Remarks at a Unity '98 dinner in Los Angeles, California: September 26, 1998

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 5, 1998

Now, I have not said I'm against tax cuts. We have tax cuts in my budget, in the balanced budget, for child care, for education, for the environment. All I said is we shouldn't spend the surplus on tax cuts until we save Social Security for the 21st century. And that's very important. Everybody I know - there are some baby boomers here tonight - everybody between 34 and 52 is a baby boomer. I'm the oldest of them, though it grieves me to say so. [Laughter]

But I can tell you - not very long ago I was home in Arkansas eating barbecue with 20 people I grew up with, and very few of them would classify as upper middle class. Most of them have very modest incomes, they're just good, hard-working Americans doing the best they can to raise their kids. But every one of them was plagued with the notion that when they got ready to retire and there were only two people working for every one person on Social Security, if we don't do something about this now, we would have to take lots more money from our children and undermine their ability to raise our grandchildren just to sustain our retirement.

Now, you heard Bob Torricelli quoting de Tocqueville - we're going to see, because it's a clear choice in this election. They're offering everybody a quick-fix tax cut that won't amount to a lot of money to most people, but it sounds great before an election. And we're going into the teeth of the election and we say, we would like to tell you this, but we're not going to do it, we're going to tell you truth: America needs to set a financial example, and Ave need to save Social Security first before we use any of that surplus for spending or for tax cuts. That's our position. It's a big issue, and it's the right thing for America.

The second big issue - I never thought I'd ever be giving a speech about this within 6 weeks of an election - is whether we're going to fired the International Monetary Fund. Most Americans probably don't know what it is. But I can tell you this, if you like the fact that your country has almost 17 million new jobs and you want us to continue to lead the world and you understand that 30 percent of our growth has come from what we sell to our friends around the world and a quarter of the world today is in a serious recession - in Asia, where so much of California's wealth has come from in the growth of our trading with Asian markets - then you know that America has to do something to lead the way.

I'm doing my best to get all the other wealthy countries in the world to focus on this, to try to help Asia recover, to try, to get Japan restored to growth, to try to help Russia, not only because it's the morally right thing to do for them but because it's in our interest. We can't grow and continue to prosper unless our friends and neighbors grow.

And for 8 months, I've been asking this Congress to fund our contribution to the International Monetary Fund. They need the money, and I can't do the job without it. And we can't possibly be expected to lead if we're the biggest piker on the block and we won't pay our fair share. So that's a big issue in this election.