America would already have, this
year, a real Patients' Bill of Rights, a minimum wage increase, stronger
equal pay laws for women, and middle class tax cuts for college tuition
and long-term care if the Democratic Party were in the majority in
Congress with Dick Gephardt as Speaker and Tom Daschle as majority
leader. And come November, they will be. That has to be clear to people.
And that's why every House and every Senate seat is important. But if
you'll give me one moment of personal privilege, I'd like to say a word
about Hillary.
When I first met her 30 years ago, she already had an abiding
passion to help children. And she's pursued it ever since. Her very
first job out of law school was with the Children's Defense Fund. Every
year I was Governor she took lots of time away from her law practice to
work for better schools or better children's health or jobs for parents
who lived in poor areas. Then when I became President, she became a
full-time advocate for her lifetime cause, and what a job she has done.
She championed the family leave law, children's health insurance,
increased support for foster children and adoptions. She wrote a best-
selling book about caring for our children, and then she took care of
them by giving all the profits to children's charities. For 30 years--30
years--from the first day I met her, she has always been there for all
our kids. She's been a great First Lady. She's always been there for our
family. And she'll always be there for the families of New York and
America. [Applause] Thank you.
Of course, we all know that the biggest choice that the American
people have to make this year is in the Presidential race. Now, you all
know how I feel. [Laughter] But it's not my decision to make. That
belongs to the American people. I just want to tell all of you here in
this great arena and
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all of the folks watching and listening at home a few things that I know
about Al Gore.
We've worked closely together for 8 years now, in the most
challenging moments. When we faced the most difficult issues of war and
peace, of whether to take on some powerful interests, he was always
there. And he always told me exactly what he thought was right.
Everybody knows he is thoughtful and hard working. But I can tell
you personally, he is one strong leader. In 1993 there was nobody around
the table more willing to make the tough choices to balance the budget
the right way and take this tough stance against balancing the budget on
the backs of the poor and working people of America. I have seen this
kind of positioning and this kind of strength time and again, whether it
was in how we reform welfare or in protecting the environment or in
closing the digital divide or bringing jobs to rural and urban America
through the empowerment zone program. The greatest champion of ordinary
Americans has always been Al Gore.
I'll tell you something else about him. More than anybody else I've
known in public life, Al Gore understands the future and how sweeping
changes and scientific breakthroughs will affect ordinary Americans'
lives. And I think we need somebody in the White House at the dawn of
the 21st century who really understands the future.
Finally, I want to say something more personal. Virtually every week
for the last 7\1/2\ years, until he became occupied with more important
matters, Al Gore and I had lunch. And we talked about the business
between us and the business of America. But we'd also often talk about
our families, what our kids were doing, how school was going, what was
going on in their lives. I know him. He is a profoundly good man. He
loves his children more than life. And he has a perfectly wonderful wife
who has fought against homelessness and who has done something for me
and all Americans in bringing the cause of mental health into the broad
sunlight of our national public life. We owe Tipper Gore our thanks.
Al has picked a great partner in Joe Lieberman. [Applause] There's
the Connecticut crowd. Hillary and I have known Joe for 30 years, since
we were in Connecticut in law school. I supported him in his first race
for public office in 1970, when I learned he had been a freedom rider,
going into danger to register black voters in the then-segregated South.
It should not be a surprise to anyone that Al Gore picked the leader of
the New Democrats to be his Vice President, because Joe Lieberman has
supported all our efforts to reform welfare, reduce crime, protect the
environment, protect civil rights, and a woman's right to choose and to
keep this economy going--all of them. And he has shown time and time
again that he will work with President Gore to keep putting people and
progress over partisanship.
Now, it's up, frankly, to the Presidential nominee and the Vice
Presidential nominee to engage in this debate and to point out the
differences. But there are two issues I care a lot about, and I want to
make brief comments on them, and I hope I've earned the right to make
comments on them. One is the economy--I know a little something about
that--and the other is our efforts to build one America.
First, on the economy, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman will keep our
prosperity going by paying down the debt, investing in education and
health care, moving more people from welfare to work, and providing
family tax cuts we can afford. That stands in stark contrast to the
position of our Republican friends.
Here is their position. They say we have a big projected 10 year
surplus, and they want to spend every dime of it and then some on tax
cuts right now. That would leave nothing for education or Medicare,
prescription drugs; nothing to extend the life of Medicare and Social
Security for the baby boomers; nothing in case the projected surpluses
don't come in.
Now, think about your own family's budget for a minute or your own
business budget. Would you sign a binding contract today to spend all
your projected income for a decade, leaving nothing for your families'
basic needs, nothing for emergencies, nothing for a cushion in case you
didn't get the raise you thought you were going to get? Of course you
wouldn't do that, and America shouldn't do it either. We should stick
with what works.
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Let me say something to you that's even more important than the
economy to me. When Al Gore picked Joe Lieberman, the first Jewish-
American to join a national ticket, to be his partner, and he joined
with our Presidential nominee, who has, along with his great mother and
late father, a lifetime commitment to civil rights and equal opportunity
for all, even when it was not popular down home in the South, when they
did that, we had a ticket that embodies the Democratic commitment to one
America. They believe in civil rights and equal opportunity for
everybody. They believe in a woman's right to choose. And this may be
the most important of all, they believe the folks that you're buying
your soft drinks and popcorn from here at the Staples Center should have
the exact same chance they do to send their kids to college and give
them a good life and a good future.
My fellow Americans, I am very proud of our leaders. And I want you
to know that the opportunity I have had to serve as President at the
dawn of a new era in human history has been an honor, a privilege, and a
joy. I have done everything I knew how to do to empower the American
people, to unleash their amazing optimism and imagination and hard work,
to turn our country around from where it was in 1992, and to get us
moving forward together.
Now, what I want you to understand tonight is that the best is still
out there. The best is yet to come if we make the right choices in this
election year.
But the choices will make all the difference. In February the
American people achieved the longest economic expansion in our history.
When that happened, I asked our folks at the White House when the
previous longest economic expansion was. You know when it was? It was
from 1961 through 1969. Now, I want the young people especially to
listen to this. I remember this well.
I graduated from high school in 1964. Our country was still very sad
because of President Kennedy's death, but full of hope under the
leadership of President Johnson. And I assumed then, like most
Americans, that our economy was on absolutely on automatic, that nothing
could derail it. I also believe then that our civil rights problems
would all be solved in Congress and the courts. And in 1964, when we
were enjoying the longest economic expansion in history, we never
dreamed that Vietnam would so divide and wound our America.
So we took it for granted. And then, before we knew it, there were
riots in the streets, even here. The leaders that I adored as a young
man, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, were killed. Lyndon Johnson,
a President from my part of the country I admired so much for all he did
for civil rights, for the elderly and the poor, said he would not run
again because our Nation was so divided. And then we had an election in
1968 that took America on a far different and more divisive course. And
you know, within months after that election, the last longest economic
expansion in history was, itself, history.
Why am I telling you this tonight? Not to take you down but to keep
you looking up. I have waited, not as President but as your fellow
citizen, for over 30 years to see my country once again in the position
to build the future of our dreams for our children. We are a great and
good people. And we have an even better chance this time than we did
then, with no great internal crisis and no great external threat. Still,
I have lived long enough to know that opportunities must be seized or
they will be lost.
My friends, 54 years ago this week I was born in a summer storm to a
young widow in a small Southern town. America gave me the chance to live
my dreams. And I have tried as hard as I knew how to give you a better
chance to live yours. Now, my hair is a little grayer, my wrinkles are a
little deeper, but with the same optimism and hope I brought to the work
I loved so 8 years ago, I want you to know my heart is filled with
gratitude.
My fellow Americans, the future of our country is now in your hands.
You must think hard, feel deeply, and choose wisely. And remember,
whenever you think about me, keep putting people first. Keep building
those bridges. And don't stop thinking about tomorrow.
Note: The President spoke at 7:52 p.m. at the Staples Center. In his
remarks, he referred to Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Senator
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Joseph I. Lieberman. A portion of these remarks could not be verified
because the tape was incomplete.