pd04oc99 Memorandum on Measures Regarding Certain Liberians in the United States...

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    Now I want to give a brief but, maybe, unconventional speech here. I 
want to sort of unpack where we are, what the Vice President said, what 
Bob and Bob said--all the nice things they said about our record and all 
that--what it really means for where we are and where we're going, 
because that's what matters.
    When I asked Al Gore to become my Vice Presidential partner, we put 
out a book called, ``Putting People First.'' And a lot of experts said 
we were crazy. They said, ``This whole thing is crazy; these two guys 
are the same age''--I look 100 years older than him now. [Laughter] They 
said, ``These two guys are the same age; they come from States that 
border each other; they more or less think alike; this is nuts. Why are 
they doing this?''
    Then we put out this book. And as evidence of the sort of cynicism 
of the political process, people said, ``Now this is really nuts. Here 
they put out this book; they've given all these specific commitments to 
the American people; and, you know how politics is, they're not going to 
do any of this. Then this book will be used to beat them over the head 
with.''
    You never hear about our book, do you? Do you know why? Because a 
respected scholar of the Presidency says we have kept a higher 
percentage of our commitments than the last five administrations, even 
though we have given far more than any. Now why is that? And not 
because--is it because we're more honest than they were? No. It's 
because we thought through what we believed, and analyzed where we 
thought the country was; and said, okay, if this is true then, 
therefore, we have to do these things.
    We've got to get rid of this deficit; we've got to expand America's 
business; we've got to bring opportunity to people who don't have it; 
we've got to invest in education. We had ideas. And we were following on 
12 years of the Reagan/Bush era, which was premised on two great ideas. 
One was that the Government was the problem--you remember all those 
speeches--America's in trouble because the Government is the problem--
1980.
    The second was the interesting proposition that we would balance the 
budget and grow the economy forever if we just cut taxes and increased 
spending. Shall I say it again? [Laughter] That's what they thought. So 
we didn't believe that. We just said, let's go back to arithmetic and 
get America ready for the modern world. And it worked, and you've talked 
about that.
    Now, in 1998--I want to talk about a little more arithmetic--we won 
seats in the Congress in the midterm elections for the first time since 
1822, in the sixth year of a Presidency, because people like you gave us 
enough money to get our message across, even though we were outspent 
$100 million. Doesn't matter how much money they have, if you've got 
enough. [Laughter] Right? We had enough.
    We need your help now. And what I want to say to you is, that's all 
that matters now. We've got to have enough. Because when young people 
come up to me and say, ``I'm interested in politics, Mr. President. What 
should I do, and how should I do it?'' I always say, ``Well, if you run, 
try to make sure that on election day, everyone who votes against you 
knows exactly what they're doing.''
    And if you think about it, that's what democracy should be. If 
everybody knows what they're doing, and you lose, you can't gripe.

[[Page 1823]]

You are making sure, with your contributions, that when people vote, 
they'll know what they're doing.
    The other thing I want to tell you is, you should be of good cheer. 
You should be optimistic. You should be confident. Why? Because we've 
got a good record. You just heard we've got good plans for the future. 
And because most Americans aren't thinking about this yet, and all the 
pundits that want you to believe it's all over are the same crowd that 
have buried me 9 or 10 times already. [Laughter] You should be of good 
cheer.
    Normally, at a time like this, you would expect a reasonably close 
election, and I believe it will be reasonably close. And I believe we'll 
win. And that's what I really believe is going to happen, because we've 
got a good record, good ideas, and because right now, people think they 
want change. And what they need to understand is, we want change, too. I 
would vote against the Vice President if he said, ``Vote for me, and 
I'll do everything that Bill Clinton would do.'' I would say, ``I'm 
sorry, Al; I can't vote for you.''
    This country's still around here after 223 years because we keep 
changing. We're constantly reimagining ourselves and exploring new 
possibilities. That's why we're still here. So that's not the question. 
The question is not, are we going to be for change? The question is, 
what kind of change are we going to be for? And you need to go tell 
people that.
    Are we going to build on what we have done, that's brought all these 
good things in America, and deal with the aging of America? Are we going 
to deal with the fact that in 30 years we'll have twice as many people 
over 65, when all the baby boomers retire--two people working for every 
one person drawing Social Security--and use this period to fix Social 
Security and Medicare?
    Are we going to deal with the global economy and what it means for 
us, and not squander this money until we pay down the debt? We could 
have this country debt-free in 15 years for the first time since 1835 
and leave all the borrowing for the private sector. Lower interest 
rates, more jobs, higher incomes, lower car payments, home mortgage 
payments, college payments--we could do that.
    The Democrats are supposed to be the liberal, progressive party. Why 
should they be for a debt-free America? Because average people are 
better off if the interest rates are lower, and inflation's lower, and 
growth is higher.
    He's got ideas that would make this the safest big country in the 
world. It's really important. I'm proud, you know--I'm on my way out, so 
I tell everybody we've got the lowest crime rate in 26 years. And that's 
good; it makes me sound good. But the truth is, about all we have done 
is to restore this country to basic sanity. The county is still too 
violent. There's still too many crazy people out there with guns killing 
innocent people, walking into churches, and doing all this stuff that's 
going on.
    We've got a plan to put more police where they ought to be, take 
reasonable measures to keep guns out of the wrong hands. They'll turn 
our crime policy back over to the NRA. And it'll get worse. That's just 
one example.
    So the issue is not--and you need to talk to people about this--the 
issue is not, are we going to change? The issue is, what kind of change 
are we for?
    I'm really proud that we thought ideas were important and that we 
worked to implement them. The Vice President's votes will become famous 
as the election wears on, and everybody will know that, as he points 
out, every time he votes, we win. And he voted and we won the economic 
plan. And he voted and we won in the Senate the right to close the 
loophole in the Brady bill affecting the gun shows.
    But he also ran our technology policy, that led to the 
Telecommunications Act, which has produced already over 300,000 high-
wage jobs. He managed our empowerment zone and enterprise community 
program, which is--well, ask Mayor Archer about it. Ask Mayor Archer. 
Detroit--don't take my word for it; on the way out of here, before you 
go out, just go ask him. Detroit's unemployment rate today is one-half 
of what it was on the day we were elected in 1992. One-half. Part of 
it's their brilliant mayor, but part of it is the empowerment zone 
program.
    Now, I say that to say ideas matter and making sure people know 
about them matter. And I want you to go out there and talk about

[[Page 1824]]

them. But I think our ideas are right. I think we ought to stay out of 
debt and pay this debt down. I think we ought to keep trying to improve 
the environment and grow the economy. I think we were right with the 
family and medical leave law; we ought to keep working to help people 
balance work and family.
    I think we ought to keep trying to build a community and be for this 
``Employment Non-Discrimination Act'' and be for the hate crimes 
legislation, because I think that when everybody who's law-abiding can 
work together, we do better in a global society, and people are happier, 
and life is more interesting. And that's what we're for. And you need to 
be in a good humor about this.
    I thank you for giving this money. We can make sure that everybody 
who votes knows what they're doing. But you need to go out and repeat 
these arguments and be of good cheer.
    Let me tell you one other thing. Except in Iowa, New Hampshire, and 
Washington, DC, most people aren't thinking about the Presidential 
election yet. In Conway, Arkansas, they're worried about the price of 
cattle.
    But they will worry. Their minds and their hearts will kick in. And 
almost every time, the American people get it right. If we do our job, 
they'll get it right. That's why we're still around here.
    So trust them. Stay with us. Consider it a privilege to give; we 
consider it a privilege to serve. We're going to give this country its 
best days in the 21st century.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 10 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to dinner hosts Robert and Arlene Kogod and Bob and
Clarice Smith; Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend of Maryland; Joseph J. 
Andrew, national chair, Roy Romer, former general chair, Beth Dozoretz, 
national finance chair; Andy Tobias, treasurer, and Mayor Dennis W. 
Archer of Detroit, general cochair, Democratic National Committee. This 
item was not received in time for publication in the appropriate issue.


<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]
                         

[Page 1824-1825]
 
Monday, October 4, 1999
 
Volume 35--Number 39
Pages 1821-1886
 
Week Ending Friday, October 1, 1999
 
The President's Radio Address

September 25, 1999

    Good morning. With only 5 days left in the current fiscal year, 
Congress still has a lot of work to do. For almost 7 years now, Vice 
President Gore and I have pursued a new economic strategy that focused 
on fiscal discipline, expanding trade in American products and services, 
and investing in our people and new technology.
    The results are now clear. The past 6\1/2\ years have produced the 
longest peacetime expansion in history: more than 19 million new jobs; 
rising wages; the lowest unemployment, welfare, and crime rates in a 
generation; the highest levels of homeownership ever; a balanced budget; 
and the largest surplus ever. It has given the American people more 
money in their paychecks, lower interest rates for homes and cars, more 
help through efforts like the HOPE scholarship to open the doors of 
college to all. We're on a path of progress and prosperity. The American 
people want it to continue.
    That's why 2 days ago I vetoed the Republicans' risky $792 billion 
tax plan. It was just too big, too bloated; it would place too big a 
burden on our economy and run the risk of higher interest rates and 
lower growth. Also, it didn't add a day to the Social Security Trust 
Fund or a dollar to Medicare. And it would have forced cuts of nearly 50 
percent in everything from education to health care to the environment 
to veterans programs to national security, even in air traffic safety.
    It would have created an untenable choice for the Congress: these 
irresponsible cuts on the one hand; or on the other, diverting ever more 
funds from the Social Security surplus and from debt reduction. We said, 
all of us did just a few months ago, that we shouldn't spend the Social 
Security surplus anymore.
    Today I say again to the congressional majority, we don't have to do 
that. I gave them a plan to expand the life of the Social Security Trust 
Fund 50 years, to extend Medicare over 25 years, and add prescription 
drug coverage, to invest in education and other priorities, to provide 
an affordable tax cut, and

[[Page 1825]]

still to pay down the debt and make us debt-free as a nation for the 
first time since 1835.
    But the congressional majority continues on a track that doesn't 
adequately fund America's real priorities, while already spending large 
amounts of the Social Security surplus, instead of preserving it for 
debt reduction. A month ago their own Congressional Budget Office 
estimated they'd used $16 to $19 billion of the surplus for Social 
Security, and steps they've taken since then have only made it go 
higher. They have used what the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, 
and others have called budget gimmicks to give the impression that they 
have simply created $17 billion out of thin air.
    At the same time, they're still not providing nearly enough for 
education and other vital priorities. In fact, the very same day I 
vetoed their budget-busting tax plan, they passed a bill out of 
committee that would seriously undermine our efforts to strengthen 
education. It would eliminate our effort to hire 100,000 quality 
teachers and reduce class size--something they themselves endorsed last 
year at election time. It would deny hundreds of thousands of young 
people access to after-school programs. It would eliminate our mentoring 
program, which is designed to get poor children into college. It doesn't 
improve or expand Head Start. It cuts the successful America Reads 
program, which now involves students from a thousand colleges going to 
tens of thousands of our young children to make sure then can read. It 
cuts our efforts to connect all our classrooms and schools to the 
Internet by the year 2000. And, again, there's not any funding for our 
plan to build or modernize 6,000 schools. All this at a time when we 
need to be doing more, not less, to prepare for the 21st century--for 
what is now the largest group of schoolchildren in our history.
    There's a better way. The Republicans should work with us to create 
a budget that pays for itself with straightforward proposals like our 
tobacco policy. They should work with us to create a real Social 
Security lockbox that would devote the entire surplus to debt reduction 
from Social Security taxes and extend the life of Social Security until 
the middle of the next century--something their plan doesn't do.
    Thursday I asked the Republicans to work with me on bipartisan 
Medicare proposal, to modernize Medicare and provide voluntary 
prescription drug benefits and keep it solvent until 2027. Following a 
meeting with my advisers, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, 
Bill Roth, has agreed to engage in serious discussion on meaningful 
Medicare reform.
    I'm reaching out to the Republicans to engage with us on Medicare. I 
want to do the same on education, on Social Security, on paying down our 
debt. We owe it to the American people to give it our best efforts. The 
results could make the 21st century America's best days.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 5:27 p.m. on September 24 in the Oval 
Office at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on September 25. 
The transcript was made available by the Office of the Press Secretary 
on September 24 but was embargoed for release until the broadcast.


<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]
                         

[Page 1825-1827]
 
Monday, October 4, 1999
 
Volume 35--Number 39
Pages 1821-1886
 
Week Ending Friday, October 1, 1999
 
Remarks on Departure for New Orleans, Louisiana, and an Exchange With 
Reporters

September 27, 1999

National Economy

    The President. Good morning. In a few moments I will be leaving for 
Louisiana. But before I depart, I want to say a few words about the 
course we're charting for America's future.
    Seven years ago, when I ran for President, it was a time of low 
growth, high interest rates, and high unemployment, a vicious cycle, 
driven by deepening deficits. Irresponsible policies had quadrupled our 
national debt and risked our future. Vice President Gore and I took 
office determined to change all that. We put in place a new strategy for 
the new economy, one founded on fiscal discipline, expanded trade, and 
investment in our people and modern technology.

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