[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 45 (Monday, November 13, 2000)]
[Pages 2777-2780]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Bronx County Democratic Committee Rally in New York City

November 4, 2000

    The President. Thank you. Wow! Are you ready to win this election?
    Audience members. Yes!
    The President. I want to begin with a set of thank-you's. I thank 
the Bronx for being so good to me and Al Gore and Hillary and Tipper 
these last 8 years. I thank Fernando Ferrer, who started with me in late 
1991, when only my mother thought I could be elected President. 
[Laughter] I thank Roberto Ramirez for his strong leadership here and 
his friendship. I thank your Congressman, Jose Serrano, who has been 
with me for 8 years in Washington, DC.
    I want to thank your State comptroller, Carl McCall, for his great 
leadership and great--[inaudible]. I thank the members of the senate, 
the members of the assembly, the members of the council that are here. I 
understand Congressman Joe Crowley from Queens is here to sing the 
national anthem and to make sure I'm not the only Irishman here today. I 
thank you. [Laughter]
    Now look, I'm tempted just to give you one applause line after 
another. This is the best chanting crowd I've heard in a long time. 
[Laughter] But Roberto said, you know, you've just got 4 days, and those 
4 days will determine 4 years, maybe 8 years, maybe the next 20 years of 
our Nation's life. So I want to ask you to indulge me just a couple of 
minutes while I talk about where we're going. Because for all of you 
here--and it's a great crowd--the truth is, you've all got a lot of 
friends who have never been to an event like this. Is that right? 
[Applause] There's our State party chair, Judith Hope. Thank you, 
Judith, for being here. Thank you.
    But you've got a lot of friends who have never been to hear the 
President speak, right? Never been to a Democratic meeting in the Bronx, 
never heard Hillary or Vice President Gore or anybody. But they'll vote. 
Or they might vote if they know clearly what the choice is and what the 
consequence is for their families and their community and their country.
    So I just want to say a few things to you from the heart. You have 
been very good to me. And America is better off than it was 8 years ago. 
But what I believe is that this election is every bit as important as 
the election we had in 1992. And it is very important to realize that 
we're not just voting for people; we're also voting for a set of ideas 
about how our country should work.
    You know, Fernando Ferrer said this--I want to say it again--I 
always wanted you to feel, even whether you agreed or disagreed with me, 
that you had somebody in the White House who was on your side, somebody 
who understood what your lives were like, and your hopes and your 
dreams, and was pulling for you and trying to help you make your lives 
better.
    Now, 8 years ago Al Gore and I promised that if you would give us a 
chance to serve, we would put people first. We tried to create 
opportunity for every responsible citizen in a community in which every 
American had a part. This year the American people have to decide to put 
our country and our children first, at a time of unprecedented 
prosperity. And the truth is, sometimes it's harder to make a good, 
clear decision when times are good than when they're tough.
    I mean, I know New Yorkers took a chance on me in '92. I know that. 
I remember when the incumbent President kept referring to me as the 
Governor of a small southern State. [Laughter] Remember when he said 
that? And I was so naive at the time, I thought it was a compliment. 
[Laughter] The truth is, I still do. [Laughter]
    But hey, give me a break. It wasn't that much of a chance. The 
country was in the ditch. We had to change, right? But now things are 
going well.
    So there are three big questions that have to be asked and answered. 
And what I'm going to ask you to do is to take every spare minute you've 
got between now and the time the polls close to talk to all the people 
you know who are not here today and have never come to one of these 
things but could show up, because that could make the difference.
    I just got back from California. I'm going back to Arkansas 
tomorrow. All over the country, I've never seen an election like this. 
There are 12 or 13 States where the election

[[Page 2778]]

is within 2 points one way or the other. There are congressional races 
and Senate races that are just unbelievably tight. And I am convinced 
it's because in these good times people are not absolutely clear about 
what the consequences are.
    So here are the three things I want you to say to your neighbors. 
Number one, if you remember where we were 8 years ago and you look at 
where we are today, do you want to keep the prosperity going and give it 
to people who haven't felt it yet?
    Audience members. Yes!
    The President. Now, if you do, there's a choice. Al Gore and Joe 
Lieberman and Hillary say, ``Okay, you want to keep the prosperity 
going? First, we've got to keep paying down the debt to keep interest 
rates low.'' That's the biggest tax cut we can give anybody. It means 
lower mortgage rates, lower car payments, lower college loan payments, 
lower credit card payments; lower business loans costs, which means more 
businesses, more jobs, higher incomes and a better stock market.
    And then take what's left, once you figure out what you've got to do 
to pay the debt down, and spend it on education and health care and the 
environment and a tax cut we can afford for our family, for child care, 
long-term care, college education, and retirement. Now, that's their 
deal.
    The Republicans' sounds good. They say----
    Audience members. Boo-o-o!
    The President. Hey, wait. Wait. It sounds good. What's their line? 
Their line is, ``Hey, this is your money''--which, of course, it is--
``so we'll just give it all to you now. We'll have a tax cut that's 3 
times bigger than the Democrats'. We'll privatize Social Security and 
let young people take the money and run. And we'll spend some money, 
too.''
    Now, here are the problems with that. People ask me all the time, 
``How did you turn the economy around? What great new idea did you bring 
to Washington?'' Do you know what my answer is? ``Arithmetic. We brought 
arithmetic to Washington.'' [Laughter]
    Now, look. You know, I heard--Governor Bush said there was an 
education recession; there's really an education renaissance. And I'm 
telling you, everybody in the Bronx can figure this out. Here's the 
deal: The surplus is supposed to be $2 trillion, right? Forget about all 
those zeroes; that's hard. But it's 2--the surplus, right? [Laughter] 
Okay. Now, their tax cut and the interest associated with it cost $1.6 
trillion--1.6. When they privatize Social Security, that costs a 
trillion dollars. Why? Because if all you young folks take your payroll, 
everybody like me that's 55 or over that's been guaranteed we will get 
what we've got coming--and as Al Gore keeps pointing out, you can't 
spend the same money twice--so if you take a trillion out, we've got to 
put a trillion in, right? So that's 1.6 plus 1. And then they promise to 
spend a half a trillion dollars; that's .5.
    Now, 1.6 plus 1 plus .5 is 3.1--3.1 is bigger than 2. [Laughter] 
That's the whole deal. Now look, we tried it their way before. Remember? 
And we ran 12 years of deficits, and we quadrupled the national debt. 
And when I took office, interest rates were high; inflation was bad; the 
economy was in the tank. We could go back there just by saying----
    Audience members. No!
    The President. But you've got to tell people, you can't have it all 
now. We've got to think about our country and our children and our 
obligations to our seniors and our obligation to keep this economy 
going. So tell people that 3.1 is bigger than 2. If you want to keep 
this prosperity going, you've got one choice: Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, 
and Hillary.
    Now, the second issue. The country is not just stronger 
economically; it's stronger. The crime rate is down to a 26-year low. 
The environment is cleaner. We've cleaned up more toxic waste sites in 8 
years than they did in 12--3 times as many. The air is cleaner; the 
water is cleaner; more land preserved forever than any administration 
since Teddy Roosevelt 100 years ago.
    The health care system is getting better. We added 26 years to the 
life of Medicare. It was supposed to go broke last year. The number of 
people without health insurance is going down for the first time in a 
dozen years. The schools are getting better: math scores, reading 
scores, science scores up; the dropout rate down; the college-going rate 
at an all-time high, in no small measure because

[[Page 2779]]

we passed the biggest expansion of college aid in 50 years.
    Now, here's the deal. Do you want to keep building on that progress 
and doing better?
    Audience members. Yes!
    The President. There is a difference; there is a choice. Look at Al 
Gore and Joe Lieberman and Hillary. What do they say? They say, keep 
putting police on the streets; keep taking commonsense measures that 
keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children. They say, keep 
cleaning up the environment, and give us a clean energy future and one 
that's more secure, so you don't have to worry about what home heating 
oil is going to cost every winter because we'll have more sources of 
energy and we'll use it better.
    They say, keep insuring children until all our kids are insured, and 
then get their working-class parents health insurance, too. Pass the 
Patients' Bill of Rights. Pass Medicare prescription drugs for every 
senior who needs it.
    They say, give the States and the school districts money to rebuild 
crumbling schools and build new ones; put 100,000 qualified teachers in 
the early grades so these kids will have little classes; have universal 
preschool and after-school for the kids who need it; and give our 
families a tax deduction for the cost of college tuition so everybody 
can afford to go to college. Now, that's what they say.
    Now, you've got a choice. What do the Republicans say? This is what 
they've committed to do. They've committed to abolish the 100,000 police 
program, break down the 100,000 teacher program. They've committed to 
relax the clean air standards and to reverse a lot of the land I've 
protected. They are against the Patients' Bill of Rights. They are 
against the Medicare prescription drugs for all of our seniors. And 
their answer to education is block grants and vouchers.
    Now, it's not like you don't have a choice. But if you look where we 
were 8 years and you look where we are now, and you want to build on 
that progress, you just have one choice: Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, and 
Hillary.
    Here's the third big thing. There are just three big questions in 
this race. The third big thing is, don't you want to keep building one 
America, one community where we're all going forward together? That's a 
big issue. This economy is the first recovery in 30 years where 
everybody got to go along for the ride: African-American unemployment 
cut in half; Hispanic unemployment cut by more than half; the lowest 
minority unemployment in the history of the country that we have ever 
registered; average income up $5,000; child poverty down 30 percent; 
poverty at a 20-year low; welfare rolls cut in half. We're all going 
along for the ride.
    Now, if you adopt their economic program, we'll keep growing 
together. And it's more than economics. We didn't end affirmative 
action, as the Republicans wanted to do; we amended it. We fought for 
fairness and decency for our immigrants. We fought for an end to 
prejudice and for civil rights.
    Now, you've got a choice. Look at Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, and 
Hillary. They're for hate crimes legislation, employment 
nondiscrimination legislation, stronger enforcement of equal pay for 
women, fairness for immigrants, and a Supreme Court that will protect 
civil rights, human rights, and a woman's right to choose.
    Now, in every area, in every area from top to bottom, the 
Republicans have the opposite position. So it's not like there is a 
choice. You've got to go out and just tell people, ``Look, you don't 
think you're going to go vote? You don't think it makes any difference? 
If you want to keep the prosperity going, if you want to build on the 
progress for the last 8 years, if you want to keep building one America 
so we all go along for the ride, you've got one choice: Al Gore, Joe 
Lieberman, and Hillary.''
    Now, let me just say one thing else. Let me say something 
personally. I know both these people better than about everybody who is 
going to vote in America. [Laughter] And I know something about the 
Presidency and something about the Congress and something about the 
Senate. And I would like to say a couple of personal words.
    John Kennedy said the Presidency was preeminently a place of 
decisionmaking. Al Gore has done more good for the American people as 
Vice President than anybody in history. He has more experience. He has 
more ability to make those decisions. He is the hardest working person I 
have ever known.

[[Page 2780]]

He has the capacity to keep learning and the curiosity to do it.
    He understands the world, which is why, if you talk to the Albanian-
Americans in New York City, of whom there is quite a good number in New 
York, they were probably astonished when his opponent said we shouldn't 
be in Kosovo. We had to stand up against ethnic cleansing and slaughter 
there; it was the right thing to do.
    And he understands the future. I put him in charge of connecting all 
our schools to the Internet. When we started, only 3 percent of the 
classrooms in the country were connected; now 65 percent are. Ninety 
percent of the poorest schools in America are connected to the Internet.
    He is a good man who will make good decisions, who will be a great 
President. And I can tell you that based on my personal knowledge. If 
you want somebody you can bank on in a crisis and bank on to make the 
most of these good times, you need to tell people that. I know this.
    And I'll tell you something about Hillary. She knows more--she knows 
more about children and family, about education and health care, about 
how to bring economic opportunity to distressed areas than anybody I can 
imagine who could be running for President. She has worked on this 
stuff, some of these issues for 20 years, some of these issues for 30 
years. She has been part of all the efforts we've made for peace, from 
Northern Ireland to the Balkans to the Middle East.
    She has been part of our outreach to Africa, to Latin America, to 
South Asia, to places that America used to ignore. But we know that we 
have Americans from those places, and we know we should be their 
partners for the future.
    And I told her when she decided to do this that New York was a 
pretty tough sell. [Laughter] I said, ``You know, just remember the 
primary I went through in New York in '92.'' I said, ``They'll put you 
through your paces there.'' And so you have. [Laughter]
    And she has been subject to a campaign that has amazed even me, and 
I've been through a lot--[laughter]--for its emphasis on trying to build 
a wellspring of resentment and division among our State. But hey, you 
know, that's part of the deal. And she has met every test. She has 
worked her heart out for 16 months. She has come to every community; 
she's been there for you.
    So here is what I want to tell you. Yes, we're right on the issues. 
Yes, if you want to keep the prosperity going, build on the social 
progress, and bring everybody along together, you've got to be for Al 
Gore and Joe Lieberman and Hillary, but they're also, by far and away, 
the best qualified people to keep serving you. So go out and talk to 
your neighbors and win this election on Tuesday.
    Thank you.

 Note:  The President spoke at 4:12 p.m. in the Main Dining Room at the 
Marina Del Ray restaurant. In his remarks, he referred to Fernando 
Ferrer, president, Bronx Borough; New York State Assemblyman Roberto 
Ramirez; and Republican Presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush.