[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 37 (Monday, September 18, 2000)]
[Pages 2037-2039]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the Community in Danbury

September 11, 2000

    Well, thank you very much. First, thank you, Mayor Eriquez, for your 
wonderful speech and for outlining some of the things that we've been 
able to do together to help the people of Danbury.
    I want to thank all of you for coming. And President Roach, thank 
you for making us feel welcome at your wonderful school. And I want to 
say to all of you, I may be the first President to come and spend this 
much time in Danbury, but this is not the first time I've been to 
Danbury. I first came here in 1970, 30 years ago. That was when I met 
Joe Lieberman, who was running for the State Senate.
    Then I came back to Connecticut as a Governor in 1980, when I met 
Chris Dodd. And then I had to become President before I met Jim Maloney. 
But I will say this, it has not been a disappointment. He is one of the 
best Members of the United States House of Representatives, and you need 
to send him back down there in November and reelect him.
    You know, Jim made a very good case for himself and for our side. 
And you've been out here waiting a long time, and the last thing you 
need is another political speech. So I'm not going to repeat what he 
said. I'm just going to make a few very brief points that I want you to 
think about.
    This election is profoundly important, because we're doing so well. 
What do I mean by that? Well, because we're doing so well, we have a 
chance to meet some really big goals for this country. We could get this 
country out of debt over the next decade for the first time since 1835--
America debt-free, low interest rates.
    We could take every child in a working family in America out of 
poverty by making sure we had a tax system that was fair to the working 
poor. We could provide health care to every single child and every 
working family in America that don't have it today. We can make sure 
that every child who needs it has preschool and after-school programs 
and mentors. We can make sure that every child in America, when he or 
she comes of age, could afford to go to all 4 years of college. We've 
already opened the doors, universally, to the first 2 years. We can do 
it for all 4 years.
    We can meet the big environmental challenges of the 21st century, 
like climate change, and do it in a way that would create millions of 
new jobs here in America with the new technology of alternative energies 
and more efficient use of energy. It could mean a fortune of new jobs 
and wealth to Connecticut, just by doing the right thing to preserve the 
environment for our children, our grandchildren, and their 
grandchildren.
    Jim talked about breast cancer. We now have identified the two genes 
which, when they are slightly bent in their structure, make it more 
likely for women to get breast cancer. We have now seen the first 
sequencing of the human genome. Within a matter of just a few years, 
young girls who are in this audience now, when they grow up a little, 
get married, and begin to have babies, when they come home from the 
hospital, they'll come home with a gene map of their children, and it 
will tell you everything that's good about their structure, and all the 
problems. And when that happens, Americans will have a life expectancy 
of about 90 years. Just in a few years, all this is going to happen.

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    Now, what's that got to do with this election? We have to make the 
right decisions now about what to do with our prosperity if we want to 
make the big goals for America for the 21st century come true. One I 
didn't mention is dealing with the aging of America. I'm the oldest of 
the baby boomers. Everybody between the ages of 36 and 54 was the 
biggest generation of Americans ever born, until this group that is in 
our schools right now.
    And when we retire, for a period of about 18 years, there will only 
be about two people working for every one person eligible for Social 
Security. And I can tell you that everybody I know in my generation is 
determined that when we retire, our retirement will not bankrupt our 
children and their ability to raise our grandchildren. It doesn't have 
to happen. We can save Social Security and save Medicare and add this 
prescription drug benefit and take the burden off of our children and 
our grandchildren.
    But it all depends on what the American people decide today, in a 
moment of great good fortune, great national optimism. All the mean and 
stinging rhetoric we used to hear from the other side for 20 years why, 
it's gone away, and butter wouldn't melt in their mouths--[laughter]--
and I appreciate that. It's a good thing. I never liked the politics of 
personal destruction. But there are real differences here which cannot 
be obscured.
    And I would argue to you that it may be harder for a free people to 
make the right decision in good times than it is in bad times. After 
all, back in 1992, when you took a chance on me, it wasn't much of a 
chance. The country was in a ditch, and you knew we had to change. 
[Laughter] We were in terrible shape, and you knew we had to change.
    Now, things are going along so well, there seem to be options. And 
often the debate is blurred about what the options is--are. I need to 
come back to college--[laughter]--about what the options are. We say 
``We're for the Patients' Bill of Rights that 200 health organizations 
are for,'' and they say, ``We're for a Patients' Bill of Rights.'' The 
difference in ``a'' and ``the'' is a huge difference.
    We say, ``We're for a Medicare prescription drug program through 
Medicare, that all of our seniors who need it can afford to buy into.'' 
They say, ``We don't know how much that's going to cost. We want to give 
the neediest of our seniors a prescription drug benefit and let the 
others buy insurance.'' They don't say that there's never been an 
insurance plan designed to sell drugs that will work. It's already 
failed in one State, and their program would leave half the people out 
who need it.
    They say, ``We want to give you a tax cut. It's your money, and 
we've got this big surplus.'' They don't say that if they give it all to 
you in a tax cut, what are you going to do if the money doesn't come in 
and we're back into deficits? What are you going to do for investments 
in education? What are you going to do when we get rid of the surplus 
and we stop paying down the debt and interest rates start going up 
again?
    Do you know how much Jim Maloney's position on giving you a modest 
tax cut, so you get a deduction for college tuition, a credit for long-
term care for elderly or disabled members in your family, some means of 
saving for retirement income, and more for child care, an abatement of 
the marriage penalty but at an affordable cost--do you know how much 
money that will save you in interest rates, as opposed to the plan of 
their nominee and all their crowd for Congress? It will save you about 
one percent a year for a decade.
    Do you know how much that's worth? That's worth $390 billion in home 
mortgages, $30 billion in car payments, $15 billion in college loans 
payments, a $435 billion tax cut to ordinary Americans for car payments, 
college loan payments, and home mortgage payments, if we'll just keep 
paying off the debt, keeping the interest rates down, keeping the 
American economy strong and going. That's another reason you ought to be 
for him and Al Gore and Joe Lieberman.
    Now, let me say, I'm going to do my best, when the Congress comes 
back in, to work closely with them. I'm going to do everything I can to 
get as much done as I can for you in the next 5 weeks. But however much 
we get done, you remember this. There are real differences here: 
differences in economic

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policy, differences in education policy, differences in health care 
policy, differences in environmental policy, differences in criminal 
justice policy, differences in arms control and world peace policy, and 
differences about how we're going to live together across all the 
diverse cultures and races and genders and all the differences in this 
society that make us up.
    There are big differences. And what I think you have to do is to ask 
yourself, what do I want this election to be about? If you want the 
biggest check at the earliest point and never mind the consequences, you 
ought to be for them--if you're an upper income person. Actually, our 
tax cut gives two-thirds of you more money, even though it just costs a 
third as much. What does that tell you about it?
    But if you would like a tax cut that helps you pay for the education 
of your children, the long-term care of your elderly or disabled family 
members, helps you to save more for retirement, helps with child care, 
helps with the marriage penalty, but saves enough money to keep paying 
this debt down and investing in education and health care and science 
and technology so that we can keep going forward together, if you 
believe that we ought to make a future in which the most important thing 
is our common belief that everybody matters, everybody deserves a 
chance, and we all do better when we help each other, then you need Al 
Gore, Joe Lieberman, and Jim Maloney.
    Thank you, and God bless you. And thank you for the Hillary sign 
back there. If you vote in New York, help her. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 3:52 p.m. in the Charles Ives Center for 
Performing Arts at Western Connecticut State University. In his remarks, 
he referred to Mayor Gene F. Eriquez of Danbury and James R. Roach, 
president, Western Connecticut State University.