[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 37 (Monday, September 18, 2000)]
[Pages 2091-2093]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at an IMPAC 2000 Reception

September 14, 2000

    Thank you very much. Well first of all, I want to thank all of you 
for supporting this endeavor, and I want to thank, as David did--Ken, 
thank you. I have--you have come a long way since we had that dinner. I 
think it was what we ate that night that did it. [Laughter]
    I want to thank Martin for all the work that he's done, and as your 
predecessor and also as Patrick Kennedy's predecessor. He was 7 feet 
tall when he started this job. And thank you, Vic Fazio, my longtime 
friend. I want to say a special word of appreciation to David Bonior. I 
did not know him very well when I got elected President, and one of the 
things that I will always treasure about these last 8 years is the 
relationship that he and I developed. I like him, and I admire his wife 
so much, and I feel about him a little bit the way I do about Nancy 
Pelosi. I love them when they are with me, and I love them when they are 
not--[laughter]--because, you know, both of them are so convicted, and 
they believe things, and they care about things, and they stick their 
necks out. And it's especially hard for him because he's in a district 
where he has to pay a price for every vote of conscience he casts, and 
he does it anyway. I want to thank you.
    Probably more than anyone in America, I know how important this 
endeavor is. That's why I showed up tonight, besides the fact that I 
told Ken I would. [Laughter] When we had a majority in the Congress, we 
passed the economic plan that started this whole roll we've been on: the 
crime bill that played a major role in getting us the lowest violent 
crime rate in 27 years; the Brady bill, which has kept guns out of the 
hands of half a million felons, fugitives, and stalkers; the AmeriCorps 
bill, which has now given way over 150,000 young people a chance to 
serve in their community and earn money to go

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to college; the family medical leave act, which has helped about 25 
million Americans to take some time off when a newborn baby was in the 
family or a parent was sick, without losing their job; and the beginning 
of one of the lesser known achievements that we've made together, which 
is a systematic attempt to reform Federal education policy, to 
concentrate on standards and results and effective investment in reform.
    And I know what a difference it makes. This is an unusual and, in 
effect, a really kind of a wonderful time in my life. Earlier this year, 
I got to cast what well may be my last vote as a citizen of my native 
State for Al Gore for President, in the Democratic primary, and Tuesday 
I got to vote for my wife for the first time, which was an immense 
thrill.
    And last night, when I watched the debate, I realize now what she 
went through all those years watching me. Is he going to fall over? Is 
he going to smile? Should he slug back? Should he just keep smiling? 
[Laughter] It's amazing, it's really been--so, now, my family has a new 
candidate, my party has a new leader, and I have become the Cheerleader 
in Chief, and I like it.
    But I just want to say, all of you know how important this is, or 
you wouldn't be here. But what Ken said is really worth remembering. I 
think we're going to do well in these elections if we can continue to 
clarify the choices, because the American people want this prosperity to 
continue, but they don't want us to be in idle. They want us to take on 
the big challenges out there.
    I think we have an excellent chance, and I've worked as hard as I 
could for the Senate candidates, for the House candidates, for the two 
committees, as well as to help our party and our nominees. But what I 
can tell you is that in spite of all the good things that have happened, 
the challenges that are out there are really big, and they cannot--and 
no American should expect President Gore, Vice President Lieberman, and 
a Democratic House and Senate to deal with them all in a year.
    You know, when all the baby boomers retire, which will start in 
about 8 years, for the ones that take early Social Security, and go on 
for 18 to 20 more years, there will only be two people working for every 
one person on Social Security, although the Congress, thank you very 
much, took the earnings limit off Social Security. And now more people 
will be able to work in their later years, and that's good.
    We have to--and with all these advances in health care, we're going 
to have huge challenges to figure out. How do we redefine aging in 
America? Yes, how do we save Social Security? How do we save Medicare? 
How do we add a prescription drug benefit? It's unconscionable that it 
doesn't exist already; we would have it now, if we had a Democratic 
Congress.
    But how are we going to deal with a country, that is, in terms of 
age distribution, radically different from anything we've ever known and 
will be for 20 years, maybe 30 years, and then it will all start to get 
back to a normal distribution? We've got the most diverse student 
population we've ever had. It's a wonder, and we have actually learned 
how to turn around failing schools.
    We know how to do it now, and it took probably 15 years of serious 
effort. But I was in a school in New York the other day, a grade school 
where, 2 years ago--listen to this--2 years ago 80 percent of the kids 
were doing reading and math below grade level in Harlem. Two years later 
76 percent of the kids are doing reading and math at or above grade 
level--in just 2 years.
    We know how to do this. But America has never succeeded, ever, in 
guaranteeing quality education for all of our kids, and now we've got 
the most diverse group of kids we've ever had. Just across the river in 
Alexandria, there are children from 180 different national and ethnic 
groups, whose parents speak over 100 different languages as their first 
language. This is great for us in this global economy, if, but only if, 
we can figure out how to give all these kids a world class education.
    We've had more millionaires and more billionaires in the last 8 
years than in any time in history, and I like that, and I hope the next 
administration can keep it going. Maybe I can become one of them. But we 
still have too many people working hard for too little and having a 
really hard time making ends meet.

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    What kind of tax policy should we have for them? What kind of laws 
should we have to make sure that as more and more parents are working, 
they can work and still have time for their kids and save enough to make 
sure their kids can go to college? These are big questions, and this 
just scratches the iceberg. I didn't get into all the global questions.
    The point I'm trying to make is, it would be tragic if we have a 
very good election this time, and just because of the distribution of 
the Governorships, which we can't get a majority of back until 2002, 
just because there aren't many up this year, and because we didn't do a 
good job in the legislative races, and because we weren't legally 
prepared, we lost what we won, notwithstanding the fact that a plain 
majority of the American people agree with the direction in which we 
want to take the country.
    Now, if they disagree with us and they want to vote us out, that's 
their perfect right, but we shouldn't lose the Congress if a majority of 
the people are still with us. That's the important thing. We Democrats 
would never say we should stay in office whether they're for us or not, 
because we want to jiggle the lines around, but we should have an 
honest, open, legal, constitutional redistricting process so that if we 
can win this time and if we can maintain the confidence of the country, 
we can stay in the saddle because that's what the people want.
    So this is profoundly important, and I spend a lot of time--I try to 
spend a significant amount of time every single week I was President, 
thinking about what America would be like, not just a month or a year 
from now but 5 and 10 and 20 years from now. And that's very, very 
important.
    So I just want you to know, these Members here, I believe in them. 
Nothing good I achieved, including when they were in the minority, would 
have been possible if it hadn't been for them. In spite of all the good 
things that have happened in this country, I really believe that the 
next 8 years can be even more exciting, even more interesting, even more 
productive if we just stick with the philosophy that says we want to 
make sure everybody has a chance, that everybody matters, and we all do 
better when we work together. That's basically what we Democrats 
believe.
    And you've made it possible, if the American people stick with us, 
to make sure that they can continue to do their job. That is very, very 
important.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 7:50 p.m. in the Lafayette Room at the Hay 
Adams Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Representative Ken
Bentsen, chair, IMPAC 2000 National Democratic Redistricting Project; 
former Representative Vic Fazio; and Representative Martin Fost, chair, 
Democratic caucus.