Remarks at a Reception for Representative Dennis Moore

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 9, 2000

What's that got to do with the House race in Kansas? I'll tell you exactly what. Those of us who have been here for the last 8 years, or who were part of any segment of it, worked very hard to turn this country around. And the economy is going in the right direction. The crime rate is going down. The welfare rolls have been cut in half. The school dropout rate is down. The college-going rate is at an all-time high. Now, with the change in the trend lines on health insurance, every single major social indicator is going in the right direction. And notwithstanding all the troubles around the world today, this country has been an unmitigated force for peace and reconciliation across racial and religious and ethnic lines on every continent in the globe.

Now, the question is, what do we mean to do with this? Have all the problems gone away? Not on your life. There are still big challenges out there, and there are still great opportunities out there. And I said this over and over again-there are a lot of young people in this audience tonight, so I want to make this point, and maybe you will avoid this. There is nobody in this room tonight who is over 30 years old who has not made at least one mistake in your life of some significance, not when times were really tough but when times were going so well, you thought you didn't have to concentrate. Now, that is the big challenge in this election.

Things are going well. People feel good. I want everybody to feel good. Not only that, our Republican friends, after we beat back the contract on America and we beat back their attempts to shut the Government down and we beat back several other of the more extreme things they tried to do, they now sound more like us than ever before. It's really encouraging. I don't mean to put it down. The rhetoric is important. But if you strip the rhetoric away, there are huge differences between what our policies would be-differences in our economic policies, our education policies, our health care policies, our commitment to grow the economy and preserve the environment. And there will be big differences in our farm policies next year, when I'm not around, but I think that our crowd will be sticking up, as I said, for farmers of all sizes, from all parts of the country.

There will be differences in how we'll deal with the challenge of the aging of America. The fastest growing group of people in America are people over 80. Within just a few years, there will only be two people working for every one person drawing Social Security. We'll have to re-imagine the whole nature of getting older in America, what it means, how we're going to work, and what we're going to do. And it is really, really important. The one thing I have learned, every single House seat and every single Senate seat is important.

And when I made the comment I did about Dennis at the beginning, I was not just kidding. Every time I go out into the country and I listen to our friends in the other party speak, I normally don't have much objection to what they say. They talk about being fiscally conservative. They talk about being compassionate. They talk about this, that, and the other thing. All I can tell you is that this guy does that. And he has had a remarkable impact in a short time.