[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 43 (Monday, October 30, 2000)]
[Pages 2564-2569]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Dinner for Hillary Clinton in Hempstead, New York

October 22, 2000

    Thank you very much. You know, I have been on a tour of New York 
today. I've been to Binghamton and Watertown--actually, to Alex Bay--and 
here I am with you at Hofstra. And I hear the sound of victory 
everywhere I go. [Applause] Thank you.
    I want to thank Carolyn McCarthy for representing you and 
representing everyone in America who wants to build a sane, safe 
society. She is a brave and good woman, and I am honored to serve with 
her. I want to thank Congressman Gary Ackerman for being with us today. 
He has been my friend and ally for 8 years, and he represents all of you 
so well. But what all of you should know is, he has quite a global 
reach. I took him with me on my trip to India, and all these people kept 
coming up to him in India saying, ``Gary, who is that tall, gray-headed 
fellow with you?'' [Laughter] It was amazing. India has 900 million 
people. Strangers were walking up to him on the street saying, ``Hello, 
Gary. How are you?'' [Laughter] I loved it.

[[Page 2565]]

    I want to thank Carl McCall, who has been a great leader for New 
York and a great friend of ours. Thank you. And thank you, Judith Hope, 
for being a great chair of the State Democratic Party. Some of you may 
know that Judith Hope, like me, was also born in Arkansas, proving that 
we can be accepted in New York. [Laughter] That makes me feel good.
    I want to thank the Nassau County chair, Tom DiNapoli, for being 
such a wonderful leader and for sticking with Hillary and helping us to 
win. And I think one of our congressional candidates, Steve Israel, is 
here tonight. I thank the president of Hofstra University, Dr. James 
Shuart, and all the people from Hofstra who have made us feel so 
welcome.
    And now, here's what I want to say. Thank you. Look, we're all 
having a good time tonight, but the truth is that this is Sunday, and so 
if you'll forgive me a little religious reference, I'm quite well aware 
that in the terms, the words of my tradition, I'm here preaching to the 
saved. [Laughter] And so I want to ask you, just for a moment, amidst 
all the good time and all the cheering we're doing, to let me say a few 
things seriously, because every one of you know lots and lots of people, 
your friends, your family members, your co-students, your co-workers, 
people in this State, and people in other States who will never come to 
an event like this, don't you? You know people who have never been to an 
event like this, never heard a President speak, a First Lady speak, a 
Member of Congress speak, but who will show up on election day if they 
understand what the stakes are because they're good citizens.
    And what bothers me about this election is that I keep reading that 
there are all these sort of undecided voters who don't think there is 
much difference between the two candidates for President, aren't sure 
there is much difference between the two parties, may not show up, or 
may show up and make the wrong decision because they don't know. So 
before I introduce Hillary, I just want to say a few things that I hope 
you will say to somebody every single day between now and the election.
    I want to begin by saying thank you. New York has been wonderful to 
me and to Al Gore for 8 years. In 1996 we won a great victory in New 
York. Even in Nassau County we won and won big, and I thank you for 
that. But I'm concerned, and here's why. If people know what is at 
stake, if they understand the differences, the nature of the choice, and 
the impact on you, your families, your community, and your Nation, we'll 
do fine. So what we want is clarity.
    Now, what the other guys want--because we win if you understand--is 
cloudiness. And it's easier to be cloudy than clear, so you've got to be 
Hillary and Al and Joe's weather patrol between now and the election, to 
make it clear.
    There are three great questions in this election, nationally and as 
they affect New York, and I'll come back to New York when I introduce 
Hillary. But there are three great questions that affect every American 
and, therefore, that affect the people of New York. Let me begin by some 
of the questions that have been raised in the debate and in the statics 
around the campaign that this election is not about.
    This election is not about a choice between change and the status 
quo. America is changing too fast. Look around here. And we're going to 
be rapidly changing every year for at least 10 years, probably 20, in 
dramatic ways we can't even perceive. The question is not whether we're 
going to change. It is how. What will the direction of change be? Are we 
going to build on the success of the last 8 years or take a U-turn and 
go back? That is the question. But it's not change versus the status 
quo.
    The other thing I heard from the debates from the other side is that 
this election is supposed to be about whether you're for big Government 
making all your decisions or whether you trust the people. Let me tell 
you something--and the implication is, of course, that the Democrats are 
the big Government, and the Republicans are the people. That's just not 
so. And if anybody asks you that, let me just point out a couple of 
things.
    Number one, our Democratic administration has reduced the size of 
the Federal civil Government to the lowest level since 1960, when John 
Kennedy sought the Presidency and Dwight Eisenhower was President.

[[Page 2566]]

Don't put up with that. That's not true. Number two, we got rid of 
16,000 pages of Federal regulations that were on the books when they 
were in. Number three, I heard them talking about all the burdens we put 
on the school districts. Have you heard that in all the debates now? The 
Federal Government just wants to burden the school district. Number 
three, under the leadership of our Secretary of Education, Dick Riley, 
States and school districts have had their paperwork burden from the 
Federal Government cut by two-thirds below what it was when they were in 
office.
    So this is not about big Government versus the people. We have 
reduced the burden of Government. We've just increased the ability of 
Government to help ordinary people live better lives. That's what the 
real truth is.
    Another thing I heard is how we needed somebody to swoop in from 
outside Washington to end the partisan atmosphere so we could have 
bipartisan solutions. [Laughter] In other words, they would like to be 
rewarded for the problem they created. [Laughter]
    Now, let's look at the facts here. We had a bipartisan welfare 
reform bill, a bipartisan Balanced Budget Act of '97, a bipartisan 
Children's Health Insurance Program. Yes, we initiated it, but we got 
the Republicans to vote for it, and we worked with them. We had a 
bipartisan telecommunications law that has created thousands of 
businesses and hundreds of thousands of jobs, a bipartisan vote to 
create 100,000 teachers and 100,000 police--a bipartisan vote. The 
partisanship has come from the other side.
    Don't you worry about Al Gore and Joe Lieberman and Hillary being 
willing to work in a bipartisan fashion. We are willing to work in a 
bipartisan fashion. We're just not willing to be run over. And that's 
what the issue is.
    Let me say one other thing. Now, I might get in some trouble for 
saying this, but I'm going to say it, anyway. I hear that on Long Island 
and all across the country in the Middle West, there are people taking 
off work to go to work for the NRA, to work against our candidates 
because they say we're trying to take their guns away. And they're 
spending a fortune doing that.
    Now why in the wide world would they do that? One possibility is, 
it's true. But it isn't. It's a lie. I want every hunter and sportsman 
within the sound of my voice who missed a day of any hunting season, 
because of any proposal I made, to vote for the other guy. But if you 
didn't, they're lying to you, and you should get even. [Laughter]
    Now, what did we do? What did we do? Let me tell you what I plead 
guilty to doing. We did pass the Brady law. We did that. And we asked 
people to undergo a background check before they got a handgun, to prove 
they weren't a felon, a fugitive, or a stalker. We did that. And you 
know, a half million felons, fugitives, and stalkers didn't get 
handguns. Gun crime is down by 35 percent. The crime rate is at a 26-
year low. The murder rate is at a 33-year low. I think we were right. 
Who can defend the other side of that? And we banned assault weapons, 
and I think we were right. And God knows, as the experience of Carolyn 
McCarthy's life shows, we were right.
    Now, listen, what is it that we really want to do? Well, we think 
that the background check law worked well, but there are a lot of gun 
show sales that it doesn't apply to, and we think it should. We think 
that child trigger locks should be mandatory when new handguns are sold. 
And we think that large-scale ammunition clips should not be able to be 
imported in America, because if you allowed that, then you can just 
rejigger the guns that are already here and turn them into assault 
weapons.
    And most of us believe that you ought to get a license when you buy 
a handgun, like you do when you buy a car, showing you're not a crook 
and you know how to use it safely. Now, will that cause anybody to miss 
a day in the deer woods? Will it cause anybody to miss a sport shooting 
contest? Does it confiscate weapons--constitute weapons confiscation? 
No. That is not what this election is about. So if you hear somebody on 
Long Island say that, you just tell them it's not true.
    You know, it is a crying shame, as hard as we have worked to get 
this crime rate down, to run the risk of turning it right around and 
sending it up again by people who not only want to control the criminal 
policy in this country as it relates to this but

[[Page 2567]]

have also promised--listen to this--promised to repeal the law we passed 
putting now 150,000 police on the street. They're wrong. We're right. 
You've got to fight. Don't take this laying down, and don't put this 
stuff out there. Don't do it. Don't put up with people saying things 
that aren't true.
    Now, what is the election really about? Number one, it's about 
whether we're going to keep the prosperity going and extend it to people 
and places left behind. That's the first thing. How are we going to do 
that? How are we going to do that? We're going to do that by giving 
people a tax cut we can afford, not one we can't afford, a tax cut that 
benefits more middle class families than theirs does--even though it's 
much smaller; a deduction for college tuition; a credit for long-term 
care for the elderly and disabled; extra help for child care; extra help 
for lower income workers with lots of kids; help to save for retirement; 
and extra incentives to invest in people and places that have been left 
behind.
    Now, why do we have a tax cut that is smaller than theirs? Because 
we save money to invest in education and health care and the environment 
and national defense and to get this country out of debt over the next 
12 years so we can keep interest rates down and the economy growing.
    What is their deal? What's the difference? Their tax cut is at least 
3 times as big as ours. I admit it is. And a few of you might do better 
under it, but it's 3 times bigger. What's the problem with that? Well, 
that's 75 percent of the surplus. And then they've got a trillion dollar 
cost on their partial privatization of Social Security and then several 
hundred billion dollars of spending they've promised. And the problem 
with that is, it doesn't add up. By the time you spend all that money, 
you're back in deficits, which means higher interest rates and slower 
growth.
    I had some people analyze this for me, and they say that if the 
Gore/Lieberman/Hillary tax cut is adopted, we'll probably have--and we 
stay on the path to pay the debt off--we could leave interest rates a 
percent lower every year for a decade. Do you know what that's worth to 
you? Listen to this, lower interest rates: $390 billion in lower home 
mortgages; $30 billion in lower car payments; $15 billion in lower 
college loan payments; lower credit card payments; and lower business 
loans, which means more businesses, more jobs, more raises, a higher 
stock market.
    Look, we tried it our way; we tried it their way. Our way is better. 
You want to keep the prosperity going, you've got to vote for the 
Democrats.
    Point number two: If you want to keep building on the progress of 
the last 8 years in the non-economic areas, you've got to vote with us. 
The crime rate is down. I already talked about that. We reversed the 
increase in the number of uninsured. The number of people with health 
insurance is going down for the first time in a dozen years. The 
environment is cleaner--cleaner air, cleaner water, safer food, safer 
drinking water, more land set aside in permanent protection than any 
administration since that of Theodore Roosevelt 100 years ago. And the 
economy has gotten better.
    So we've got a better crime policy, a better health policy, a better 
environmental policy, welfare rolls cut in half. And we have a better 
education policy. Listen to this. In the last 8 years, we've gone from 
14 States to 49 States with standards for a core curriculum. We have 
seen a decline in the dropout rate, an increase in the graduation rate. 
College-going is at an all-time high. We have a 50 percent increase in 
the number of kids taking advanced placement in high school, a 300 
percent increase in Latino kids doing it, a 500 percent increase in 
African-American kids doing it. We've already opened the doors of 
college completely for the first 2 years, and if we pass this college 
tax deduction that Senator Schumer and Hillary are pushing so hard, 
we'll open the doors of college for 4 years for every young person in 
the entire United States of America.
    In every single one of these areas you've got to decide whether 
you're going to build on the progress or go back to another policy. In 
crime, it's not just about guns. They want to repeal our commitment to 
putting 150,000 police on the street. In education, everybody can be for 
accountability. We think we've got to help the States meet it. We're for 
doubling the number of kids in preschool and after-school programs. 
They're not. We're for funds to help local school districts build or

[[Page 2568]]

modernize schools, because they're overcrowded or broken down, and we 
know that the property tax can't carry the whole burden. They're not. 
We're for 100,000 teachers qualified in smaller classes. They don't want 
to do that--huge difference.
    In the environment, they say our clean air rules are too tough. They 
say that my order setting aside tens of millions of acres in the 
national forest as roadless acres is wrong. They say they ought to 
revisit all these areas I've protected in perpetuity. They say it's too 
burdensome on the economy. If I were trying to hurt the economy, I 
didn't do a very good job. [Laughter] You have to decide.
    But you've got to tell people. If you want to build on the progress 
of the last 8 years, you've got to vote for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman 
and Hillary. You don't have an option here. It's clear.
    And the third thing I want to say--the third thing I want to say--
and maybe most important of all--is that we have got to keep working to 
build one America across all the lines that divide us, across all the 
racial and ethnic and religious and gender and sexual orientation lines 
that divide us. We've got to do it.
    Now, this is a big deal. And I can only tell you what it means to 
me. And I'll only take the issues where there is a difference. We 
believe a big part of building one America is equal pay for equal work. 
We want to strengthen the equal pay laws for women, and they're against 
it. We believe a big part of building one America is a strong and 
comprehensive hate crimes law, and they're not for it.
    And I really regret that in the debate we didn't get into the 
details of this as much. You got a feeling that we were for it, and they 
weren't. But they're not for it because they're conservative wing does 
not want to vote for a national hate crimes bill that protects gays 
against hate crimes. Now, that's the truth. I've been there trying to 
pass this for 2 years. I know what's going on. And I'm telling you, we 
need it.
    I wish you could all hear the police commissioner from Wyoming that 
had to supervise the Matthew Shepard murder case. He was always against 
hate crimes. He had mixed feelings. He didn't know how he felt about 
gays. And then he saw that little boy stretched out on a rack to die. 
And he needed the Federal Government to come in and help him deal with 
the cost of dealing with that crime. And he has become perhaps our most 
articulate advocate for hate crimes. This is a big deal, going way 
beyond the number of people that will be victimized by hate crimes. It 
talks about what kind of people we are and whether we're committed to 
one America.
    We have big differences on what kind of court system we ought to 
have and whether we will preserve a woman's right to choose or get rid 
of it and throw it back to the States, the way it used to be. It only 
takes one vote, and the next President will get to appoint at least two 
judges to the Supreme Court. And then there will be all these other 
appointments.
    And everybody who studies this knows that there is the most radical 
reassessment since the 1930's of the ability of the National Government 
to protect the American people, not just the right to choose, going way 
beyond that into all kinds of health and safety and education and other 
areas, or whether the courts will start to say the Congress can't do 
this anymore. They even threw out a provision of the Violence Against 
Women Act.
    Now, I'm telling you, you've got to think about this. This is a big 
deal. And I believe it would be a mistake to return to the 
constitutional theory which existed in the 1930's that said, basically, 
the Federal Government can't do anything if the States don't like it. 
Now, think about this. If somebody asks you what the difference is, 
somebody says, ``Oh, there's not much difference,'' or, ``I don't like 
this, that or the other thing that Al Gore or Joe Lieberman or Hillary 
said,'' you say, ``Wait a minute. You want to keep this prosperity 
going? Do you like the fact that we've got a cleaner environment, that 
the number of people without health insurance is going down, that the 
number of people going to college is going up, that the schools that 
were failing are turning around, that the crime rate is going down? Do 
you want to build on the progress of the last 8 years? And do you want 
to keep building one America?''
    That's what I want you to do. I want you to promise yourself that 
every day, sometime

[[Page 2569]]

between now and the election, every day you're going to say to somebody, 
``Vote for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman and Hillary to keep the prosperity 
going, to build on the social progress, and to build one America.''
    That brings me to my appointed duty--[laughter]--as the spouse and 
Cheerleader in Chief in America. [Laughter] I want to make a couple of 
points that I hope you will share with the voters, particularly on Long 
Island, in the days ahead before the election.
    I met Hillary almost 30 years ago, and for 30 years I have watched 
her devote her heart and soul to the interests of children and families, 
education and health care. For more than 20 years, I have watched her 
work on bringing economic opportunity to people and places who were left 
behind, something that's very important to upstate New York.
    For the last 8 years, since we've been in the White House, she has 
been the most active First Lady, if not in history, certainly since 
Eleanor Roosevelt. She was an advocate for the first bill I signed as 
President, the family and medical leave law. Over 22 million Americans 
have now taken some time off, when a baby is born or a parent is sick, 
without losing their job.
    She held the first White House conference ever held on early 
childhood and brain development. She worked hard to get mammograms for 
women under Medicare and to do other things in the way of preventive 
care. She led an effort in the Federal Government to examine the 
problems that veterans of the Gulf war were having that might have been 
associated with their service in the Persian Gulf a decade ago.
    She has represented our country all over the world, traveling to 
more countries than any other First Lady in history, talking about 
women's rights and children's rights, reminding people that the national 
security of the United States depends not just on our military strength 
but on our ability to help ordinary people with economic opportunity and 
education and health care.
    She has helped me in our endless efforts to make peace in Northern 
Ireland. She has gone to the Balkans and in the Middle East, where we 
have worked so hard for the cause of peace. When Mrs. Barak asked her to 
come, she went again. She has been there--we've gone I don't know how 
many times to the Middle East or to Northern Ireland or to see our 
troops in the Balkans, to try to advance the cause of peace and stick up 
for our friends in Israel, in Bosnia, in Ireland.
    And you will never know--because I don't have the words to say--how 
hard she has worked or how deeply she cares. But I want to tell you 
this, this is the first time in 26 years they're having an election and 
I'm not on the ballot. [Laughter] But I care more about this election 
than any one I've ever been involved in. I care about what happens in 
the Presidential race because everything we've worked for is on the 
line, and all the progress America has made is still out there.
    And I care about this Senate race because of the hundreds and 
hundreds of people I've known in public life. And I can tell you, on 
balance, they're better than they get credit for being, the Republicans 
and the Democrats. On balance, they work harder; they're more honest, 
and they try harder to do what they believe in than most people know.
    But I have never known anybody else in public life who had the 
combination of brains and heart and caring and tenacity and ability to 
imagine solutions and get people together to get things done than 
Hillary has. She would be a worthy successor to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 
to Robert Kennedy, and a great partner for Chuck Schumer.
    Please welcome the next United States Senator from New York.

Note: The President spoke at 8:13 p.m. in Lowenfeld Hall at Hofstra 
University. In his remarks, he referred to Steve Israel, candidate for 
New York's Second Congressional District; New York State Comptroller H. 
Carl McCall; Thomas P. DiNapoli, chair, Nassau County Democratic Party; 
and Nava Barak, wife of Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel.