Bill Clinton: “I'm going there tomorrow, and if I say Los Alamos, will you cheer when I'm in Los Angeles? I owe you one. This lab will…”

“I'm going there tomorrow, and if I say Los Alamos, will you cheer when I'm in Los Angeles? I owe you one. This lab will work with the Departments of Energy and Defense and Commerce to sustain constant innovation. We're going to have to reorganize a lot of things to get that done. We can't just have the money coming in for specific projects from--some from defense and some from the Energy Department. We'll have all kinds of dislocations. And we had some great conversations today about how we can make a flexible and always available pool of funds there for the kinds of projects that need to be done. And our administration has pledged to do that. So I say to you again, we must change the whole notion we have of the Federal Govern- ment. We're going to have to cut a lot of spending. We're going to have to change a lot of things we have taken for granted. But we will still have to find a way to invest in our future. Our competitors are investing in their futures. There is a race to tomorrow, which is partly cooperation, but make no mistake about it, largely competition. And if we want all of these young people to have the chance to go as far as their efforts and their God-given abilities will take them, we have to do both: We've got to bring this deficit down and sharply invest in things like these laboratories so we can grow the economy for tomorrow. The reductions in the defense budget, made possible by the end of the cold war, have presented some great challenges to the laboratories, to the defense plants, to the wonderful men and women who have served our Nation in uniform. We owe all of them the opportunity to convert to success in the commercial private enterprise world of America. We have earmarked, this year alone, over $1.7 billion for defense conversion, and I propose to invest about $20 billion in it over the next 5 years. It is a good beginning. It is a good beginning. I ask you today, as I close, to consider the alternative. If we refuse to bring our deficit down and we still continue to squeeze these areas critical to our investment future, the alternative will be a rising deficit, a declining rate of investment, more unemployment and more stagnant incomes, longer work weeks for less funds, and continued insecurity for America's working families. We must change our priorities no matter how difficult it is. That is the challenge of this day, and we must meet it. As has already been said, President Kennedy stood in this very spot just over 30 years ago and saluted the great patriots of Los Alamos. He said in part, and I quote, ``We want to express our thanks to you. It is not merely what was done in the days of the Second War but what has been done since then, not only in developing weapons of destruction which, by irony of fate, helped maintain peace and freedom, but also in medicine and in space, and all the other related fields which can mean so much to mankind if we can maintain the peace and protect our freedom.'' Well today, maintaining the peace and protecting the freedom seem more secure than they did when President Kennedy uttered those words. And so, today I come here to thank Los Alamos, not merely for what was done in the cold war and what has been done since but for what you can and will do to secure a stronger, brighter future for all the American people. If we do our job, then perhaps 30 years from now another American President will be able to come to this very site, and some of you who are now children will be here with your children. And you can say, again, thank you, thank you to the labs, thank you to the men and women who used their minds to advance the cause of learning. Thank you for the contributions you have made to the progress of the American dream. May it never stop. God bless you, and thank you very much.”