Bill Clinton: “First of all, let me say to Alan and Susan, it is wonderful to be back here. I remember very well when I was here in…”

“First of all, let me say to Alan and Susan, it is wonderful to be back here. I remember very well when I was here in 1992. I also remember an event that they were part of in 1992, about 10 days before the New Hampshire primary, when everybody said I was absolutely dead; I had no chance to win; I was dropping like a rock in the polls. And we showed up in New York City for a fundraiser, and there were 700 people in this room for a dead candidate. So I said, ``I am not dead yet.'' [Laughter] And that night was memorable for two reasons: One was that we had so many people there, thanks to a lot of you in this room, who didn't believe that it was over and who believed in what I was trying to do. The other was that I had a very--what is now a very famous encounter in the kitchen, walking to the speech, with a Greek immigrant waiter who said that his 10-year-old son had asked him to vote for me because of what he'd heard me say, and he would do it if I would be more concerned about his son's safety. He said he lived across the street from a park, but his kid couldn't play in the park without his being there; he lived down the street from a school, but his child couldn't walk to the school. And he said that where he had lived, he was much poorer but he was free. It was a very compelling portrait of why crime and physical safety is an important public issue. And he said, ``So if I vote for you like my boy wants me to, I want you to make my boy free.'' And that man and his son became friends of ours, and they've been to lots of things, and they even went to Ohio once to an anticrime event with us. So a lot has happened because of my friendship with Alan and Susan. If he had said one more time that he wasn't a Democrat--I thought he was protesting too much. [Laughter] I'm a Baptist; I believe in deathbed conversions. It's not too late. [Laughter] Let me say what I thought would be helpful tonight. I do have to leave fairly soon, but before--because we've all been here and most of you have heard me give a zillion speeches, I'd like to just talk for 2 minutes and then give you time--if you have any questions or anything you want to talk about, I'd like to just hear from you. Steve has already said what this investment is about. But let me back up a little bit. In 1992, I ran for President because I thought the country was divided and drifting, and I believed we were on the verge not just of a new century and a new millennium but a profoundly different time in human affairs. We now know that this whole process of globalization and the revolution in information in science and technology is dramatically changing the way we live and work and relate to each other and relate to the rest of the world in ways that are mostly good, but have some stiff challenges as well. We also know that we are much more interdependent than ever before, both within our country and beyond our borders. Today, you know, as I met people today, it was amazing how freely the conversations went back and forth between issues that once would have been thought of as foreign or domestic, but all were perceived as having a direct impact on the lives and welfare of the people with whom I was meeting today. Now, we have tried basically to focus the country on making the changes necessary to create a 21st century America where there will be opportunity for everyone who's responsible enough to work for it; where, out of all of our diversity, we will build a community that is still one America, united and strong; and where our country will have enough support for our continuing involvement in the world, that we can keep leading the world toward greater peace and freedom and prosperity. That has required a redefinition of the role of Government, basically, that the Republican Party tried for years with great success to simply discredit the whole enterprise of Government, and to say that Government was the problem, and to basically position individual freedom against Government. President Reagan was quite brilliant at it, and he did it very graphically and compellingly. But I think that the Democrats were not able to successfully counter, in part, because we seemed to be defending yesterday's Government. What we tried to do is to say that Government is the instrument of our personal freedom and our strong community, and there are some things that we can only do through our role as citizens. So I think the basic function of Government in the 21st century will be to establish the conditions and give people the tools to make the most of their own lives and build strong families and communities and make this country strong--not to do everything but not to sit on the sidelines. And I'm very mindful of that because of all the obvious challenges we're facing today at home and abroad. Now, if you look at where we are compared to where we were 5 years ago, basically, we've changed the economic policy, the crime policy, the social policy, and the education policy of the National Government, I think, to good results. We have the lowest unemployment rate in 24 years, the lowest crime rate in 24 years, the biggest drop in the welfare rolls in history, a really serious attempt to deal with the conflicts of family and work that people face through things like the family and medical leave law, and a serious attempt to prove that we can grow the economy while improving the environment. In the last 5 years, while we've had 13 million new jobs, the air is cleaner; the water is cleaner; the food supply is safer. We have cleaned up more toxic waste dumps than at any comparable period in history and put more land in trust in one form or another than any administration in American history except the administrations of the two Roosevelts. So I think that we would have to say the record about the philosophy has been pretty good. In addition to that, the United States has been a force for peace and freedom and expanded mutual trade agreements to reinforce prosperity. Now, as you look ahead to the future, just very briefly, what will we be dealing with in '98? What still needs to be done before I leave office in 2000? On the economy, first we must do no harm. We have fought very hard. We're going to have very close to a balanced budget this year. When I took office, the estimate was that the deficit would be $357 billion this year. The last thing we need to do is to explode the deficit again. So anybody who's got any kind of proposals, whether it's for spending or tax cuts or anything else, my view is, first, do no harm. We have fought too hard, and we see evidence all around the world that no country is big enough or strong enough to sustain its prosperity in the face of financial irresponsibility. Second, we have got to do a better job of bringing the benefits of enterprise in the modern economy to poor areas. You heard Alan talk about how we once were interested in this. We see a real renaissance in some urban neighborhoods, but not in most urban neighborhoods. We must do better there. On the environment, we have a number of challenges; I'll just mention one. I think this agreement we made at Kyoto will prove to be a very historic agreement. It wasn't perfect, it didn't have everything we wanted, but it's the first time that major nations of the world ever committed themselves to the proposition that they could grow the economy, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and do it primarily through market mechanisms. And I believe it's profoundly important, and I intend to work very hard on implementing it this year. We have an entitlement challenge in this country because the baby boomers are so numerous that we have to make some adjustments in both Social Security and Medicare if we expect to preserve them for the baby boom generation at a bearable cost for our own children. And I think you will see significant progress on that in the next 2 years. In education, the fundamental problems it seems to me are--I'm very proud of the fact that in the balanced budget act we basically make community college free for people with the tax credits and open the doors of college--we did more for college access than anytime in 50 years, since the GI bill. It's a stunning piece of work that, for some reason, doesn't seem to have acquired a lot of notice in the press. But when I talk to ordinary people about it, they think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. So that's a big deal. But what we have to do now is make our schools work again. There's a report just today saying that urban schools basically are performing vastly below suburban schools on all national measures of testing. I've done my best to try to promote a set of structural reforms and high standards and rigorous testing with consequences. The report shows that in Virginia, where they have urban schools that have done much better than the national average, it's because they have specific, rigorous standards; they measure the standards, and there are consequences to the results they find. This is not rocket science. These children can learn. Most of the teachers are fully capable of doing what they need to do. The system is not adequate to meet what the children deserve and the country needs, and we intend to keep working on that. Well, there are a lot of other issues I can--yesterday we announced the biggest child care program in the history of the country, that we will have to pay for. I think that's a good thing. But it must be paid for with the successful resolution of the tobacco issue, which I hope the Congress will resolve satisfactorily. On the international front, I hope we will approve the expansion of NATO. I'd still like to have more trade authority. And I hope the Congress will pay our debts to the United Nations and we can resume our global role and I think that will help. I do believe that we will give some gifts to the millennium. I think you'll see a significant increase in medical research and a number of other things that are of interest to a lot of you in this room. I think '98, even though it's a political year, will be a good year. Some of you asked me about political reform, I will do my best. We have a vote scheduled in the springtime--in March, I think--and both the leadership in both Houses has promised to vote on some kind of campaign finance reform. They've not promised to vote on the bill that I support, McCain- Feingold, but a vote on some kind of campaign finance reform. And I have said this repeatedly--I'll say it again--I think the trick is, if we're going to have limits on soft money, then the hard money contribution limits ought to be realistic in light of today's cost, number one. And, number two, we ought to have access to free or reduced air time for candidates who observe overall spending limits. The Supreme Court has made clear that you can't control how much money people spend on their own campaigns, because money is speech. I'm not sure I agree with the decision, but there it is, and it's been there for over 20 years. What's driving the costs of campaigns is the cost of air time, the cost of communicating directly with the voters. If there were some standards for how that could be done, if you got the benefit of free or reduced air time, I think you might see a big turnup in voter turnout because you could have more, if you will, interactive air time--longer programs, call-in programs, townhall meetings, questions and answers. The whole thing could be changed. But we're going to have to have some help on the expenditure side, as well as on the money raising side. So I think it will be a good year. I'm excited about it. We've already got more than one foot in the 21st century, but we also have some really significant challenges. And when you think about all the medical research that's going on, on the one hand, and the dangers of chemical and biological warfare on the other; when you think about how we're getting along in America with a couple of hundred racial and ethnic groups, on the one hand, and the fights that still go on from Africa to Northern Ireland to the Middle East to Bosnia on the other, you see the two sides of the 21st century. We have to make sure that interdependence and community triumph over anarchy and chaos. And I think we can do it if we stay on the course we're on. Thank you. Anybody got a--I'll answer two questions. Anybody want to ask a question? Yes. Projected Federal Budget Surplus”