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Leon Panetta
Former White House Chief of Staff under President Clinton; Co-director, Leon and Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy
It is an honor to be here to join in the centennial anniversary of The Commonwealth Club. This is one of the premier forums for the vital exchange of ideas and views and thoughts that are so important and so crucial to a strong democracy. A hundred years ago, as a young nation embarked into a new century, it was beginning the important debate about what would the vision of the United States be in the 20th century, the role of the United States in the world. Theodore Roosevelt had just signed a treaty with Panama to develop the Panama Canal. What was the role of military power? What would be the role of diplomacy in that world? How would we balance government and the private sector to protect citizens from corporate corruption and abuse, to provide for the public's safety and at the same time ensure a strong and growing economy? How could we be good stewards of our resources so that our children and their children could enjoy a good quality of life? And how do we strengthen and broaden participation in our democracy?
Those were the challenges, the issues, and The Commonwealth Club, organized by leaders of a progressive movement in Northern California, felt that it was important to establish a forum to advance that debate and to give citizens a voice in policy making. A hundred years later, The Commonwealth Club continues that essential debate. And, interestingly enough, the challenges have a familiar ring to what happened in 1903. What is the role of the United States in the post-Cold War era? What is the balance between military power and diplomacy? How do we restore trust in government and in corporate America? How do we strengthen our economy? How do we preserve our resources? And how do we increase participation in our democracy so that the public will not be afraid to debate the future of this nation?
Today we pay tribute to The Commonwealth Club for the rich tradition established by advancing that crucial debate. And it is appropriate that the focus be on this question of renewing a democratic civil society. I know that The Club has identified some areas to focus on for discussion - and, yes, it is about media and foreign policy and corporate behavior and our political system and community participation, but fundamentally it is about leadership. In the 30 years that I have been involved with politics and public policy, I worry today about whether or not the quality of leadership that we have is so absorbed in political warfare that it is losing sight of the national interest.
I began my career in 1966. After two years of service in the Army, I became a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Thomas Kuchel from California. I remember the first time Senator Kuchel brought his legislative assistants into a room. In those days there were only two of us - one covered foreign affairs and defense, and the other covered domestic issues. I was responsible for domestic issues. He brought us into a room and he said, "You are going to be subject to a great deal of temptation in this town as people try to go to you in one way or another in order to influence me. But remember one thing: we are here to serve the interests of the people of the United States and the people of California. That's our job. And remember one thing: in the morning you have to get up and look at yourself in the mirror." I have never forgotten those words, because the point was very clear: that integrity is the most important quality of a leader and of those who help leaders in Washington.
At the time, let me remind you of who some of the senators were in the U.S. Senate. On the Republican side, in addition to Tom Kuchel, there was George Aiken from Vermont; Everett Dirksen from Illinois; Jacob Javits from New York; Clifford Case from New Jersey; Hugh Scott from Pennsylvania; Shermann Cooper from Kentucky; Mark Hatfield from Oregon; and Ed Brooke from Massachusetts. On the Democratic side, there were people like Hubert Humphrey; Dick Russell; Sam Ervin; Stuart Symington, Phil Hart, Henry Jackson and Warren Magnuson.
These were giants, and yes they had their partisan differences, and yes, oftentimes they approached issues from very different political views. But when it came to issues, when it came to education, to the environment, to civil rights, to resource protection, to health care, to issues involved in foreign policy, they believed that they had to work together in order to advance the national interest. They were willing to find consensus, and they were willing to work together on a bipartisan basis in order to find solutions. That was their approach, and it was the kind of approach that I think our forefathers had in mind as to what leadership would be all about in our democratic society. When I was elected to Congress in 1976, a good deal of that tradition continued with people like Tip O'Neill and Bob Michel, Tom Foley, Howard Baker, Bob Dole - individuals who felt that it was important ultimately to work together to resolve issues on behalf of the national interest.
Today that has changed. The parties are engaged in what I would call political trench warfare. They are striving for political power and, in that power struggle, too often the result is gridlock on the issues that confront this country. I have often said that we govern our democracy either through leadership or crisis. Today too often we govern by crisis. There has to be a budget crisis in order to confront budget issues. There has to be an energy crisis in order to confront what we do about energy. There has to be a crisis in health care in order to deal with the challenges of increased costs and the lack of access to health care. There has to be a crisis in Social Security and Medicare in order to confront the issue of how we provide security to retiring baby boomers. In area after area after area, rather than working together to find solutions to those challenges, the approach is to wait for the crisis to ultimately drive the political process. That is not only dangerous, but I think it violates the basic spirit of the kind of leadership that was inspired by our forefathers in this country.
Our forefathers understood what abuse of power was all about. They understood that if you centralize power in any one branch of government, ultimately power would be abused. And so, to the credit of their remarkable genius, they established these three separate but equal branches of government, each a check and balance on the other, to ensure that power would not be centralized, and that it would be limited. But, in essence, they created a conflict. On one hand they wanted a dynamic democracy that would advance freedom and opportunity and become a symbol to the world of what free people are all about. At the same time, they limited the power of government, or they limited the ability to try to address those issues so that power would not be centralized. They believed deeply that power in our democracy ultimately rested with the people.
So what was the key to dealing with that conflict? The key was leadership. Although there would be differences, there would be debate, there would be different ideologies, ultimately people would roll up their sleeves and work together to find consensus, so that we could move this nation forward. That is the miracle of Philadelphia. We had very different views of what this country should look like. Philadelphia represents consensus and compromise, trying to work towards a common goal. It is that kind of fundamental leadership that our forefathers had in mind for this democracy of ours. And for 200 years we have been blessed that that dynamic has taken place in our constitutional system.
We're in the 21st century now. There are great opportunities, and there are great challenges. And I honestly believe that with the right kind of leadership we can produce a new kind of hope and freedom and justice. But instead there is a danger that we confront an age of fear and uncertainty and anxiety and paradox. I often mention going to a conference that was discussing "Where are we, the United States of America? What will future archaeologists say about the nature of our society?" There were a lot of different views. Many thought this was the information age. Others thought it would be the age of terrorism. But a futurist got up. Futurists are interesting people. (As my Italian father would say, "a futurist is somebody that can't get a job in the present.") The futurist basically said, "No, we are beyond the information age. We are today in the age of paradox."
He was looking at the paradoxes, the contradictions, in our personal behavior. We're into exercise but eating more fast food than ever; we're concerned about the quality of our environment but buying bigger and bigger gas-guzzlers. Those were the kind of paradoxes he was talking about. But as I thought about it, indeed there are larger paradoxes that confront us today. Our military power is indeed a paradox. We are, without question, the strongest military power in the world today with our Cruise missiles, with our aircraft carriers, with our stealth bombers and stealth fighters and satellite targeting. There is no other country that has the military power the U.S. possesses today. We spend $400 billion on defense - more than all of the other countries in the world combined.
But the paradox is that for all of that military power, we confront crises and threats to our peace. Terrorists have attacked American embassies and our ships and our own buildings. The Middle East continues to be in turmoil. We confront the prospect of war in Iraq and the possibility of even further warfare in North Korea. The key is that power alone cannot answer those challenges; that it takes leadership and diplomacy and the ability to build alliances and coalitions so that we operate with unity, and with justice, and with freedom in mind - not with arrogance or unilateral actions or isolationism. The difference is one between whether we operate as an imperial power or as a world leader. One hundred years ago Teddy Roosevelt had it right: Walk softly and carry a big stick. We did very well carrying the big stick, but we have yet to learn to speak softly.
Our economy is another paradox. There is no question the United States has the strongest economy in the world, the most creative. And yet the paradox is obvious. Despite this strong economy, we are engaged in deficit spending, with the prospect that this year we will have $300 billion annual deficits at the federal level, with the potential of going to $600 billion. The estimate right now is that we will add $1.7 trillion to the debt in the next three to four years. And we could reach a national debt by the end of this decade of $10 trillion. Instead of confronting that challenge, there is the attitude that this is not a problem, that we can again increase deficit spending and it will have little impact on our economy. And we know that those huge deficits will not only drive up future interest rates and rob us of the capital we need for investment now, but will raise taxes on our children who will have to pay the interest on that debt.
At the same time that we have a strong economy, we are failing to deal with Social Security and Medicare. There is a possibility of reaching an unfunded liability on Social Security and Medicare approaching almost $40 trillion by 2030, as the baby boom generation gets those programs. Yet little is being done. And we have corporate scandals that break out every day as corporate leaders fail to recognize that the most important part of our economy is the trust of the investing public in corporate America.
So the key to breaking that paradox is to confront these challenges with honesty and directness, to recognize what the costs are going to be of the challenges we take on. The estimated cost of a war is somewhere in between $95-100 billion. The estimate I heard in Washington is that it could very well approach $150-200 million. This is not a time to provide a large tax cut. This is a time, very frankly, for sacrifice and for discipline on the part of all of us.
Technology is another paradox. We are tremendously creative. We have tremendous innovation. Information now flies across this country so rapidly that it's hard to keep up with it. I remember when I became chief of staff. I asked if I could see the Situation Room in the White House, to see if it looked like that scene from Dr. Strangelove. The Situation Room is relatively small. I asked the person showing me around to show me where the center of information is for the White House, where we get our information from our satellites, from our agents - all of the information sources that the United States has from throughout the world. They took me to a corner, and in that corner there were two individuals dressed in uniform watching CNN. I suspect that it's probably FOX today. It is a fact; information now flies so rapidly - that is what it is dependent on.
One of the things I don't miss about being chief of staff is the phone calls at 3 a.m. because they are never good news. I remember soon after I was appointed I got a call from a secret service agent who said, "Sorry to wake you, Mr. Panetta, but I have to tell you that a plane just went into the White House." I said, "Well, was it a B-10? Was it a 747?" He said, "No, no, it was a light plane, and it went up against the side of the White House. We don't think it caused that much damage." I asked, "Is this a threat on the president's life? Is this a diversion? Are these terrorists who are going to go after the president?" There was this pause, and the secret service agent said, "Well, according to CNN News…" I said, "You don't understand, I want you to go out to the plane and find out what's there."
You become tremendously dependent on these information sources and on this wonderful technology. And yet the paradox is that for all that technology, we still have a hard time teaching third-graders how to read. In Monterey County, 80 percent of third-graders are reading below grade level. In the California State University system, 50 percent of students require remedial education. So for all of this great technology we have, and for all of this wonderful information we have, the fact is it still depends on parents, on teachers, on communities to be able to in fact teach our children not only how to read, but how to advance.
Let me share with you the paradox that concerns me most of all, which is our democracy. We are without question a beacon to the world as to what democracy and self-government is all about. Make no mistake about it. Wherever I flew in the world with the president of the United States, people looked to this country as the beacon of democracy. What's the paradox? The paradox is that in the last presidential election, less than 50 percent of those qualified to vote turned out to vote. In this state, in the last gubernatorial election, less that a third of those qualified to vote turned out to vote. Less than a third decided who the leadership of this state would be.
Let me tell you what worries me more than that, which is the impact it's having on young people and our younger generations. One of the reasons my wife and I began The Panetta Institute for Public Policy is because we were concerned about some of the attitudes I was seeing in young people about public life and public service. We took a poll, and we continue to take a poll of college students' attitudes towards a public career. Let me tell you what those polls say. Seventy-three percent said they would never choose a career in public life. Eighty percent said they have not even had a conversation with an adult about getting involved in public life. So parents are not passing that message on. My parents were immigrants. When we sat down to dinner, my father made very clear that we owed something back to this country because of what this country gave to them. That message is not there. Ninety-four percent said they did not volunteer in any election.
The good news is that about 75 percent said they are interested in volunteering at the local level, and that they are interested in issues. So we asked them, "Why is there this difference about being interested in issues, but not being interested in public service?" And they said, "Because what's happening in Washington is not relevant to my life." It is not relevant to their lives. I would say that a good portion of those students were on student loans, but it is not relevant to their lives. So there's a disconnect. Yes they want to get involved in issues, to get involved in dealing with the environment, in dealing with women's rights, and civil rights and other issues like that, but they do not see Washington, they do not see Sacramento impacting those issues. "It's not relevant." And you could understand why. Part of it is a problem that turns off a lot of Americans - too much partisanship, too many fights over the small margin of power, too much money. People don't feel like they are part of the process anymore, that it's only a game for the wealthy and for special interests. And all of it ultimately produces what is probably the worst result of all, which is that leaders don't want to take risks. They want to basically protect power and, very frankly, you cannot be a leader in a democracy if you're not willing to take risks.
So today, as I mentioned, we govern not so much by leadership, but by crisis, by confrontation, by threats: "You are either with us or against us. You either do it our way, or we'll do it alone." Those threats are not only taking place at the presidential level, but I also hear them on Capitol Hill everyday. So the result is that we're alienating not just our allies and our friends, but we are isolating ourselves from feeling part of the democracy, from being able to take a role in the fate of a nation.
U.S. Senator Robert Byrd made a speech on the floor of the Senate on February 12, and I will quote a section of it: "We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, ominously, dreadfully silent. No debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing." That vacuum of debate and involvement I believe weakens our democracy. Forty years ago, John Kennedy, sensing that there was a rich resource of idealism and activism, called out to all of us. "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." And frankly, a generation responded at that time. My generation responded and changed the face of America - touched everything from race relations, to women's rights, to the quality of our environment, to issues of war and peace. If we are to renew America, if we are to renew democratic civil society, then we must not stand mute. All of us have a duty to respond to the call for service to this nation.
We need to urge a strong debate, a continuing debate about the challenges we face. We need to encourage people to exercise the one power that this country provides to all citizens - the power to vote, the power to influence who your leaders are and what policies they implement. We need to encourage leaders to act not on the basis of politics, but on the basis of a national interest so that they can confront corruption in corporate America, so that they can confront the challenges that face our children and us. And I think we also have to encourage young people to get involved. There is too little civil education to teach students about what are the essentials of how a democracy operates.
I know Charles Rangel called for the restoration of a draft, but I would take it one step further. I think all young people ought to give two years of their life in a national service system in this country. It does not have to be just military service, it can be in conservation, or education, or health care. It can be working in the streets trying to help young people. Young people have to understand that they have to give something back to this nation; that there is a duty and a responsibility that all of us have in our democracy.
These are times, as I said, of challenges, and opportunities, and paradoxes. The key to breaking those paradoxes is leadership - leadership on the part of all of us. My parents, as I mentioned, were immigrants, and I often ask my father, "Why did you come 3,000 miles from the comfort of your home, even though there was poverty, to this country?" He said something I will never forget: "We came because we really believed we could give our children a better life." I believe that is the fundamental American dream; that we want to give our children a better life. It is what my wife and I want for our three sons. And I believe it is what all of us want for our children. Today we have to commit ourselves to engaging in that fight to restore our democracy, to restore a civil society, to restore the American dream for our children, but most importantly, to protect and strengthen a government of, by and for all people.
