[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 44 (Monday, November 6, 2000)]
[Pages 2651-2656]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to African-American Community Leaders

 October 27, 2000

     Thank you very much, Secretary Herman, and thank you for the 
wonderful, wonderful job you have done as Secretary of Labor. I want to 
thank the others who are here from the White House today: Minyon Moore; 
Mary Beth Cahill; Ben Johnson; Alvin Brown, the Vice Chair of our 
Community Empowerment Board that the Vice President has done such a 
great job leading in the last 8 years; Lorraine Miller, the executive 
director of the Community Empowerment Board; Jena Roscoe, the Director 
of African-American Outreach; John Johnson of the NAACP; Norman Hill of 
the A. Philip Randolph Institute; Wade Henderson; Yvonne Scruggs-
Leftwich; and of course, my great friend Representative Eddie Bernice 
Johnson from Texas. Thank you for being here.
     Thank you all for joining me today. I wanted to talk with you a 
little bit about the upcoming election and the profound importance that 
I believe it has for all of you and for all of those about whom you 
care.
     You know, first, let me say I feel so much gratitude as I approach 
the end of my service as President. If anybody had told me when we 
started that we would end with 22 million new jobs and the highest 
homeownership in history and the highest rate of business formation in 
history and the lowest minority unemployment in history, the lowest 
recorded African-American poverty rate in history, the lowest child 
poverty rate in 20 years, lowest welfare rolls in 32 years--cut in 
half--the lowest crime rate in 26 years, a reduction in the number of 
people without health insurance for the first time in a dozen years, 
record rates of college-going--all these things that have happened--I 
would have been very grateful. And I am grateful.
     But today what I want to say to you is that the country is in good 
shape; we're moving in the right direction. But we are now in a position 
that we were not in 8 years ago, where we have to ask ourselves not what 
do we do to get out of the ditch but what do we do to build the future 
of our dreams for our children?
     And we're in a position to choose, which is what voting ought to be 
about. I've done my best to try to urge the American people and all the 
political actors to make this a very positive election but a vigorous 
debate. And they're having their debate, and I don't have to contribute 
to that, but everybody knows how I feel. But I want to talk about what 
all this means.
     First of all, as Alexis said, we've been driven here for 8 years by 
some pretty simple ideas. One is that there ought to be opportunity for 
every responsible citizen. And that meant that we had to create the 
conditions and give people the tools to make the most of their own 
lives. The other is that we ought to build one America across all the 
lines that divide us, which meant that we had to take exceptional 
efforts to make sure that there was participation and empowerment. And 
finally, I have sought to create in our country the capacity to lead the 
world for peace and freedom in the post-cold-war era, recognizing that 
the world is growing ever more interdependent and that every part of the 
world is important to us.
     So we've worked hard at all this. Alexis talked about the economy 
and the participation of African-Americans in the administration. Since 
I've been here, we've had--of my total appointees--12 percent of the 
Cabinet, 14 percent of the total appointees, and 17 percent of the 
Federal judicial nominees.
     But we've worked hard to affect America at the grassroots level. 
That's what the empowerment zone program is about, that the Vice 
President has done such a good job of running these last 8 years. That's 
what the

[[Page 2652]]

new markets initiative we're desperately trying to pass through the 
Congress in the closing days, to give people the same incentives to 
invest in underdeveloped areas in America we give people to invest in 
underdeveloped areas in Latin America and Africa and Asia and other 
parts of the world.
    And I feel very good about that. But I'm grateful that we've got 
childhood immunizations over 90 percent for the first time in the 
history of our Nation.
    I'm also grateful for the progress in education. We had a theory 
that--we're only spending about 7 percent of the total education budget. 
It's a State constitutional responsibility, a local administrative 
responsibility, but a national priority. And when I came to the 
Presidency, I had already been seriously involved in education for about 
14 years. And I wanted to put our money--first, I wanted to get the 
money up, because we were down below 6 percent and heading south, and so 
we wanted to turn that around. And even as we got rid of the deficit and 
turned a $290 billion deficit into a $230 billion surplus, we doubled 
our investment in education and training. A lot of that money has been 
in Secretary Herman's shop.
     But when we looked at the schools, what we wanted to do was to 
focus on what the research and the educators say worked: to get high 
standards, genuine accountability, and then support for the schools and 
the teachers and the kids and the parents to succeed, to meet the 
standards. And we've worked very hard. We've expanded preschool. We've 
invested more in teacher training. We're putting--I believe that we have 
gotten an agreement for the third year of our 100,000 teacher initiative 
to have smaller classes in the early grades.
     The Vice President worked hard to get something called the E-rate 
in the telecommunications bill so that all of our schools could afford 
to log on to the Internet. Since we started this project in 1994, the 
number of schools hooked to the Internet have gone from 14 to 95 
percent, the number of classrooms from 3 percent to 65 percent. So we're 
moving in the right direction.
     The number of States with really good State-based standards in core 
curriculums has gone from about 3 percent--excuse me, gone from 11 
States or 14 States to 49 States. And we began a few years ago to say to 
the States that get Federal money, ``Look, you've got to identify these 
failing schools--identify them and do something to turn them around.'' 
And we wanted to have a tougher accountability standard, but so far we 
haven't persuaded the Congress to do that. But all over the country, 
schools are turning around.
     I was in a school in Harlem the other day, that 2 years ago had 80 
percent of the kids doing reading and math below grade level, to just 2 
years later, 74 percent of the kids doing reading math at or above grade 
level. I've seen it in predominantly African-American schools, 
predominantly Hispanic schools. I've seen it in mixed race schools. I 
was in a predominantly white rural school in western Kentucky a few 
months ago, where 3 years ago they had 12 percent of the kids reading at 
or above grade level; it's 57 percent now. They had 5 percent of the 
kids doing math at or above grade level; it's 70 percent now. They had 
zero kids doing science at or above grade level; it's 63 percent now. So 
this is happening all over America. And I'm grateful for that.
    I'm grateful that we passed the biggest expansion in college aids, 
from Pell grants to the HOPE scholarships to work-study programs to the 
AmeriCorps program, since the GI bill. And we've got college-going at an 
all-time high. A couple of years ago, for the first time in history, the 
African-American high school graduation rate equaled the white 
graduation rate for the first time in our history. And over the last 6 
years, the taking of advanced placement courses by our high school 
students has increased over 50 percent, but it's up 300 percent for 
Latino kids and 500 percent for African-American kids. This is a good 
thing.
     So I say all this to say the country is going in the right 
direction. But the bedrock, the thing that made so much of the rest of 
it possible--and I didn't talk much about the crime rate. It's gone down 
every year--more police, more prevention. The after-school programs have 
a lot to do with that. We were serving no kids with Federal money in 
after-school programs when I became President. Today, we're serving 
800,000, and if our budget prevails in the closing days of this

[[Page 2653]]

Congress, we'll go to 1.6 million children served in after-school 
programs--very important.
     But let me come back to basics. When I became President, the 
economy was in trouble, and we were paralyzed by high interest rates and 
a crushing annual deficit which had quadrupled the debt in 4 years. So 
as we look ahead, I think we have to say our work is not done. And I 
would just like to mention four things that I think are important, 
profoundly important to the American people, without regard to race.
     Number one, we've got to keep this prosperity going. And my view 
is, that means we ought to say--that means, first, we've got to keep 
paying down the debt until we get out of debt, and that will keep 
interest rates down. We'll figure out what it costs to do that. Then 
what's left, we can spend. And we'll spend some of it with a tax cut, 
but a good deal of it to invest in education and health care, in the 
environment, in our national security, and in our future.
     Now, that's basically the program that our party and our nominees 
have laid out. Pay the debt down; keep interest rates down. Take what's 
left; have a tax cut we can afford; focus it on the needs of middle-
class people for college education, for child care, for long-term care 
for elderly and disabled people, for retirement savings, and for lower 
income working people with a bunch of kids that need more help than 
we're giving them. But then invest, continue to invest in these other 
areas. Now, one virtue of that is that if the money doesn't come in, you 
don't have to spend it. But if you give it all away in a tax cut on the 
front end, it's not there, whether it comes in or not.
     But I just want to say, I believe that the progressive party in 
America ought to be for getting America out of debt for the first time 
since 1835, when Andrew Jackson was President. Why? Because it gets the 
interest rates down. We believe it will keep interest rates about a 
percent lower than if you take the alternative course, which is a $1.3 
trillion tax cut, which gives you a $300 billion extra interest bill--
because you cut interest payments if you cut the debt--and a $1 trillion 
Social Security privatization program and a $500 billion spending 
package. If you have $2 trillion in projected surpluses--and that's 
really bigger than it's going to be, but let's just assume that--and you 
spend 1.3 on a tax cut and 300 billion on interest and 500 billion on 
spending--with me so far? That's 2.1--and a trillion dollars on 
privatizing Social Security, this is--forget about all the zeros. Three-
point-one is bigger than 2. You're in deficit.
     You know, life has been good to a lot of you in this room. And 
you've worked hard, and some of you in this room would be better off the 
day after with that program--people like lawyer Latham there, you know? 
[Laughter] But look, we've tried it that way, and all I can tell you is, 
if you keep interest rates lower, that's better for everybody, including 
the well-off. And it keeps this economy going, and it makes everything 
else possible.
    One percent lower interest rates, which is what you get if you stay 
out of deficit and keep paying that debt down, one percent a year, over 
10 years, is worth the following: $390 billion in lower home mortgage 
payments; $30 billion in lower car payments; $15 billion in lower 
college loan payments. Never mind--now, that's a $435 billion tax cut in 
the form of lower mortgages. Never mind the lower interest rates on 
credit cards and the lower business loan rate, which means easier to 
start a small business, more business expansion, more jobs, higher 
income, and a better stock market.
     So, number one is, what's the best way to keep the prosperity 
going? Question number two, how do you build on the progress of the last 
8 years with a cleaner environment, with a lower crime rate, with the 
welfare rolls cut in half, with the schools improving, the college-going 
rate going up, the number of people without health insurance going down? 
How do you do that?
     Well, I believe you have to have some funds to invest in helping 
working people whose children we're now insuring get health insurance, 
too; helping people who leave the work force when they're 55 and don't 
have health insurance anymore buy into Medicare; in adding this 
prescription drug benefit for seniors; in funding the college tuition 
program Vice President Gore has recommended, tuition deduction for 
college. I

[[Page 2654]]

think these are very important, and continuing to invest until all our 
kids who need preschool and after-school have it; continuing to invest 
because you're going to have 2 million teachers retire over the next 10 
years, and we've got to replace them. And if we keep unemployment low 
and the economy high, we'll have to pay them more, do signing bonuses, 
do a lot of work on that. So how do you build on the progress? I think 
you don't just stay still, but the question is, are you going to change 
in the same direction you're moving in or take a different direction?
     So, question number one, how do you keep the prosperity going? 
Question number two, how do you build on the progress? Question number 
three, how do you keep building one America?
     We've come a long way, but we still have real challenges. We have 
to figure out a way to work through this racial profiling issue, to stop 
it without in any way giving anybody the impression that we want any 
criminal to get away with anything. That's not what this is about. We 
all want strong law enforcement; we want a safe society. We like the 
fact that the crime rate is going down, but we don't like people being 
targeted just because of who they are, rather than whether there is a 
reasonable suspicion that they've committed a crime.
     How do you deal with the fact that we still have a lot of hate 
crimes in America, based not just on race but on sexual orientation, 
even a few every year based on disability? Do we need a hate crimes 
bill? I think we do.
     How do you deal with the fact that even though I have named 62 
African-American Federal judges--3 times as many as the previous two 
administrations combined--we still don't have a black judge on the 
fourth circuit, where there are more black Americans than any other 
Federal circuit in America?
     How do we keep closing the digital divide? It's still out there, 
within our country and beyond our borders. And I could just go on and on 
and on. We have big challenges in our continuing effort to build one 
America.
    How are we going to do more to guarantee equal pay for women? I 
don't know if you saw the news story today, but now married couples with 
children where both the man and the woman are in the work force are now 
a majority of married couples--now a majority. Fifty-nine percent of the 
women in America with a child one year or younger are in the work force 
now--59 percent. And yet, there is still a yawning pay gap, which is not 
only bad for women; it's bad for the men that are married to them. 
[Laughter] I mean, this is not a good deal here.
     You know, I came late to this issue because my wife made more money 
than me until I got elected President. [Laughter] And now I'm going to 
let her try public service, I hope, and I'll see if I can make more 
money. [Laughter] I want you to laugh and have a good time, but this is 
serious. How are we going to build one America?
     So, one, how do you keep the prosperity going? Two, how do you 
build on the progress we're making in every aspect of our social life? 
Three, how do we keep building one America? Four, how do we create a 
world that is safer for our children, more just, more decent, and more 
prosperous?
     For me, passing the trade bill for Africa and the Caribbean is an 
important part of that. For me, immigration fairness is important to 
that. For me, this debt relief initiative, which I am profoundly 
grateful--I must say, I've tried to emphasize to people, the parties do 
not fight over everything in Washington. This election ought to be about 
where our honest differences are. But one of the most moving things to 
me in this congressional session has been, we actually reached a 
bipartisan agreement to have America pay its fair share of relieving the 
debt of the poorest countries in the world that agree to give honest 
government and put the savings into education, health care, and 
development. This is a huge deal.
     But we've got to keep building that kind of world. I'm proud of the 
role we played for peace in Northern Ireland. I'm proud of our renewed 
efforts in Africa. I'm proud of what we did in the Balkans, in Kosovo 
and Bosnia, to stop ethnic cleansing. We did the right thing. I'm glad 
we're still struggling to try to build peace in the Middle East through 
this very difficult period that's taken a lot of our minds and hearts, 
those of us who have been working on this for the last 8 years.

[[Page 2655]]

     But that's another thing I want to say. The African-American 
community should, in my judgment, support America's increasing ties to 
the rest of the world in a positive way because we are an immigrant 
nation. Every one of us came here from somewhere else, except the Native 
Americans, and even their ancestors at one time probably crossed the 
Bering Straits when it was all land. We all got here from somewhere 
else.
     And so, I asked you to come here today because this is an unusual 
election season for us. In my lifetime, we have never had an opportunity 
to go to the polls with so much peace, so much prosperity, with the 
absence of domestic crisis or looming foreign threat. So we actually are 
required, all of us, to kind of look inside ourselves and say, what are 
our dreams here; what is really at stake here; does it matter whether I 
and all my friends vote here?
     And I wanted you to come here just to say, you know, I'm not 
running for anything--[laughter]--but I don't believe there's been an 
election where it was any more important to vote, because the American 
people, in a fundamental sense in this season, are free to chart their 
own future. And all the best stuff is still out there.
    You know, we're going to have young women bringing babies home from 
the hospital within a couple years with a life expectancy of 90 years 
because of the human genome project. You'll get your little card, tell 
you what your kid's gene map is like, what your child's problems are 
going to be, and the following 10 things you can do to dramatically 
increase your child's life expectancy.
     We're going to have older people--already if you live to be 65, 
your life expectancy is 82 years. We're going to have older people able 
to cure Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, roll back some kinds of cancer, even, 
that we can't deal with now. It's going to be astonishing. But we're 
also going to have all our medical and financial records on somebody's 
computer somewhere, and we've got to figure out how we set up a system 
so we get to say yes before somebody looks at them.
     These are big issues. And the thing that I would like to say about 
the Vice President is that, after 8 years, I know he makes good 
decisions. I know he has good values, and I know he understands the 
future. He thinks about this stuff all the time. And that's very, very 
important. Senator Lieberman I've known for 30 years, and I feel the 
same way about him. But this is an election in which the American 
people, they don't have to really believe anything hateful about anybody 
that is running. Maybe some people find that boring. I think it's 
wonderful. [Laughter] You can actually say, ``Look, we got all of these 
good people running for office who love their families, and they love 
their country, and they will do their very best to do the right thing. 
It's what they believe.''
    So you've just got to decide what you believe. But you cannot afford 
to let the opportunity of maybe more than a generation, maybe 50 years--
it may be 50 years before we have another election like this. On the 
other hand, we could have another one just like this in 4 years, if we 
do the right thing now--if we do the right thing now.
     I think of the first Presidential campaign I took a part in, in 
1968. It was an agony; 1972, when I met Eddie Bernice Johnson, it was an 
agony; 1976, we were full of hope, but there were also a lot of problems 
in the country; 1988, the country was in the dumps again; 1984, it was 
morning in America, but as my Senator, Dale Bumpers, used to say, if you 
let me write $200 billion worth of hot checks every year, I could show 
you a good time, too. [Laughter] And so eventually the chickens came 
home to roost there.
     We've got a good thing going here. But shame on us if we don't 
thank God for our good fortune and tell everybody how important it is to 
make a decision. And believe me, not showing up is a decision, and it's 
the wrong decision. Not showing up is a decision, and it's the wrong 
decision.
     So I just wanted you to come here today so I could tell you that I 
think it's important that you, and anybody you can talk to, go out into 
the community and say, ``Look, it might be 50 years before we get a deal 
like this again, and here is what I think is at issue: How do you keep 
the prosperity going; how do you build on the progress; how do you build 
one America, keep on doing that; and how do we prepare for the future 
and do these big things?'' It's really, really important.

[[Page 2656]]

     Lastly, depending on the makeup of the Congress, it's important 
that somebody be here that stops some of the more extreme things that 
would have happened if I hadn't had the great good fortune, thanks to so 
many of you, to be standing here in the way of some things, as well as 
trying to get some things going.
     So I just want to--I have learned--one of the reporters asked me 
earlier today if I really thought it was bad that I had had to work and 
hadn't been out on the campaign trail, and I said, ``No, I'm not 
running, and I shouldn't have been out before now.'' And I'm actually 
probably the only person in the room that's been on the other end of 
this deal, because I remember when President Reagan came to Arkansas in 
1984, and he was more popular than you can imagine down there. And we 
both did just fine in the elections, so--[laughter]--if you get my 
drift.
     I don't seek to tell anybody how to vote, but I do seek to say, 
based on my experience--because everybody knows who I'm for--but based 
on my experience, which unfortunately is getting longer every year, I 
don't know when we'll ever have another time like this. I've done 
everything I could to turn this country around, to pull this country 
together, to move our country forward. But we've got this huge 
opportunity here, that we can literally paint a picture of the future 
and make it happen, if we keep the prosperity going, instead of put it 
at risk by going into deficit; if we build on the progress of the last 8 
years, instead of reverse those policies which brought it; if we keep 
working to build one America; and then if we take home the big 
challenges of the future.
     I just think, if you go out and tell people that, tell young people 
that, they will understand what is at issue, and they will show up. And 
in a free society, that's all any of us can ask: Show up. Know what the 
differences are; have clarity on that. Make your decision, and the rest 
of us will happily embrace it. I think it will be quite a good decision 
if we get everybody there.
     Thank you very much.

  Note:  The President spoke at 5:58 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to John J. Johnson, director, 
National Programs Department, NAACP; Norman Hill, president, A. Philip 
Randolph Institute; Wade Henderson, executive director, Leadership 
Conference on Civil Rights; Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, executive director 
and chief operating officer, Black Leadership Forum, Inc.; Weldon H. 
Latham, senior partner, Holland and Knight, and general counsel, 
National Coalition of Minority Businesses; and former Senator Dale 
Bumpers. This item was not received in time for publication in the 
appropriate issue.