Transcripts For CSPAN Bill Clinton Address At Georgetown Uni

Transcripts For CSPAN Bill Clinton Address At Georgetown University On Public Service 20150425

Past several years, tell us a little bit about that. The executive chef, thisll be his 11th dinner he will be serving. He began 11 years ago and the first night working was for the White House Correspondent association dinner. We broke him in well. Our longestserving team members celebrated 50 years of the hotel. He served all 47 dinners. Tell us about the menu. He said theres a process in choosing it. What is it this year . The menu is very unique every year. We are looking to source local ingredients as much as possible from 150 miles of the hotel. Honestly, we are really interested in what is going to serve well for 2600 people in a ballroom and knowing the time constraints and the schedule that involves secret service timing, the show timing of the event and all of that. It is about what holds well and what will move quickly on to the table and what will be fresh and hot in front of the guests. Reporter how early do they start preparing . Some things a few days ahead. 4 00 a. M. On the day of for the final preparations. It is live starting today at 6 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Former president bill clinton spoke about the importance of a life in Public Service on tuesday at georgetown. This is an hour and 25 minutes. [applause] good morning. It is my pleasure and privilege to welcome you to georgetown. This is the third of the clinton lectures at georgetown. I wish to think all of you for being here and to offer a special word of welcome to our guests, including the secretary agriculture and tom delaney. We have had the privilege over the course of the last decades to welcome president clinton back to georgetown on a number of occasions. Notably for a series of lectures in 1991. On the steps of old north florida address for an address in 1993 just days before his inauguration. And now, for this series, in his first lecture of this series, president clinton spoke of the significance of those 1991 lectures, now known as the new covenant speeches on responsibility and rebuilding american community, economic change, and american security. Not only to his campaign, but also for his vision, were our future. For the future. He explained these lectures enabled him to think about where we were, where we wanted to go, and how we propose to get there. We have come together to engage the wisdom and insights of one of the most accomplished leaders of our time. And to hear his perspective gained from a lifetime of service to our nation. As president , he presided over the longest economic expansion in American History, including the creation of more than 22 million jobs, the reform of the welfare and health care systems, new environmental regulations, peacekeeping missions in places such as bosnia, and a federal budget surplus. In the years since his twoterm presidencys, the first democrat since Franklin Delano roosevelt, he has focused on improving global health, education, and Economic Development around the world through the bill, hillary, and Chelsea Clinton foundation which he founded in 2001. In these lectures, he brings to bear these experiences, and those of his youth and early political career. A 1968 alumnus of our school of Foreign Service a rhodes scholar, a yale law graduate attorney general, and then governor of arkansas. A former instructor who taught clinton during his first year here at georgetown has described him as someone who thinks deeply. He says when people are well informed and deeply reflective, it gives them a security and freedom to listen to a wide spectrum of opinions. Clinton is not a man who is closed in his thinking, because he thinks deeply great it is deeply. It is only fitting for this lecture on the theme of purpose, father hence will serve as our moderator during the question and answer session that will follow president clintons remarks. With this theme purpose, president clinton turns to each of us, as he did during those formative new covenant speeches to speak to all of you, future leaders of our nation, to think deeply about our own responsibilities, about where we are, where we want to go, and how we propose together to get there. In 2013, he asked, what is required of us . How do we compose and live a life where service is important . Today we come together to consider andenduring questions, how do we understand our purpose and are responsibilities, our service to the common good and to each other. Ladies and gentlemen, it is now my privilege to welcome to the stage, the 42nd resident of the United States, and a true son of georgetown, president bill clinton. [applause] bill clinton thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you president , for having me back. Thank you father hence for agreeing to asking questions. Ill give better answers than i did 50 years ago, i hope. Thank you all for coming. Students, faculty, friends of georgetown, secretary, thank you very much for being here and for your long career in Public Service. Congressman john delaney, who is a shining hope for the possibility of bipartisan cooperation. He has a bill to repatriate all of this loose cash hanging around overseas that has as Many Republican and democratic sponsors, some people think there is something wrong with that, i think it is a good idea. I thank him for that. I want to thank my classmates and friends who are here. Two years ago i came here on in in april, intending to give a series of three or four lectures on composing a life in Public Service. Whether or that is an elected or appointed office, or in the private sector, or Nongovernmental Organization. In a first talk, i said there were four essential elements to any successful service. The focus on people, policy, politics, and purpose. In that first lecture i was primarily focused on the importance of people centered service. Under the necessity of understanding how different people view themselves in the world they are living in. Without understanding people it is hard to develop the best policies and build and maintain support for them. As i said then, i grew up in a storytelling culture. So i told you stories about people who taught me that everyone has a story and kept me focused on how to help other people have better stories. I told you stories about my family, and my teachers beginning in junior high and running through georgetown about , about people i had worked with through the years. People i met who were dealing with their own life struggles. The second lecture covered policymaking and the compromises involved when trying to do what machiavelli called, the most difficult thing in all of human affairs, to change the established order of things. We discussed how policy meeting was done when i was president of of developing the economic plan in 1993 which reversed 12 years of trickle down economics. It gave us the only period in 50 years when all sections of the economy were robust. We talked about grafting the crafting the welfare reform bill of 1996, what compromises were acceptable, what has worked over the long run, what still needs to be changed. We talked about the pursuit of peace in the middle east. I hope that talk convinced you that policy actually matters. That ideas, when implemented have consequences. Different ideas have different consequences. A great deal of political rhetoric is devoted to blurring that. To pretending that if something good happens and the other guy did it, it was an accident, if something bad happens and you did it, it couldnt have been because you pursued the wrong policy. Because of so much of our voting habits today are determined by the culture in which we live and the conditions in which we experience the world, we tend to blur all of that. I hope i convinced you that when ever you are trying to evaluate policy, you should try to asker ask yourself is there a , difference between a story and the story line . Always look for the story. Sometimes it is in the story line, sometimes it is not. There is a difference between the headlines, and the trendlines. Typically, for perfectly understandable reasons, bad news makes better news than good news. But, sometimes the trendlines are much better. We might have occasion to revisit that. Today want to talk about the purpose of Public Service. I wanted to talk about the politics of turning concern into real changes that fulfilled your purpose for it. For obvious reasons, i will not talk much about electoral politics. It is important to remember, as the secretary and congressman delaney can tell you, there is plenty of politics when the election is over. When you are trying to implement policy, and there is plenty of politics if you are not elected to office. If you are working in a private business or an ngo, that is the kind of politics i want to talk about. How do you have the skills to actually turn your ideas into actions. In every Public Service success, leadership requires the vision of a Better Future for the where the purpose of Public Service is made plain in the circumstances of the moment. A clear understandable plan to realize that vision, and the ability to implement changes, if it all possible by the conclusion of all stakeholders in the process. This is becoming more important than ever before. In an independent world, whether we like it or not, inclusive politics is necessary to have inclusive economics. Inclusive discussion with various stakeholders is necessary to effect positive social changes. Asia has three different interesting leaders of the moment. The president of china, who is trying to grow the chinese economy internally more by resuming population growth by modifying the one child policy, and trying to elevate some of eliminate trying to eliminate some of the corruption that has been endemic to the system. The Prime Minister of japan is trying to overcome his own country by allowing widespread immigration by putting more women in the workforce and enabling people to work longer. Prime minister modi of india has written a book called, inclusive politics, inclusive governments. He recognizes his countrys big problem is it has grown like crazy for the last 20 years around it tech prosperity centers, but only 35 of the people are being reached by that effort. India needs to develop the ability to aggregate and employee capital so that 100 of the people have a chance to benefit from the enterprise that is now driving dramatic prosperity for just 35 of them. This inclusion issue is going to become bigger, and bigger, and bigger in the lifetime of the students who are here. Let me try to illustrate the pitfalls and success of leadership with a few recent examples, recent in my terms not the students. Helmut kohl was the chancellor of germany when the berlin wall came down. He had a vision, born of a lifetime of experience that included obviously living through world war ii of a united, peaceful, and prosperous germany in the United Democratic peaceful europe. Both of these developments may seem normal to you. They were virtually unimaginable for most of european history. Germany was not a separate country, but a collection of city states and united under bismarck. Kohl began became the second longestserving chancellor of history, second only to bismarck. He had a strategy, which he pursued with extraordinary discipline. It was first, to unite germany after the wall came down, which required very large transfers of money from west to east germany to begin the long process of equalizing Economic Opportunities for both sides. Second, to expand and strengthen the union, he wanted all of central and Eastern Europe to come to the eu so germany would be in the middle of europe, not on the edge where it had been a source of instability and conflict throughout the 20th century. Third, he wanted to expand nato and strengthen the ties to the United States because he thought that was important to building a prosperous, democratic future, for germans and the rest of europe. Fourth, he became the most vigorous supporter of russia after the end of communism. It is economic recovery, democracy building, and increasing cooperation with the eu and the u. S. It is hard to believe, given the headlines today, that was the order we were trying to build in the 1990s, and it worked for quite a while. In the beginning it worked, very well, but there were two central problems with implementing his vision after he left office. One is that much of the european union, although not every member adopted the euro zone currency, they had a eurozone the currency, which was adopted before those in the eurozone had a common economic policy, a Common Social policy, and common Public Investment policy. Which meant it worked great when europe was growing well, and greeks could borrow money at german Interest Rates, essentially. But when the economy turned down, it no longer work for a very well, partly because the german voters did not understand how much gain they had gotten out of all of those good years when greece, spain, portugal and italy got to borrow money at common Interest Rates and by german exports. Germany is, by the way, still the number one rich country in the world in percentage of its gdp tied to exports and manufacturing. No small measure, but a good lesson for the United States because of its dramatic success involving middleclass businesses in the export market, having a continuous lifetime training program, and having a program that pays employers to keep people working, instead of paying Unemployment Benefits to unemployed employees. So, its worked fine, but when greece failed, and ireland failed, and spain had skyrocketing unemployment, all for slightly different reasons. Basically it was just a real estate boom going bust in ireland and spain. Portugal and italy had their own troubles. The automatic response of the eu was to try to impose austerity on greece because they had made promises they cannot keep. They had a country in which rich people did not pay taxes. In fact, constitutionally, the shipping companies are exempted from taxes. Something a lot of people do not know. So if you are a cab driver in athens, or a fisherman in the aegean sea, he felt like a chump if you did pay taxes. When they started austerity in 1999, their public debt was lower than it is today. It means the fundamental laws of economics has not been repealed. If inflation is lower than Interest Rates, there is insufficient demand, and more austerity will get you into a deeper hold, not out. So, that happened. There was no provision made at the creation of the eurozone for how to get out, without collapsing the hold or without spooking the markets. That was probably an error. If they were not prepared to have common economic and social policy and some sort of investment, they should have made an exit strategy part of the beginning, then the hazards market hazards would not have been so great. The typical thing for a Little Country in the kind of trouble greek is in is to do value and take all the hard medicine and start trying to grow again. Iceland did that. Iceland was a particular tragedy. Iceland had more selfmade millionaires, mostly in tech and Retail Businesses than any other european country. They devalued and started building again, and got out of this mess in a hurry. So, that does not mean that kohls european idea was wrong. For many older europeans, even the boring and bureaucratic nature of the cumbersome machinery of brussels in the eu is a godsend. It is far better than the uncertainty of war. And endless intrigue with destructive consequences. The other thing that happened to his vision is that russia took a more unilateral and authoritarian turn as manifest both vividly and what happened in the ukraine, and what continues to happen there. But, on balance you would have to say he was the most important european leader since world war ii. Because of the good things that happened and that bad things that did not happen. I still believe, over the long run, we will return to the path that he advocated for so long. Second example, the Prime Minister of singapore recently the founding Prime Minister of singapore recently passed away at 91. I was asked, along with henry kissinger, and represented and henry kissinger, to be rims that at its of the United States at his funeral. Representatives of the United States at his funeral. I had known him and had a lot of contact with him. When he took office more than 50 years ago in 1962, he was the leader of a small, city state of a few Million People with a per capita income of under 1000 a year. It had recently broken off from malaysia. There were two things, one was whether this city state was a minority and a smaller, but still noticeable indian minority, and filipinos and others, and two, whether a state that small could withstand the debilitating consequences of the corruption which was an endemic to most of the rising asian countries. Lee had a strategy. He want today first, his vision was to have a prosperous, unified, secure nation. He knew that singapore had the most important thing of all at the time he came of age location. It was located at a critical juncture for all the major sea lanes. He wanted to be there. His strategy was to govern first to govern singapore on terms of equal treatment for all its citizens without regard to their ethnic background. There were 10 speakers at his funeral. His son, the Prime Minister, spoke first about his leadership. His second son spoke last about what a good father he was. In the middle, there were representatives of every ethnic group in singapore who talk ed about how he had made a home for them inclusion. He was rigorous in the pursuit of corruption from cabinet ministers to overcharging people minor functionaries overcharging peop

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