Interview With Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine - part 2 - President Bill Clinton - Interview

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 11, 2000

Advice for Youth

Mr. Wenner. Do you have any special message to young people, any sort of valedictorian thoughts to the kids in school right now, as you leave office?

The President. Yes, I do. First of all, I think that they should realize that they're very fortunate to be living in this country at this time, fortunate because of our economic prosperity, fortunate because of our enormous diversity, and fortunate because of the permeation of technology in our society, all of which enables us to relate to the rest of the world and to one another in different and better ways.

Secondly, I think they should understand that our future success is not guaranteed and depends upon their interest in public affairs, as well as their private lives and their participation. One of the things that's really concerned me about this election is all these articles that say that young people think there is not much in it for them. I think maybe that's because there has been a lot of debate about Social Security and Medicare in the debate. They think that's an old folks' issue.

But it's actually not just an old folks' issue, because when all of us baby boomers retire-- and I'm the oldest of the baby boomers; the baby boomers are people that are between the ages now of 54 and 36. So when we retire, unless everybody starts having babies at a much more rapid rate, or we have hugely greater immigration, there will only be two people working for every one person drawing Social Security. Now, more of us are going to have to work into our later years. And more of us have a choice now because--one of the good things that Congress did unanimously was to lift the earnings limit on Social Security.

But anyway, even the Social Security issue is a youth issue. Why? Because the baby boomers, most of them, I know, are obsessed with our retirement not imposing an undue burden on our children and our grandchildren. But there are all these other issues.

We have to build a clean energy future to avoid global warming. Two stunning studies have come out in the last month, and because of the Presidential campaign, they've not been much noticed. One analysis of a polar icecap says that the 1990's were the warmest decade in a thousand years. The other projecting study estimates that if we don't change our greenhouse gas emissions, the climate could warm between 2.4 and 10 degrees over the next century; 2.4 is too much. Ten degrees would literally flood a lot of Louisiana and Florida. This is a very serious thing.

Then you've got this incredible scientific and technological revolution that will lead to, among other things--if you just take the human genome alone, a lot of the young people in America today, when they have their children, they'll get a little gene card to take home with them from the hospital, and their children will be born with a life expectancy of 90 years, because they'll be able to avoid so many of the illnesses and problems that they have a biological propensity to.

So this is a fascinating time to be alive, but it's not free of challenges. So I would say to the young people, you ought to be grateful you're alive at this time. You'll probably Live in the most prosperous, interesting time in human history, but there are a lot of big challenges out there, and you have to be public citizens as well as private people.