Their argument is, the people who disagree with us, is that you do not have to believe in all that, you do not have to change anything, all you have got to do is get rid of the Government. We ought to balance the budget, but we do not have to cut education to balance the budget. You want to know what will happen if we stop giving little kids a chance to get off to a good start in school; if the Federal Government walks away from its responsibility to help with smaller class sizes, more computers, and higher standards; if the National Government walks away from its responsibility to give kids the opportunity to serve in national service programs, the AmeriCorps program, to earn their way to college, or get more Pell grants if they are poor or have better access to lower cost college loans like we have done? You raised the costs of higher education. And in the teeth of a bad economy, enrollment in higher education went down here when it should have gone up. We cannot let that happen to the United States. It is not necessary to balance the budget, and it would be wrong. And that is exactly what walking away from our responsibilities in education is. You look at this debate over the environment under the guise of balancing the budget, gutting the ability of the EPA to enforce the clean air law, putting on the budget all these riders, these limitations on our ability to protect our natural resources. You know, Hillary and Chelsea and I went to the West, to Wyoming, and we went to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks this summer. We got lucky; we got to do one or two things that most people could not do. We got to feed the wolves in Yellowstone because we happened to be there at feeding time. But basically, everything we did there, any American family could do. They could drive a car up there and fork over 10 bucks. And all across America we have this network of parks preserving our natural heritage. Some of these people say that in order to balance the budget we need to close half the parks or that it is okay to put a big mine right next to Yellowstone, even if we do not know how we are going to protect the water quality. Or it is okay, now that we created a California Desert Protection Act, just not to fund it and hope it will go away and die. Now, I know that sometimes we make mistakes with the Nation's environmental laws.


I thought it was kind of crazy to see that guy indicted for killing a kangaroo rat on his farm. But that stuff happened for a long time before we showed up. And under Al Gore's leadership, we have actually reduced the burden of crazy regulation. But I am telling you something, the world is not free of environmental problems. The world is not free of public health problems. People died just a couple years ago in Milwaukee because their water supply was poison. Children died just a couple of years ago in the Pacific Northwest from poison meat from E. coli, partly because the Government still inspects meat, as I said yesterday, believe it or not, the way dogs do. That is how your Government inspects meat. They touch it, they look at it, and they smell it. But we wanted to put in new regulations using high-technology equipment to stop E. coli, and there were people that actually voted not once but twice in the House of Representatives under the guise of cutting Government spending to stop us from doing that. So, yes, let us balance the budget, but do not tell me that we should sacrifice the clean air, clean water, and natural heritage of the United States. It is the rightful, rightful legacy of every American to do it. The Vice President talked about the crime bill. We did some important things in the crime bill because people in law enforcement told us to do it. They said, Do not spend all your money on prisons; spend some money to keep these kids out of trouble. And put 100,000 police out there on the street so they can help prevent crime as well as catch criminals. I started the week in Jacksonville, Florida, on Tuesday morning with an African-American Democrat who was elected sheriff in an overwhelmingly white Republican county. Then he got elected sheriff because people thought he'd be a good sheriff and because there was no partisan constituency for crime. Out here in the country, I cannot find anybody for raising the crime rate. It is only in Washington that people say, Well, that is what the Democrats put in the crime bill; we have got to gut the prevention money, and we have got to kill the 100,000 cops. And we will just give the cities and the counties and the States a little less money and we will give it to them in a block grant, and we do not care how they spend it. Now, we know what lowers the crime rate, but we are going to stop doing it anyway.

Remarks at a Clinton/Gore '96 Dinner in Los Angeles, California


Well, I am sorry, we ought to balance the budget, but there is no constituency and no conscience in doing things that you know will interrupt the fight to lower the crime rate. That is one of the great triumphs of the last 5 years, America proved we could lower the crime rate. Before, people did not think we could do it. Let us stop trying to undo it, stick with what works, and balance the budget and still do our justice to the streets of Los Angeles and the other places in the United States. I could give you a lot of other examples, but let me just mention one. And you have heard all this, and the numbers are so confusing it probably makes your head hurt. Let me tell you what the basic facts are. Medicare is a program that provides health care to people over 65. Part A of Medicare is hospital care; it is funded by a payroll tax. Part B is all of the other things you get on Medicare, and it is funded by general tax money and what elderly people pay out of their own pocket. Medicaid is a program that takes care of old people on low incomes and disabled people who need nursing home care or get care in their homes, and it provides medical care for all these poor children and their parents. You know, it is not fashionable to stick up for the poor anymore, but those kids are going to grow up and be part of our country. Why do you think the Los Angeles health care system's in trouble? Because they have got a lot of poor kids to care for. Now, we need to slow the growth of both those programs. They have been growing too fast, and they are crowding out our ability to invest in education and technology and the future. Everybody knows it. And we need to make sure that the so-called Medicare Trust Fund that guarantees hospital care for the elderly is secure. And everybody knows that. The congressional majority has made a decision that in order to balance the budget in 7 years and get $250 billion in tax cuts, they have to take $450 billion out of the health care system over the next 7 years that we thought they were going to have to spend. Now, we should take some money out.


But I am telling you, we cannot take that much money out without charging elderly people more than they can afford and keep in mind, threequarters of the people in this country over 65 live on less than $24,000 a year we cannot do that without risking closing rural hospitals and urban hospitals, and we cannot do it without hurting all those poor kids. We cannot do it. So I say, of course, let us slow the growth in medical inflation. I do not care what happens to the health care system, this is how much I am going to jerk out. That is inconsistent with our values. This is not about money. This is about our values. Yesterday in Denver I was with the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Roman Catholic nuns who spend their whole life serving in ways that most of us could never even dream of doing. And they run a home there for elderly people that you could eat breakfast off of any morning. You'd be proud to have any member of your family there. And they are giving their whole lives to do this. But with all of their sacrifice, they cannot do it unless the rest of us chip in a little money through Medicaid to keep those folks there. And I do not know about you, but I am glad they do it. And if we can balance the budget without gutting them, we ought to. And we can and we will, if I have anything to say about it. I just want to make two more points because California is on the forefront of both these issues. The first is that our meal ticket to the future is our diversity. If we can learn to live together and work together and respect each other, that is our meal ticket to the future. In a global economy, who is better positioned than the United States to take advantage of the blizzard of interconnections that will be the best of tomorrow? So I say to you, when we have issues that are troubling, we need to solve them in ways that bring us together, not use them as wedges used to drive us apart. Welfare reform . I led the fight to reform welfare. While the Congress has been fighting for 3 years, we have given 70 percent of the States permission to get rid of Federal rules to figure out how to move people from welfare to work. I did it not because it is costing you a lot of money. The welfare budget is a tiny part of the Federal budget.


I did it because it is inconsistent with American values for people to be trapped in dependency when they want to be free, because most parents in this country have to work and people on welfare should be able to work, but they ought to be able to be good parents as well. So I want to change the welfare system, and I do not mind being very tough on requiring people to work. But you have to give them education and training and you have to give them child care, and we ought to collect the child support enforcement that people owe them as well. That is what I believe. So we should do this together. We should not look for some way to put people down; we should look for ways to lift people up. You look at the affirmative action issue, this affirmative action issue. We have to fix some. We have already fixed some. But let me tell you, I have hired hundreds of people in my life. I have worked with all kinds of people. I have been in all kinds of different circumstances. And I believe with all my heart we have not yet reached the point in our country when we are totally oblivious to our gender and racial differences. And as long as we are not, as long as we see troubling reminders of what may lurk in the hearts of people that they never say, I think it is appropriate not for Government to practice reverse discrimination, not for Government to have quotas, not for Government to guarantee anything to somebody who is unqualified to receive it but for the Government to say you should be conscious, you should be aware when you make decisions of the abilities and the potential of all the people in the community without regard to their race or gender. So I say fix affirmative action, but do not throw it away for a short-term political gain until we have solved this problem. And I feel the same way, as all of you know, because of what I said 2 years ago about immigration. I knew we had immigration problems, and I had never dealt with them before 2 1/2 years ago. So I asked former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan to set up a commission to deal with immigration in a forthright, humane, hardheaded way to just try to talk sense and not to use it for political benefits. And we have done more than any previous administration to try to close the borders and send illegal immigrants back.


We have recommended a disciplined reduction in the annual quota of immigration until we get our own low-skill workers back in the work force and until we can manage our own economy better. Except for the Native Americans that are here tonight and I thank them for being here everybody else here came from somewhere else, and we should never, ever forget that. I will bet you everybody here has disagreed with five or six things I have done in the last 2 1/2 years. And what I try to do is figure out what this is going to look like when my daughter's my age. What is the 21st century going to be like for the United States? And so I do a lot of things that are not popular. But when we do things like that, if you agree that we should keep leading, then you have to step into the breach as well and be heard. All the political advice I got was, Do not you be the first ENTITY in American history to take on the NRA over the Brady bill and assault weapons. Do not do it, because what will happen is they will gut you, and they will gut your Congressmen who stand with you. And all the people who agree with you will find some other reason to vote against them. And sure enough, last fall in '94, that is what happened. I can tell you today that the Democrats would still be in the majority in the House of Representatives if they had not fought to ban assault weapons and for the Brady bill. I do not care what anybody else said. I have looked at those votes district by district, and I know what I am talking about. There were other reasons for the gain, the promise of the tax cut and all that; the Christian Coalition's great outpouring, they had a lot to do with it. But in the close races, the NRA took them down, the people that stood up for taking Uzis off the street and Uzis out of the schools, for making people check to see if they had a criminal or a mental health background. And there are thousands and thousands of people who now have not gotten guns because the Brady bill passed. There are children who are going to live because of the assault weapons ban. And you ought to stand up for those people who did it. Same thing happened with Haiti. People said, You have got to be out of your mind.


Al Gore and I were 50 percent of all the people in Washington, DC, that thought it was a good idea to send our forces to Haiti. They said, You will never be able to explain this to the American people; everybody knows our national security is not at stake. You know what we said? Those military dictators came to the United States, to New York City, stood in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, and promised to leave and let President Aristide come back. If the United States can be lied to on its own soil in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty when we say we want every country in our hemisphere to be a democracy, how can we turn away the hoards of people who are risking their lives and dying in the seas from Haiti. How can we ever say we are the force for freedom and democracy? And so we did it. And we did it without firing a shot. When Hillary was trying to decide about going to China, everybody said, This is a really dumb idea. If you go, the people who are against their human rights practices will say you have legitimized them just by going. And then if you say what you need to do, the people that want to have stronger trade relationship will say you are wrecking our relationship. But you know what we decided? All over the world the kind of future we have depends in large measure on how we treat women and their little children, especially their little female children. Do you know just for an example, in all of Asia today, there are now 77 million more boys than there are girls, because little girl children are still being killed because they are not supposed to be worth anything? I can give you a lot of other examples. And so we decided that she ought to go because she could stick up for the women and the children and especially the girl children of this world, and she could talk not only about China and not singling China out but about what is happening in other countries including our own country that is not right. And now it looks like a great decision. I could give you a lot of others, but I will give you one more, because the Vice President had a lot to do with this. We were trying to decide whether to go forward with our campaign to try to stamp out, or at least dramatically discourage, illegal smoking by teenagers. These tobacco companies never lose in court; they never lose anywhere.


They got a double ton of money, and they will gut you, not because they will get on television and run ads saying we think kids ought to smoke but because they have mailing lists, they can write people, they can inflame people. There are all these wonderful, wonderful Americans who grow tobacco like their families have been growing it for 100 and 200 years. But they can terrify them, and they will give them all kinds of propaganda about how you are going to drive them into the dirt, and those people will become a political force against you. And all the Americans who agree with you, they will find some other reason to be against you. That is why people do not ever take on organized interests. So do not you be you have already been the first ENTITY to take on the NRA; for goodness sakes, do not take on the tobacco companies, everybody else gave that one a pass. But we knew 2 things after 14 months of study. We knew, number one, that for 30 years some of these companies have known that tobacco was addictive and dangerous and that they were consciously marketing it to children. And the second thing we knew was that 3,000 kids a day begin to smoke, and 1,000 of them will end their lives early. So finally, we decided, how in God's name can we walk away from this? A thousand kids a day living a better, fuller, longer life is worth any amount of political sacrifice. There is so many other things like this that I could tell you about, but you get the idea. I do not want you to be upset about what you think is going on in Washington; I want you to be determined to do what you think is best for America, consistent with our values. This debate was inevitable, as inevitable as the sun coming up in the morning, because of the depth of the changes that are going on. Because we are changing the way we work, we are changing the way we live, we have to change the way we do government. Do not you forget we have been around for nearly 220 years now because most of the time when the chips are down, the American people do the right thing. I was born nearly 50 years ago to a widowed mother in a State where the per capita income was barely half the national average. My granddaddy raised me til I was 4. He had a sixth grade education.


President, I thank you for your wonderful hospitality. Two years ago in this city, world leaders formed the Monterrey Consensus. We pledged to work for government that is responsive to the basic needs of every human being and for policies that promote opportunity for all. At this year's summit, we are embracing the challenge of implementing that consensus to bring all the hemisphere's people into an expanding circle of development. To advance these goals, my Nation revolutionized the way we provide aid, and we substantially increased our aid to developing countries. Under our new Compact for Development, U.S. assistance is linked to good governments, investment in people, and economic freedom. Development assistance should light a path to reform and economic growth rather than perpetuate the need for further aid. The nations of this hemisphere must identify concrete steps to implement the noble ideas of the Monterrey Consensus. We must work to provide quality education and quality health care for all our citizens, especially for those suffering from ENTITY/ ENTITY. We must also chart a clear course toward a vibrant free market that will help lift people out of poverty and create a healthy middle class. We must increase the credit available to small businesses that generate the majority of jobs in all our economies and reduce the time that it takes to start a business. We must strengthen property rights so that land can be leveraged as a source of capital to start businesses or hire new workers. And we must lower the cost of sending money home to the families of hard-working men and women who are earning a living abroad. Over the long term, trade is the most certain path to lasting prosperity. The openness of our market is the key driver of growth in the region and a testament to the United States' belief in the mutual benefits of trade. Last year, about 83 percent of Latin America's exports to the United States, roughly $176 billion worth of goods, entered my country duty-free. My country is committed to free and fair trade for this hemisphere through the Free Trade Area of the Americas and through the growing number of bilateral free trade agreements we have completed and are negotiating. Our NAFTA partners have been vital free trade allies for 10 years now. Our free trade agreement with Chile entered into force on the first of this year. We are completing a free trade agreement with our Central American partners. This week we will launch negotiations with the Dominican Republic, and soon we will begin negotiations with Panama and some of our Andean friends.

Remarks at the Inauguration Ceremony of the Special Summit of the Americas in Monterrey


First, I would like to thank Susan Fitz, Fran Jackson; the teachers, Lori Kuzniewski I was in her class Ms. Kristen Mullen's class; Alan Leis, Paula Johnson, your superintendents; John Butterfield, from the education association; Jim and Molly Cameron, from the PTA; all the people who made me feel so welcome at this school today. This is the best of our country's future. I look around this crowd today, and I see people whose roots are all over the world, whose languages are very different, whose cultures are different, whose religions are different, who have come together on this school ground in a common endeavor of learning with a promise that our country opens to all people who are willing to work hard and be good citizens and do their part. It is thrilling for me to be here and look at you. I have a much better view than you do today. And I loved being with the children in the classroom. The best part of this morning so far, for me, has been answering the children's questions. They ask very good questions; some of them I did not want to answer even, they were so good. And it gave me a great deal of hope for the future. You just heard my weekly radio address, so you know that I am very concerned about the overcrowding in our Nation's classrooms. We have, almost suddenly, the largest group of schoolchildren in our Nation's history. I was part of the last large group, the baby boom generation; all of us are now between the ages of 34 and 52. This group in school today is the first group that is larger. One is represented here, all the housetrailers; the other is represented by the dilemma in our largest cities, where we have huge numbers of students and wonderful old school buildings that were unoccupied for many years. Many of them now cannot even be hooked up to the Internet. And we must, as a nation, face this challenge. In the last Congress, we were able to get a big downpayment on my plan for 100,000 more teachers in the early grades to take the average size of the classes down to 18 across America in the first 3 grades. But we have to have the school buildings, as well. And I did present a plan to the Congress, that I will present again early next year, that would enable us to build or modernize 5,000 schools.

Remarks to the Community at Glen Forest Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia


If you want the smaller classes, the teachers have to have some place to meet with the students. And I ask all of you, based on your personal experience here and without regard to any political differences you may otherwise have, to please, please help me convince the Congress that it is the right thing for America's children to have the smaller classes, to have more teachers, and to have modern schools. Every single child in America deserves them, and the United States ought to be in the forefront of helping achieve that. And I thank you for that. Let me also say to all of you, I learned when I came here today, because I received a little card from one of the students, that next week is the week you have student elections at the school here. And what I'd like to say is, I hope that all the parents will be just as good citizens as the students are. Because Tuesday is election day in America, as well. For nearly 6 years, I have worked hard to bring our country together across all the lines that divide us, so that America would work the way this school works, so that we could all feel the way I think all of you feel today, coming from your different walks of life to this common ground. America ought to be a place of common ground, where we move forward together. I am grateful for the fact that after 6 years we have nearly 17 million new jobs and the lowest unemployment in 28 years; the highest homeownership in history, over two-thirds of Americans in their own homes for the first time ever; the smallest percentage of our people on public assistance, welfare, in 29 years; lowest crime rate in 25 years. I am proud of that. I am also determined that we take this moment of prosperity, which has given us the first balanced budget since 1969 and a surplus, to meet the long-term challenges of America. We talked about education today. Those of you who come from the rest of the world and have come here as immigrants, who have relatives in other countries, know that there is a lot of financial turmoil in the rest of the world. I have done my best to try to help stabilize the global economy because America depends upon the success of other people in other countries and their being able to have good jobs and raise their children and do better. I have done my best to see America stand on the forefront of world peace.


A week ago yesterday, we announced the latest agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and we hope it will be fully and faithfully implemented. And we will continue the work toward peace in the Middle East. We have to look ahead to what happens when this huge generation of baby boomers retires, which is why I have said we should not spend this surplus on anything until we have reformed the Social Security system and reformed the Medicare system, to make sure that it can be preserved for the people who need it, especially when all the baby boomers retire. We have to continue to work on the fact that many of our people, literally over half of our people, are in HMO's or other managed care plans. And this can be a good thing, because we have to save all the money we can. But it is wrong if a person is in a health care plan and the doctor says, You need to see a specialist, and the plan says no. It is wrong if someone is in a car accident and they have to pass three hospitals that are closer on the way to an emergency room that happens to be covered by the plan. It is wrong if someone is pregnant and during the pregnancy, or someone is sick with cancer and has had chemotherapy and during that treatment, an employer changes health care providers and the person has to change doctors. All of that is wrong. Okay, let us manage the system, but let us put the health care of our people first and let medical decisions be made by medical professionals, not accountants. All these issues are out there, issues that will affect the long-term stability and strength of the United States and our ability to do what should be done in the world. So let me say that I have been very concerned periodically over the last 6 years, and I was especially concerned last year, that in Washington, DC, in National Government, there are not only different parties with different philosophies and different views that is a good thing; we should have different parties, different philosophies, different views, different opinions but there is a great deal of difference in constructive debate and extreme partisanship which keeps things from being done. In the last year, for 8 months, we had extreme partisanship which kept things from being done. And what we need to do is to put the progress of all of our people over the partisanship; we need to put people over politics; we need to celebrate our differences, but work together.


That is what I am hoping will come out of this coming election. I hope that a Congress will be elected on Tuesday that will put the education of our children first and build or modernize these 5,000 schools. I hope the election will produce a Congress that will not spend that surplus until we fix Social Security first, to stabilize our country, to stabilize our economy, and to avoid a situation where when we retire we will have to either lower our standard of living or lower the standard of living of our children because we refused to take this moment to fix the Social Security system. I hope the next Congress will provide the American people with a Patients' Bill of Rights. I hope the next Congress will provide the American people with a bill to protect our children from the dangers of tobacco, the number one public health problem in America today. It is wrong that 3,000 children start smoking every day; 1,000 will die sooner because of this. I hope the next Congress will reach across partisan lines and raise the minimum wage for 12 million Americans. You cannot support a family on $5.15 an hour. We can afford to do it, and we should do it, and we ought to do it as Americans, across partisan lines. I hope the next Congress will produce a genuine and bipartisan system of campaign finance reform, so that honest debate, instead of big money, controls elections. All of these things are within your hands. Look at these children; look at how fortunate we are that they can come together and learn from each other and have the right kind of disagreements and go have an election next week in which they campaign and make their case and everybody votes. We should set a good example. This country is still around after 220 years, having undergone unbelievable changes in the makeup of our citizenry, because more than half the time, more than half the people have been right on the big issues. The future of these children, the future of our country in the 21st century, is riding on it. So I implore all of you, if the education of our children is important to you, if the stability of our country and the stability and cause of peace in the world is important to you, please set a good example. Show up on Tuesday, vote, make your voice heard, and go home and talk to your children about what you did and how it is at the core of everything that makes our country worth living and fighting for. Thank you, and God bless you all.


Thank you, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, for telling me I should come here today, thank you. I must say, I would rather be in the choir than in the pulpit. I thank three members of my Cabinet- Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman; the Secretary of Transportation, Rodney Slater; and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Frank Raines-for coming with me, and many members of the White House staff and friends. We are all glad to be here, and we have a happy heart after hearing all the wonderful music and seeing the people here, and especially the children. Sean and Ahjah and the other children gave me the letters and the drawings; I was back there reading them. One letter said, Can Project Spirit come and visit the White House and see the Christmas tree? As a matter of fact, Dr. Hicks, anybody, any of these children in your youth group you want to bring, just bus them on in. We'd be glad to see them, and we will arrange it. I'd like that. Now, the letters contain some interesting things. One young man wrote, I am not trying to get myself in trouble, but I have always had a crush on Hillary. Now, I can certainly understand that. A lot of the letters were serious. They said, can I do more to get rid of violence, guns. A lot of them said very specific things about what they'd like to do to make their schools better. Or, at least, why am I here today, instead of down the street at Foundry, where I normally am on Sunday? Ephesians says we should speak the truth with our neighbors, for we are members, one of another. I believe that. I think that is the single most important political insight, or social insight, in the Bible. And I think it is what should drive us as we behave together. Is my destiny caught up in yours; are your children my children; do you care about my daughter; are we part of the same family of God? It is not enough to say that we are all equal in the eyes of God. We are all also connected in the eyes of God. Now, just because we have responsibilities one to another does not mean we do not have a primary responsibility to ourselves. God helps those who help themselves. So we have responsibilities to ourselves, but we owe a lot to each other.

Remarks at the Metropolitan Baptist Church


I come here to say that I do not believe our National Government has always been the best neighbor to the City of Washington, Mr. Mayor, Ms. Cropp, Congresswoman Norton, but we are committed to becoming a better neighbor. Washington has gotten a lot of lectures from people in national politics about being more responsible, from making the schools work better, to the streets become safer, to the neighborhoods having more hope and economic opportunity. But in the essence of our Constitution is the idea that responsibility requires freedom. And so I believe in the independence of Washington, DC. I want Washington, DC, to be able to run its own affairs. In this last meeting of Congress we did more things to take loads off of Washington that it should not have and to give Washington responsibilities that it should have. And we must do more. I met with the mayor, the city council, the control board, and a lot of community leaders just a few days ago, a meeting that the Congresswoman requested. And we talked about what we could do together. But I want to say to you that I come here at this Christmas season to say that I hope one of the gifts that I and our administration can leave for the 21st century is a National Capital that is a shining city on the hill for all America, that every American is proud of. I want a National Capital where every child looks like the children that I heard sing and who brought me those letters today, where they are all filled with a spirit of their own goodness, where they all believe they are children of God, where they all are animated to believe that they can have hope to live out their dreams. And this place symbolizes that. Would not you like it if your city and your country worked the way this church did? Would not you like that? And I am not violating the first amendment by saying that. This has nothing to do with the separation of church and state. This has to do with the values we all share. Most people who are not even Christians, who are Jewish people, who are Muslims, who are Buddhist, who are all the different religions we have in our country today, they'd still like it if our country worked more the way this church does-and often the way their houses of worship do.


I welcomed Prime Minister Thorsteinn Palsson to the White House with particular pleasure, for he is the first Icelandic Prime Minister to make an official working visit to the United States. The Prime Minister and I had a very good and friendly meeting this morning, and we continued our conversation over lunch. Prime Minister, as you are well aware, ties between the United States and Iceland are deep and long-lived. In fact, they go back to the year 1000, when Leif Erikson, a son of Iceland, first came to these shores. I distinctly remember the statue of Left the Lucky in front of Iceland's largest church atop Reykjavik's tallest hill. It was a gift from the American people to Iceland in 1930 for the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of the Icelandic Parliament. Your Parliament, the Althing, is the oldest in the world; and it existed long before most parliamentary systems ever got started. That statue now stands as a reminder of the traditionally close and cooperative ties between our two democratic nations. It also reminds us of how fortunate it is that Icelanders were and remain a brave and seafaring people. On the occasion of the Prime Minister's visit to the White House today, I want again to express my personal thanks and the appreciation of the American people for the gracious hospitality shown by the Icelandic people and Government in hosting my meeting with General Secretary Gorbachev in October of 1986. Prime Minister, I have nothing but admiration for the efficiency and speed with which your entire nation successfully met an immense challenge on such short notice. I was told while there that Icelanders are accustomed to responding to such things as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. But I am sure, however, they had never previously witnessed the upheaval of a U.S.-Soviet summit, complete with more than 3,000 journalists. But you and your countrymen took it all in stride, and we are all left with an unforgettable impression of your warmth, generosity, and hospitality. In the wake of the Moscow summit, I must note that the talks that the General Secretary and I had in Hofdi House were an important milestone in the development of our current dialog with the Soviet Union, a dialog made possible by the firm determination and unity of the Western alliance of which your nation was a founding member. NATO has more than stood the test of time, and Iceland was there at the beginning. NATO is an alliance of sovereign equals whose members have agreed to share both its benefits and responsibilities.

Remarks Following Discussions With Prime Minister Thorsteinn Palsson of Iceland


I want to pick up her speech because I think I can sell it for a lot of money. You are going to see that tonight. Thanks also to the members of NFIB's Board of Directors who I have spent time with. Just took some wonderful pictures with good-looking group, I have to tell you. Together, you have been a powerful voice for America's small businesses. And now you have a true friend and ally in the White House. You know that. You know that. I am honored to be with you today for, really, this historic celebration. This was something when they asked me to do, I did not think about it for more than about a second. I said, I will do it. And let me officially say, on behalf of the American people, happy 75th anniversary to the National Federation of Independent Business. I tell you, you deserve a big happy. Joining us today are some terrific people who work very, very hard. And actually, they are starting to get a lot of credit. In fact, we had our highest poll numbers today. Can you believe this? So they are doing a good job. You know the old story when I was campaigning, I only mentioned that when we were doing well in the polls. When we are not doing well, I do not talk about it. You do the same thing. They are fighting hard for small business and for large business. They are fighting hard for our country, frankly, each and every day. And they are doing a terrific job. Most importantly, I want to thank all of you, the small business owners, who are the engine of American prosperity. And, you know, I have been saying it for a long time, but you really are. You look at even the stats and you look at the numbers. You look at the taxes that are paid. You look at the jobs. It is all about small business. So small businesses, really I say this to Linda McMahon all the time head of Small Business. For many years, Washington tried to hold you back and tear you down, crushing the American small business with crippling taxes and oppressive regulation. But all that has changed starting in November 2016. The Trump administration is with you, and we are with you 100 percent. Instead of punishing entrepreneurship, we are now promoting entrepreneurship. the illegal immigration crisis on our southern border. It is been going on for many, many decades and many years. And it has its ups and its downs.

Remarks by President Trump at the National Federation of Independent Businesses 75th Anniversary Celebration


And all we need is good legislation, and we can have it taken care of. And we have to get the Democrats to go ahead and work with us. Because as a result of Democrat-supported loopholes in our federal laws, most illegal immigrant families and minors from Central America who arrive unlawfully at the border cannot be detained together or removed together, only released. These are crippling loopholes that cause family separation, which we do not want. As a result of these loopholes, roughly half a million illegal immigrant family units and minors from Central America have been released into the United States since 2014 at unbelievably great taxpayer expense. Nobody knows how much we are paying for this monstrosity that is been created over the years legislation that nobody has any idea what they are doing. They do not even know what it means. And you have to see this; it is a mile high. Child smugglers exploit the loopholes, and they gain illegal entry into the United States, putting countless children in danger on the perilous trek to the United States. They come up through Mexico. Mexico does nothing for us. They do nothing for us. They could stop it. They have very, very strong laws. They do nothing for us, and I see it through NAFTA. I see with $100 billion-plus that they make on trade through NAFTA one of the worst deals ever made by this country. And we are trying to equalize it. And we are going to take care of our American farmers, and we are going to take care of our manufacturers, and our manufacturing jobs. But they are making unbelievable amounts of money, and that is not including the drugs that are flowing through our border, because we have no wall and we have no protection. The drugs that are coming in from Mexico and through the southern border is disgraceful. We can do one-on-one with Mexico; one-on-one with Canada. And, by the way, Canada they like to talk. They fought World War II with us. We appreciate it. They fought World War I with us. And we appreciate it, but we are protecting each other. There was a story two days ago, in a major newspaper, talking about people living in Canada, coming into the United States, and smuggling things back into Canada because the tariffs are so massive. The tariffs to get common items back into Canada are so high that they have to smuggle them in.


They buy shoes, then they wear them. They scuff them up. And I told them, if they do not change their ways and we have a tremendous deficit. People say, Well, there is really not that much of a deficit. energy and timber. And those are the two big things when it comes to Canada. No, we have to change our ways. So hopefully, we will be able to work it out with Canada. We have very good relationships with Canada. We have for a long time. But Canada is not going to take advantage of the United States any longer, and Mexico is not going to take advantage of the United States any longer. And when I campaigned, I said I will either renegotiate NAFTA or I will terminate it and we will start from an even base. And people are afraid of that. You know, I have had so many people they come up, they say, Oh, please do not terminate NAFTA. Yeah, but we know what we have. People are worried because they know what they have. If you look at I love the American farmer more than anybody. They have backed me. I love the American farmer. And by the way I will tell you in a little while because it is in one of my notes the American farmer virtually will not have to pay any more estate tax on their farms when they pass away and they want to leave it to their children. And that goes for almost all small businesses. You will not have the estate tax to pay anymore, which was crippling. That was in our bill. Now, he is too young to be leaving it, so that means he is a beneficiary. And I am honored to have done it, because it was destroying the estate tax small businesses and farms. People were mortgaging them to the hilt to pay the tax, and then they could not pay the interest on the mortgage, and the banks would take them away. You do not have to pay the estate tax any longer. In other words, loopholes if your farm is really big, you start to pay. It is a pretty big level, you know that. These loopholes have created a massive child smuggling trade. Can you believe this? In this day and age, we are talking about child smuggling. We are talking about women smuggling in this day and age. The worst it is been in history because the Internet has led to this.


Since last year, child smugglers who are very, very sophisticated they have learned the loopholes in this horrible, rotten system that the Democrats have to help us fix because we need the votes. We could have the Republican votes, 100 percent. We still do not have enough votes. People do not understand that. We need Democrat votes to get it fixed. These smugglers know these rules and regulations better than the people that drew them. We are stopping them all the time by the thousands. We have no wall. We have no border security. Without a border, you do not have a country. You do not have a country. We can either release all illegal immigrant families and minors who show up at the border from Central America, or we can arrest the adults for the federal crime of illegal entry. And you want to be able to do that. We do not want people pouring into our country. We want them to come in through the process, through the legal system. And we want, ultimately, a merit-based system where people come in based on merit. Keep in mind, those who apply for asylum, legally, at ports of entry, are not prosecuted. The fake news media back there does not talk about that. They are helping they are helping these smugglers and these traffickers like nobody would believe. They know it. They know exactly what they are doing and it should be stopped because what is going on is very unfair to the people of our country. And they violate the law. People that come in violate the law. They endanger their children in the process. And frankly, they endanger all of our children. You see what happens with MS-13, where your sons and daughters are attacked violently. Kids that never even heard of such a thing are being attacked violently, not with guns, but with knives because it is much more painful. Inconceivable here we are talking about business inconceivable that we even have to talk about MS-13 and other gangs. And we are allowing these people into our country? We are taking them out by the thousands. We are taking them out by the thousands. So what I am asking Congress to do is to give us a third option, which we have been requesting since last year the legal authority to detain and promptly remove families together as a unit. We have to be able to do this. This is the only solution to the border crisis. We have to stop child smuggling. This is the way to do it.


And ultimately, we have to have a real border not judges. Thousands and thousands of judges they want to hire. When we vet a single federal judge, it goes through a big process. Everybody that is ever met her or him they come, they complain, they do not complain. Now we are hiring thousands and thousands. I will not say it. I refuse to say it. I hope they picked that up back there. They said, Sir, we'd like to hire about five or six-thousand more judges. Now, can you imagine the graft that must take place? You are all small business owners, so I know you can imagine a thing like that would happen. We do not want judges; we want security on the border. We want them to come in through a legal process like everybody else that is waiting to come into our country. And it got so crazy that all of these thousands we now have thousands of judges border judges thousands and thousands. And, by the way, when we release the people they never come back to the judge anyway. They are in your system. And if they are bad, you will have killings, you will have murders, you will have this, you will have that, and you will have crime. You will have crime. And remember, these countries that we give tremendous foreign aid to in many cases, they send these people up and they are not sending their finest. Remember I made that speech and I was badly criticized? Oh it is so terrible, what he said. We want a great country. We want a country with heart. This is maybe a great chance to have a change. But one of them says we want to hire 5,000 more judges. I do not want judges. I want border security. I do not want to try people. Do you know, if a person comes in and puts one foot on our ground, it is essentially welcome to America, welcome to our country. You never get them out, because they take their name, they bring the name down, they file it, then they let the person go; they say show back up to court in one year from now. That in itself is ridiculous. The other thing they have is they have professional lawyers. Some are for good, others are do-gooders, and others are bad people. And they tell these people exactly what to say. they write it down I am being harmed in my country. I fear for my life.


This is given to them by lawyers who are waiting for them to come up. But, in a way, that is cheating because they are giving them statements. They are not coming up for that reason. They are coming up for many other reasons and sometimes for that reason. We are a great country but you cannot do that. They game the system; they game it. It is so easy for them. They did not go to the Wharton School of Finance. The United States has just surpassed Germany as having the most asylum seekers of any nation on Earth. Can you image that? And Germany we talk about Germany they allowed millions of people in. And, by the way, their crime, from the time they started, is up more than 10 percent. And that is one of the reasons it is at that level is because they do not like reporting that kind of crime, so they put it down as different kind of crime. But their crime is up more than 10 percent since they started taking them in. I heard somebody said that Crooked Hillary Clinton was questioning that statistic. Did not she already have her chance? I will tell you what, when you read the IG report with these really dishonest people and I was never a deep-state guy, but let me tell you, we got some bad people that are doing bad things. But when you read that IG report about how she got away with what she got away with, it is a disgrace. And you ought to see the hearings that are right now on television but that folks are being you know, they are going on to the mainstream, fake news media. They want to focus on immigration because they want to keep the cameras away from the hearings because those hearings are not good for them. In fact, they are a disaster for them. So we have a House that is getting ready to finalize an immigration package that they are going to brief me on later, and that I am going to make changes to. We have one chance to get it right. We might as well get it right, or let us just keep it going. But let us do it right. We have a chance. We want to solve this problem. We want to solve family separation. I do not want children taken away from parents. And when you prosecute the parents for coming in illegally, which should happen, you have to take the children away. Now, we do not have to prosecute them. But then we are not prosecuting them for coming in illegally.


We want to end the border crisis by finally giving us the legal authorities and the resources to detain and remove illegal immigrant families all together and bring them back to their country. We have to bring them back to their country. Now, think of all that aid that we give some of these countries. Hundreds of millions of dollars we give to some of these countries, and they send them up. Well, I am going to go, very shortly, for authorization that when countries abuse us by sending their people up not their best we are not going to give any more aid to those countries. So this is a responsible, commonsense approach that all lawmakers should embrace Democrats and Republicans. And remember, we need the Democrats. People say, Oh, you have the majority. Well, in the Senate, we have 1, but you need 60. So we will be at if we get 100 percent, we will be at 51. A hundred percent, we will be at 51. So we need nine votes. We need 10, 12, 13 votes. We have to have Democrat support because we need to go not just a majority, unfortunately, which we could get. We need to go to 60 60 out of 100. We need Democrat support. They do not want to give it, because Democrats love open borders. MS-13 gang members from all over the place, come on in we have open borders. And they view that possibly intelligently, except that it is destroying our country. They view that as potential voters. Someday they are going to vote for Democrats. Because they cannot win on their policies, which are horrible. They found that out in the last presidential election. In fact, their only policy was that Donald Trump is a bad guy, he is a bad person. And they said it so many hundreds of millions of dollars of negative ads. Nobody has ever been hit like that. I used to go home I started disliking myself. The problem is they never told anybody what they are doing. They did not talk about tax cuts. By the way, they want to take away your tax cuts, and they want to substantially increase your taxes. They did not talk about crime. So when people got to the booth, they said, Ah, we are going to vote Democrat. We are going to vote but then they get up, they said, But what does she stand for? What do they stand for? They just hate Trump. No, I am going with Trump. We got tremendous Democrat support.


But you have to stand for something, and you have to stand for safety and security of our country. They have got to go through the process. We got to stop separation of the families. But politically correct or not, we have a country that needs security, that needs safety, that has to be protected. So we are here today to talk about small business and the incredible progress we are making as a country. We really have made unbelievable progress. And we are making with the help and support of our wonderful friends at the NFIB. And you have heard these numbers. And if I would have said these numbers during the campaign, the fake news would have said this is the most ridiculous I would not have said these numbers; I would have said half. And as an example, you saw the poll that was recently taken small-business poll. But nobody would have believed these numbers if I said them during the campaign. We have created more than 3.4 million new jobs since Election Day. Think of what that means. And, by the way, we do need people coming through the border. We do need people. And again, we want people you know, I have a lot of companies moving in, big companies. If you look at Foxconn in Wisconsin, they are coming in. They need thousands and thousands of people. Chrysler is moving from Mexico back into Michigan. Many car companies are coming back into our country. Now they are coming because of all of the things we have done with regulations, with tax cutting. But we need people to take care. We have the lowest unemployment rate 3.8 percent. We need people. So we want people to come in, but they have to be people that can help us and can help these companies fulfill what they want to fulfill. Unemployment claims are at a 44-year low. Maybe the one that makes me happiest is this because I remember I'd go around, I'd say, What do you have to lose? The Democrats have always been with you. They have you know, bad education. All of these different I'd say to the African Americans, I'd say, what you have to do What do you have to do? What do you have to lose? Unemployment for African Americans is at the lowest level in history. It is like, what do you have to lose? I would go around and talk, and some people would say, do not say that, it is not nice.


jobs, jobs, jobs. And I should not say this to the people in this room, because you will end up not having liked my speech but wages for working people are finally, after 22 years, rising again in our country. I am sorry to do that. It is the only thing you can hold against me, but I think you are also very happy about it, actually. I know you well. According to the NFIB's latest survey, the share of small businesses raising worker and benefit pay has just set a new all-time record. We have broken many records. Business optimism is the highest it is ever been in our country. That means more hardworking Americans are able to support their family, contribute to their community, and live the American Dream. At the center of America's resurgence are the massive tax cuts that Republicans passed and that I signed into law six months ago this week. Not one Democrat voted for the tax cuts, and they are suffering now because they are going to lose a lot of races that they thought they were going to win. They wish they had that vote to do over again. We have numerous states for Senate where I think they are going to be in big trouble. It is the biggest tax cut and reform in American history. Not since Ronald Reagan have they done any major tax cutting. I tell this story all the time. I said, I do not understand it. We are going to cut your taxes. And you cannot get it through. So the leadership came to my beautiful Oval Office. And they talked about the tax reform. What does that mean, 'reform'? Does that mean you are going to raise taxes? What does it mean? We have the Tax Reform Act of 2017. I said, No, I do not want to go 'reform.' Nobody knows what reform means. Then I looked back at all of the times they tried to pass tax cuts. They do not use the word tax cuts; they use the word tax reform. I said, Nobody knows what reform means. They want to know about tax cuts; they do not want to know about tax reform, where we are going to raise your taxes, where we are going to take away your businesses, you are going to take away because tax reform. We are going to take away your farms. They do not want the word reform. They want the word tax cuts. Sir, could you give us a name? I will give you the name. I will give you the name.


It is called the Tax Cut, Cut, Cut, Cut, Cut Bill of 2017. But even I thought that it was maybe a little bit hokey with all the cuts. So we just called it Tax Cut Bill. They got the word. At the heart of our plan is tremendous relief for working families and small businesses. A typical family of four earning $75,000 a year will see an income tax cut of more than $2,000 in some cases, much more than that slashing their tax bill in half and more. We delivered a historic victory for American small businesses by allowing you to deduct 20 percent of your business income. Capital investment is soaring on small businesses and big businesses, because you can now immediately deduct this, to me, is the greatest of them all every single penny spent on new capital equipment. As you know, we are also bringing back trillions of dollars from offshore that we could not bring back. The companies were unable to do it. From a tax standpoint, the amount they had to pay and almost more importantly, it was just very hard to do. You had to see the forms that had to be filled out. So we had anywhere from $3 trillion to $5 trillion, and now it seems as though, Steve, we are hitting the higher side. Companies are pouring money back into our country, bringing it back from overseas, investing it here. Apple just announced recently they are going to spend $350 billion on an incredible campus and new facilities all over the country. They are bringing money back and like nobody ever thought before. And you have heard me say, when they said $350 billion, I said, You mean $350 million. Because $350 million builds a nice plant. I know how to build under budget and ahead of schedule. I can build a beautiful plant for a lot less than $350 million. So when I heard billion, I said, No, no. You mean $350 million, right? I think of the total amount they are bringing back about $230 billion, and the rest they are putting in. And ExxonMobil is doing the same thing and so many other countries are doing the same thing, different numbers. I still say, however, expensing one year expensing will be the star of what we are doing. We exempted more small business owners from the alternative minimum tax, which you know very well was an enormous waste of your precious time and your very hard-earned money.


And from now on, most small-business owners will be spared from the deeply unfair estate tax that I talked about. And it is so I am so proud of that, because you are all keeping your businesses. The family, the farms, you are keeping your businesses. As a result of all of these taxes and all of these tax cuts, American businesses now are on a level playing field with your competitors from other countries who have so many advantages, including subsidy by governments. You see what is happening with China. We have no choice. We have no choice. China has been taking out $500 billion a year out of our country and rebuilding China. I always say, We have rebuilt China. They have taken so much. So we are going to get smart, and we are going to do it right. And we are actually getting a lot of support. But we have to do something about it. Now, maybe something happens where they come and they say, We agree, it is been unfair for the last 25 years. We are going to make it fair with other countries, both our friends and our enemies. In many cases, our friends, on trade, have treated us much worse than our enemies. But we know that when the rules are fair, and you can compete, you will win against anyone anywhere in the world. But you have to bring it down to a level playing field. More than 6 million workers have already received a bonus some by your people or a pay raise, or retirement account contribution, or a new job thanks to these tax cuts. And people now are able to go around and look for jobs. They are just not taking a job and they hate it. They hate to wake up in the morning. They do not want to go to work. Now they have got their choice. They have jobs that they can look and they can love. And if you do not love it, you are not going to be good at it. Millions of Americans are now saying, and really saying to everybody, that they are saving money on their monthly utility bills. As a result of our business tax cuts, over 100 utility companies have lowered their prices, saving Americans an additional $3 billion a year. Our historic tax cuts also ended one of the most unfair taxes imaginable Obamacare's individual mandate. Government will no longer punish you if you cannot afford Obamacare's sky-high premiums.


You pay a lot of money to the government in order not to have to buy in health insurance. So you are paying money so that you do not that is a penalty. But you are paying money so that you do not have to buy healthcare. And we actually thought we had the votes, and then one man, very early in the morning, went thumbs down. But we almost got rid of Obamacare without him. And that was a very sad day for the Republican Party. That was a very sad day for the country when that vote was cast that final vote was cast. I remember it well. Obamacare has been especially brutal for small businesses. You know that better than anybody. As a result of Obamacare, many small businesses, small-business employees, sole proprietors have no good or affordable options. But now they do, because we are opening up our system. I am proud to announce another truly historic step in our efforts to Americans from Obamacare and the Obamacare nightmare, and provide high-quality, affordable healthcare to every American. You know, before Obamacare, there were many people very happy. They had no problem. But then you got thrown to the wind. Alex and the Department of Labor are taking a major action that is been worked on for four months now and now it is ready to make it easier for small businesses to band together to negotiate lower prices for health insurance and escape some of Obamacare's most burdensome mandates through association health plans. You are going to save massive amounts of money and have much better healthcare. It is going to cost you much less. I will tell you, a lot of people big, big percentages of this country are going to be doing that. In fact, while you are in the room together, shake hands, form an association. And in theory, the bigger the association, the better the deal you are going to make. You are going to save a fortune, and you are going to be able to give yourselves and your employees tremendous healthcare. I am really honored by that. Believe me, that is great. With this action, businesses in the same state or businesses in the same industry not just the same state anywhere in the country remember I used to say during the debates, Cross state lines so you can negotiate. You now can cross state lines so you can negotiate. So if 20 or 30 of the businesses in this room get together you get together as a group, an association you pick the meanest, most vicious manager owner to right?


To negotiate your healthcare and I know a few of the people in here that are going to do very well. You will end up with better insurance for far less money. And, Alex, that is ready as of when? I call our Secretary of Labor, and they say, Sir, he is very busy. I am President of the United States. What do you mean? They said, He is working on healthcare. I said, Well, Department of Labor. We love it. And he is now working on an expansion of that, including even larger groups of people. For the first time ever, sole proprietors will be able to come together and buy lower-cost group insurance instead of getting ripped off by this disaster that we all know as Obamacare. These actions will result in very low prices, much more choice, much more freedom, including in many cases new opportunities to purchase health insurance. You will be able to do this across state lines. I'd say, Alex, I want to cross state lines. He said, Do not worry about it. And nobody else you know, this is something we were able to do within the confines of the existing laws. And the insurance companies and some people are forming their own but the insurance companies are so excited about this. Let them go and they have made so much money off Obamacare, folks. They got so rich with Obama. Take a look at what happened to our premiums. You know, everyone hears about Obamacare being a disaster, except for the insurance companies. So they are going to have to give a little bit of that money back. Every American who owns a small business plays a vital role in creating a safe, strong, and prosperous America. And my administration will never forget that truth. Every day you turn ideas into action, you turn vision into creation I know you well and you turn dreams into reality. That is what you do. You do not even realize that is what you do. That is what you do. You embody the spirit of independence and adventure that turned America from 13 colonies into the most incredible republic in the history of humankind. Do the women understand that? What Oh, look, a couple of women are having the thumb up. You like that? You like that. Now I am happy about it. It is the same spirit that inspired previous generations to cross the plains and tame the wilderness, and to build shining cities that touch the sky.


I just visited a vaccination clinic in Virginia, at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. The seminary and other houses of worship in the area are partnering with the community health centers to offer vaccination and vaccination sites. They are seeing these kinds of partnerships where-and not just there, but we are seeing them all over the country. People are coming together across the different faiths to serve those most in need, with a special focus on vaccinating seniors from all races, backgrounds, and walks of life. It is an example of America at its finest. Get vaccinated-something which can, he went on to say, can save your life and the lives of others. And I was at the seminary clinic to mark an important milestone as well. Yesterday we crossed 150 million shots in 75 days-the first 75 days my administration-on our way to hitting our goal of 200 million shots by the 100th day in office. That, of course, is the new goal I set after passing the original mark of 100 million shots in my first 100 days, doing it in just 58 days. At the time, some said 100 million shots was too ambitious, and then they said, It was not ambitious enough. If we could raise it up higher, I'd do that as well. We have to ramp up a whole-of-Government approach that rallies the whole country and puts us on a war footing to truly beat this virus. getting enough vaccine supply, mobilizing more vaccinators, creating more places to get vaccinated. And we are now administering an average of 3 million shots per day, over 20 million shots a week. On Saturday alone, we reported, more than 4 million shots were administered. We are the first country to administer 150 million shots and the first country to fully vaccinate over 62 million people. I promised an update to the American people every 50 millionth shot, and I am already back to update you a little over 2 weeks, 2 weeks later. I promised in the beginning that I'd always give you the straight scoop, straight from the shoulder, the good and the bad. The good news is, we are on track to beat our goal of 200 million shots in the first 100 days. More than 75 percent of the people over the age of 65 have gotten shots, up from 8 percent when we took office. That is a dramatic turnaround and critical, because seniors account for 80 percent of all ENTITY deaths.

Remarks on COVID-19 Vaccination Efforts and an Exchange With Reporters


To help support my goal of safely reopening a majority of K-through-8 schools by my 100th day in office, I directed States in early March to make educators and children-childcare workers eligible for vaccines and to get a goal of getting all who wanted the vaccination to be able to have one and to do it in the month of March. I am pleased to report, according to CDC estimates, over 80 percent of teachers, school staff and childcare workers received at least one shot by the end of March. And that is great progress protecting our educators, our essential workers. And because our vaccine program is in overdrive, we are making it easier to get a vaccination shot. Last week, I announced that by April 19 of this month, 90 percent of all Americans will be within five miles of a vaccination site. And further good news is that we are getting more and more data on just how effective the vaccines are. Fauci recently cited two studies from the New England Journal of Medicine that found fully vaccinated care workers-health care workers on the frontlines had an extremely low infections rate, less than two-tenths of 1 percent, compared to unvaccinated health care workers who had considerably higher infection rates. So we are making incredible progress. New variants of the virus are spreading, and they are moving quickly. While deaths are still down-way down from January-they are going up in some places. What does that mean? I understand that people may find it confusing that the vaccination program is saving tens of thousands of lives, but the pandemic remains dangerous. Time. Even moving at the record speed we are moving at, we are not even halfway through vaccinating over 300 million Americans. This is going to take time. For a two-dose vaccine, it takes weeks from the time you get your first one until you are able to get your second shot, which makes you fully protected. If you get your first shot next week, in mid-April, you will not be fully protected until-until May-late May. If you get your first shot in mid-May, you are not fully protected until late June. So look-now, on the one hand, June is not that far away given how long this has been going on, but it is not here yet either.


So the virus is spreading because we have too many people who, seeing the end in sight, think we are at the finish line already. We are not at the finish line. We still have a lot of work to do. We are still in a life-and-death race against this virus. Until we get more people vaccinated, we need everyone to wash their hands, socially distance, and mask up in a recommended mask from the CDC. Better times are ahead. And as I have said before, we can have a safe, happy Fourth of July with your family and friends, in small groups in your backyard. How much death, disease, and misery are we going to see between now and then? In January-just the month of January-we lost 95,747-excuse me, 95,774 Americans. In March, that was 37,172 Americans. All told-as you are all about to know-I keep doing this, I know, but I carry this card, every day, with my schedule on it. And on the back, I have a ENTITY update. The total number of deaths in the United States to date is 554,064 dead. What we do now is going to determine how many people we will save or lose in the month of April and May and June before we get to July 4. So, please, until we are further along in this accelerating, successful, but still growing vaccination effort, please wash your hands. While I am asking Americans-the American people to do their job, here is what I am doing. When we first started our vaccination program, the real question is how quickly we could get shots in people's arms. Well, by the end of May, the vast majority of adult Americans will have gotten at least their first shot. That success-that success-is going to save lives and get this country back to normal sooner. On March the 11th, I announced that I was opening up all vaccination sites to all adults by May 1. Many Governors-Democrats and Republicans-responded and decided to beat that date, which was good. Thanks to their hard work and the hard work of the American people, and the hard work of my team, I am announcing today that we are moving that date up from May 1 to April 19, nationwide.


That means, by no later than April 19, in every part of this country, every adult over the age of 18-18 or older will be eligible to be vaccinated. Many States have already opened up to all adults. But beginning April 19, every adult in every State, every adult in this country is eligible to get in line to get a ENTITY vaccination. And today, in advance of that new national full-eligibility date, I want to make a direct appeal to our seniors and everyone who cares about them. While we have made incredible progress vaccinating three-quarters of our seniors and putting vaccination sites within 5 miles of 90 percent of the public, it still is not enough. To make it easier, my administration is sending aid to community groups to drive seniors to vaccination sites. We are incredibly grateful to all the volunteers, houses of worship, and the civic groups that are helping us in this effort. We take care of one another. And we have to keep it up. As I ask seniors to sign up for their shots now, I also have a message for people under 65. If you know someone over 65 who has not gotten this lifesaving vaccine, call them now. And finally, even after we open up vaccinations to all adults and put a site within 5 miles of 90 percent of the public, we know there are many people who still struggle to get access to a shot. We know that there are a number of seniors and people with disabilities and people in many communities of color who may be isolated and lack access to transportation. That is why we are ramping up transportation to vaccination centers and deploying more mobile units and pop-up clinics in the places close to where people live. That is why we are working with faith-based organizations and other community groups to host vaccination clinics, sign people up for appointments, get help-help them get those appointments. That is why we are sending even more vaccines to community health centers, like the one I was in today, that all together serve nearly 30 million Americans, like the ones I visited today. Two-thirds of the patients at community health centers live at or below the poverty level. To reach them, we are investing nearly $10 billion to expand testing, treatment, and vaccinations for the hardest hit yet most underserved communities. We have vaccinated more people than any other nation on Earth.


President, it is my honor to welcome you to the Oval Office. Our we just had a very substantive meeting. And it will be my honor to feed you a lunch. I doubt it is going to be the food will be as good as the food I had when I visited your beautiful country. Bilateral relations with the United States and Italy are very good. We have a lot of interchange between our countries, with business as well as travel. And there are millions of Italian Americans who will be pleased, Mr. President, to know we have got good relations. Secondly, we just had a really around-the-world trip as we discussed problem areas and our mutual desire to work together to help solve those problems. We discussed Afghanistan, Lebanon, Kosovo. I briefed the President on the recent Annapolis Conference that we hosted to help get the peace process started between the Palestinians and Israelis. We had a very compatible relation discussion because by and large, we are in agreement on how to advance the solutions to these issues. And finally, I am have expressed and will continue to dialog with the President about my deep concern about Iran. Iran we believe Iran had a secret military weapons program. And Iran must explain to the world why they had a program. Iran has an obligation to explain to the IAEA why they hid this program from them. Iran is dangerous, and they will be even more dangerous if they learn how to enrich uranium. And so I look forward to working with the President to explain our strategy and figure out ways we can work together to prevent this from happening for the sake of world peace. So I am sure proud to have you here, Mr. President, and welcome. It has been a great pleasure for me to accept your invitation. You kindly addressed me 6 months ago when you were in Rome, and we had already then very positive talks. First of all, I wanted to express to President Bush my deep appreciation for the responsibility he wanted to take to foster negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian authorities in view of a peace treaty. Italy is present in several areas of crisis. In this moment, it is an Italian general who is taking the command of the Kabul region in Afghanistan. In Iraq, we give our contribution to the stabilization of the country, participating in NATO training activities. In fact, generally speaking, we share the same concerns, and we express a common commitment.

Remarks Following a Meeting With President Giorgio Napolitano of Italy


I know you need a stretch, but it is going on too long. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for the wonderful work that you have done in so many ways, and everything that we have done together in the last 5 1/2 years. In 1996, when the American people were good enough to give the Vice President and me another term and made me the first Democratic President in 60 years, since Franklin Roosevelt in 1936, to be reelected, we picked up some seats in the House. And if we had picked up a few more, we would have won the House. In the last 10 days, even though we had the issues and the direction, we were outspent in the 20 closest districts 4 1/2 to one. But we did begin this Unity concept a little too late, but it still did very well. All of our contributors liked it because all three committees were not asking at the same time to give money or raise it. But it was the right thing to do, because we could work on helping particular candidates, targeting particular States, going after particular constituencies, getting our turnout up. This year we are trying to go sooner and do more. And I cannot say enough for what I believe is the vision of the leaders of the House, the Senate, and the Democratic Committee for doing this early and doing it together and in good faith with a good heart. The Vice President gave that wonderful portrait of what is happened the last 6 years through chapter 6. Chapter 7 is, we win if we do the right things; if we do the right things, we win. Honor the past; imagine the future. And we started out a couple of weeks ago honoring the past by announcing grants by private citizens to help us save the Star-Spangled Banner. It is hard to think of anything that embodies our past more. And then Hillary went to Thomas Edison's* home in New Jersey to talk about saving that and then to Harriet Tubman's home, then to George Washington's revolutionary headquarters, then to New York to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the women's movement, all honoring the past. But we have also had a lot of interesting lectures at the White House imagining the future. Stephen Hawking, the great physicist from Cambridge, England, came and spoke in a very heroic way, because he suffers from Lou Gehrig's disease, about what we would learn about the larger world in the future.

Remarks at a Unity '98 Dinner


We had poets for the first time in a long time, a genuine poetry reading in the White House with our poet laureates and ordinary citizens, including children, thinking about their future. Steve said that never, at least-I quit looking at the Civil War because I am not sure before that political trends are indicative. But since the Civil War, the party of the President in the President's second term has always lost some seats at midterm. But there is a reason for that which we have determined to erase-and these records are made to be changed-and that is, that generally there is the sense that no matter how well liked the President might be, the term is three-quarters over, so what else is new? Well, when I was reelected, the Vice President and I sat down one day, and I told our people, I said, Look, I want us to drive the agenda of this country until the last hour of the last day of my term in January of 2001. That is what we signed on for. That is what we owe the American people. And if you look at what is happening today, our party-I love what Dick Gephardt said about, when he was the majority leader, how he met with the minority leader and how we tried to work together. Because this election fundamentally is not about the Democratic Party. It is about the American people, and it is about our agenda, which puts progress over partisanship and people over power and unity over division. We believe this country has big challenges. We believe, first, you do not sit on a lead in a global economy and society like the one we are living in. You know, the temptation is, after all the tough years we had, Things are going so well now; why do not we just relax, kick back, and enjoy it? All you have to do is pick up the paper every day to know that it is a reasonably dynamic world we are living in. If someone had told you 5 years ago that Japan would have 5 years of one percent growth a year during which time the stock market there would lose half its value, would you have believed that? Is there a person in this room that really thought that would happen? If there is, I'd like to clean out what little I have got left in my bank account and let you be my investment adviser from now on. I do not mean that in a negative way.

Remarks at a Unity '98 Dinner


The way people work and live and relate to each other and the rest of the world is changing at a breathtaking pace. Nobody is smart enough to understand it all and figure out all of its ramifications. When people have the good fortune of good times, they should take their treasure and their confidence and think about tomorrow and deal with the long-term challenges of the country. There are four big issues that I think will sweep across the country this year and carry us home if our party will advance them. Number one, we waited 29 years to get out of the red. Let us do not run out and spend this surplus on a tax cut or a spending program until we save the Social Security system for the 21st century so that the baby boomers do not bankrupt their kids and their ability to raise their grandchildren when we retire. Number two, managed care, on balance, has been a good thing for America because we could not sustain inflation in health care costs at 3 times the rate of inflation in the economy. That was an unsustainable trend that developed in the 1980's. But it is just a device, and it must not be allowed to block quality care. Therefore, we should have a Patients' Bill of Rights that puts quality care back at the center of the health care debate. People should have access to the medical care they need; decisions should be made by doctors, not by accountants; people should not be turned away from emergency rooms or specialists if they need them; and their privacy should not be violated in the medical arena. That is what this Patients' Bill of Rights is all about. It is a first step toward reconciling the imperative of having better management in the health care system with keeping health care uppermost in the health care system. And a lot of you are in the health care business. One of the reasons we need legislation is, it is simply unfair to all the good people out there in health care today that are already complying with the requirements of the Patients' Bill of Rights because they think it is the morally right thing to do. It is unfair for them to be at an economic disadvantage with those who do not . So we need a Patients' Bill of Rights. Number three, we have succeeded in the last 5 1/2 years in opening the doors of college to just about everybody in America. The HOPE scholarship makes the first 2 years of college virtually free to most Americans. It certainly makes community college virtually free to most Americans.

Remarks at a Unity '98 Dinner


We now have tax credits for the junior and senior year and for graduate school. The interest deductibility on student loans is back. We have dramatically increased scholarships and work-study positions. We had 100,000 young people go through AmeriCorps. One of you told me you had a child going to California in the AmeriCorps program, and I thank you for that. But no one believes that we still even after all this, we still cannot say that we have the best elementary and secondary education in the world for all Americans. We have an agenda for smaller classes, more teachers, more welltrained teachers, modernized schools, hooking up all the classrooms to the Internet, more after-school programs, more summer school programs for kids in difficult areas with troubled lives-things that we know work-higher standards, greater accountability, more charter schools, more school choice. We have got an agenda, and we think it ought to be supported. So we have a better schools agenda. Number four, after this summer, I take it no one seriously questions the fact that the climate is genuinely changing. The 9 hottest years on record have occurred in the last 11 years. The 5 hottest years in history have occurred in the 1990's. Last year was the hottest year on record; this year every month has been hotter than the same month last year. We still have 40 percent of our water that is not safe for swimming, in spite of all the work since the Clean Water Act passed. We still have problems with safe drinking water in some places. We still have too many toxic waste dumps in some places. If there is one thing America has learned since 1970, it is that we improve the quality of life and the strength of the economy when we clean up the environment in the right way. So this old-fashioned, antienvironmental rhetoric does not hold much water. We have got to face the environmental challenges of today and tomorrow and do them in a way that promotes new markets, new technologies, new jobs, but a cleaner environment and a growing economy. save Social Security, pass a Patients' Bill of Rights, improve the public schools, clean up the environment and improve the economy. In a lot of places our farmers are in trouble. A lot of urban areas, where we have a good empowerment agenda, still have not felt the economic recovery.

Remarks at a Unity '98 Dinner


Ladies and gentlemen, I have had a wonderful day here. I do not think I have ever had a bad day in New Orleans. And I am honored to be here with Bill and Andrea, with Vic and Fran Bussie. And Vic, you have done a lot of great things in your life, but you have not given many better talks. I am honored to be here with your bright young mayor, who has established such a fine record and has recently joined the ranks of the happily married. We are proud of him for that, too. Let me say to all of you-I was just sitting here listening to what everybody else was saying, wondering if I could offer any unique perspective. I first came to New Orleans 50 years ago. I hate that. My mother was in nursing school here. And one of the most vivid memories of my lifetime was seeing my mother kneel by the side of the railroad tracks and cry when I went home with my grandmother, because she had been widowed early, before my father-before I was born. And she came down here to get some education so she could support me. And they would not let me in anyplace to hear anybody-- because I was so young. And I saw-I never will forget this-I was walking away from my mother, and I saw Al Hirt sitting there in some big English limousine, reading a newspaper, and he was going to go in and perform. I knocked on his window, told him who I was, and said I had come all the way down here from Hot Springs, Arkansas, and all I cared about was music. I did not want to drink anything; I did not want to gamble; I did not want anything; I just wanted to go hear him play. He took me in and put me on the front table. It is funny what you remember, is not it? I have never forgotten that, and that sort of embodies the generosity that the people of this city and this State have exhibited to me throughout my life. And you did give Al Gore and me, Hillary and Tipper, and our administration the electoral votes of the people of Louisiana twice, and I am profoundly grateful for that. I want to say three or four things I think you ought to think about in this election. When I became President, I ran a long, hard campaign. I was written off for dead three or four times along the way, and three or four dozen times since.

Remarks at a Luncheon for Representative William J. Jefferson in New Orleans


But Bill Jefferson was one of my first supporters. I remember the first time I came here, when the Jeffersons had me in their home. I met their beautiful, brilliant daughters, and their family members, many of whom are here today. And we went through that campaign, and I found that, to a remarkable degree, we shared the same philosophy. We were proud members of the Democratic Party, but we did not like the fact that our party had been a part of the leadership of 12 years of Republican Presidents when we had the majority in the Congress, and together they quadrupled the debt of the country; and that we were in a terrible recession. Wages had been stagnant for more than a decade. We did not like the fact that people thought because we believed in the United States Constitution and we were against racial discrimination, that somehow we were soft on crime or we thought able-bodied people should not work instead of being on welfare. We thought that the Democratic Party, and African-Americans in general, had been twisted and distorted and used as political whipping boys in campaigns. And we thought Washington was divided by gridlock, and we wanted a change. So I said, give me a chance to change America, to change the direction of the country, change our party, to change our leadership in Washington. I want America in the 21st century to be a place where every person, without regard to race, creed, gender, or anything else, has a chance to live up to his or her God-given potential. And I want America to be the world's strongest force for peace and freedom and justice and prosperity. And my strategy for getting there is to do everything I know how to do to give opportunity for all, demand responsibility from all Americans, and create a community of all Americans. That is what we said we'd do. Now, in 1992, it was an argument. And the people decided to give me a chance, even though I was, in the rather disparaging characterization of the incumbent President, just a Governor from a small southern State. The people decided to give me a chance. They bought our side of the argument. By 1996, there was no argument anymore because the results were beginning to pour in. And now, in 1999, I can look back and say with gratitude and thanks and humility that it has worked out. The results speak for themselves.


We have the longest peacetime expansion in history; 19.4 million jobs; the lowest unemployment rate in 29 years; the lowest welfare rate in 32 years; the lowest crime rate in 26 years. Today I announced that this year's surplus will be $115 billion, the first time in 42 years we have had a surplus 2 years in a row. And I say that to make this point-and along the way, by the way, with the HOPE scholarship and other financial incentives, we have opened the doors of college to virtually every American. The air is cleaner; the water is cleaner; the food is safer; 90 percent of our kids are immunized against serious childhood diseases for the first time; 100,000 young Americans have served in AmeriCorps in their communities all over this country, including this one, and earned some money for college. And we have been a force for peace and freedom throughout the world. And I am proud of that. What is that got to do with this? Well, I will just give you a few examples. And what is that got to do with the Governor's race, even if it has something to do with our record? And I will give you a few examples of that. Number one, all this started with one vote in August of 1993. The economy started getting better after the election, as soon as I announced my economic plan. But it did not get voted on in Congress until August, because it was fairly controversial. I had cut hundreds of programs but dramatically increased education. And I asked the wealthiest Americans to pay more taxes, and cut taxes on 15 million Americans who were working for modest wages, lower wages, with children in their home. And there was a lot of controversy, and the Republican Party in Congress decided that they would vote against this to the person, that they would not give me one vote, and that they would tell everybody it was a just a tax increase, even though they knew only a tiny fraction of Americans were going to have one. Now, that bill passed by one vote in the United States Senate, Al Gore's vote. And it passed by one vote in the United States House of Representatives. If Bill Jefferson had not voted for that, it would not have happened, the recovery probably would not have occurred, and none of us would probably be standing here today doing this. So I am grateful to Bill Jefferson.


I am grateful to him for supporting our agenda to reach out to other countries-to Latin America, to Africa-to expand trade of American products, to build up the Port of New Orleans, to bring us closer to other people in other countries. Get guns out of the wrong hands; put more community police on the street; give our kids something good to do. And I am grateful to Bill Jefferson for supporting my education agenda every step of the way, including our plan to hire 100,000 more teachers to get class size down in the early grades, something he is running on; our plan to build or modernize 6,000 schools, which would include his commitment to air-condition the schools that do not have it; our plan to triple the number of our young people who are eligible for after-school programs; set high standards for failing schools, and if they do not turn around, let the parents go to another public school with their kid, but help the schools turn around. We can do that. I have seen that all over America. I am telling you, I have been in the schools in the worst neighborhoods you can imagine in terms of adversity, and I have seen children learning at a high level because of what was done in the school. So, yes, I am grateful to Bill Jefferson. And a lot of what we enjoy today came as a direct result of policies he supported that he played a critical role in bringing to bear. The second point I'd like to make to you is that I believe I am the only person in this room who has actually been a Governor. I know something about this. And I did it quite a long time. I served for 12 years and would have served for 14 if the people had not elected me President. And I am telling you, I loved every day of it. It is a wonderful job if you love people and if you care about good schools, good jobs, and creating strong, healthy, vibrant communities. We have done more in the education area probably than any administration, certainly since the Johnson administration. But most of the money for schools and most of the direction for schools, by State constitutional law, comes from the State, in every State in America. You know, education is very important to me, personally, and to Hillary and to all of our administration. But the President has to protect the American people in many ways; the national security has to come first, and then you have to deal with a whole range of other issues.