THE WHITE HOUSE: Remarks by the Vice President at Year 2000 conversion
event
JUL 15, 1998, M2 Communications - THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you very
much, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, thank you very much. (Applause.)
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I'm speaking, of course, about the so-called year 2000 problem which,
as everybody knows -- well, unfortunately, not everybody does know it
-- but as many people know, and certainly everyone in this auditorium
knows, it could cause serious problems for commerce and communications
all over the world if we're not serious about fixing it.
This is a story of conscious decisions by people years ago that led
to completely unintended consequences. Back in the 1960s and '70s,
managers and programmers tried to save money by saving on memory. At
that stage of the computer revolution memory was at a premium and they
were trying to avoid using any unnecessary space in the memory storage
areas. And so they came up with the notion of representing the date
with only two digits, instead of four. So 1965 became just 65. And it
saved millions of dollars, but it also created one whale of a problem.
The software assumed that every year began with 19, and it wasn't
programmed to read the year 2000. The programmers assumed, of course,
that the early versions of software that they were using would quickly
become obsolete, so they really didn't think about it that much. But
software has turned out to be a different kind of technology from
toasters or cars -- when you get a new version you don't just throw
away the old software, or at least when you develop a new version they
didn't throw away the earlier version, they built upon it and added to
it.
And software began to evolve in ways that are not completely
dissimilar to the evolution of life forms in the sense that the new
forms recapitulated some of the earlier evolutionary steps. And without
spending much time considering it, the software writers continued to
think, well, we'll soon replace this and if we fix the numbers, well,
they'll have to go back and fix it all over the place. And so they fell
into a pattern of denial and it didn't really seem to them to be a
problem.
But as a result the flawed programs were replicated by each
successive generation. And over time they built up and today we have
hundreds of millions of computers and devices and tens of billions of
imbedded chips that will not accurately read -- many of which will not
accurately read the year 2000. When you have that many of them, if only
a small percentage of them don't accurately read the date, then the
world has a problem. And unless the old lines of code are fixed, the
problems, of course, will be serious. And that means that if somebody
gets a bill in December '99 and doesn't send a check until January of
2000, if that company's computer isn't fixed it might not register your
payment because it will think the check is from 1900. And that would be
the least of the problem. So it has to be fixed.
And this is a challenge that exists on four different levels. First
of all, it's a challenge to the federal government. With more than
7,000 mission critical systems at the federal level, carrying out
functions ranging from Social Security payments to air traffic control,
it is critical that our electronic systems run effectively and
efficiently.
Secondly, it's a challenge to state and local government. States use
computers to run vital public health and safety systems, from Medicaid
to unemployment insurance to water treatment plants.
Third, it's a special challenge to the private sector. Virtually
every American business, both large and small, has a stake in our
information economy and ultimately has to take personal responsibility
for fixing their own system. The people who are with us on stage today,
to whom I referred earlier, have taken a special leadership role on
this issue and we want to hold them up as examples, and they're working
with us to solve the problem. And private businesses are really doing a
wonderful job, in most cases -- we'll talk about some of the others.
Now, fourth, it's an international challenge. In a world with
hundreds of different languages, the way in which our computers speak
to one another across national boundaries drives our markets, our jobs,
and our future.
The President will talk more broadly about all four of these areas in
just a moment. Let me take just one minute to focus on the federal
role. The federal government has been working very hard to ensure that
our critical computer systems will in fact run smoothly when the date
changes. Earlier this year the President established the President's
Council on the Year 2000 Conversion, and appointed John Koskinen, as
the highly respected former Deputy Director of Management at OMB, to
head up this effort.
Along with John, I met with the President's Management Council to
make clear that their number one job was to meet this challenge. And I
joined in the Cabinet meeting when the President laid down the law and
went to each Cabinet Department and set in motion efforts to make sure
that every Cabinet member understands this is priority number one.
And today, over 30 Executive Branch, independent and regulatory
agencies have representatives on that Council and great progress is
being made. At the Social Security Administration, for example, more
than 90 percent of critical systems are already year 2000 compliant.
There are areas where extra attention is being devoted, I assure you,
and we know very well that we have serious work ahead of us and we have
to remain diligent.
Our goal is to have 100 percent government-wide compliance not by
December 31, 1999, but by March of next year. And John Koskinen really
is a tireless and talented manager with a stellar record, and I know
that together we will continue to make good progress toward meeting
that goal.
And we want to thank our colleagues in the Legislation Branch of the
government for approaching it with the seriousness of purpose and
dedication that they have brought to this task. This can be a model of
partnership and, in fact, one of the lessons that businesses are
learning is that some of the instinct for conflict or to take advantage
of some competitor's problems have to be submerged into a common effort
to make sure that everybody in a particular industry sector is solving
the problem, because it will affect everybody if that's not stopped.
And the same thing is true where the federal government is concerned.
Our Office of Personnel Management is currently working to make sure
that every agency has the talent and the personnel needed to address
this issue. Last March OPM issued a memorandum that will enable us to
bring back retired government programmers to meet this challenge
without requiring them to give up their retirement benefits.
After all, much of the work that needs to be done involves computer
languages that were en vogue 30 years ago, but are not as prevalent
today. And some of these languages even have dialects that can throw
you for a loop if you haven't been conversant in them personally. And
these programmers have the training and the skills that are greatly
needed right now.
So we're doing our part, and part of the message today is that
everybody has to do his or her part. Let me be clear about one thing in
closing. The year 2000 problem is a management challenge and a
programming challenge. It must not be a political football. We need
bipartisan cooperation to solve the year 2000 problem, not political
rhetoric. More than anything else, the year 2000 problem has revealed
how interconnected and interdependent we have become. As software has
evolved, so has our society. We're all in this together and we must
solve it together.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no person who understands that better
than President Bill Clinton. Over the past five and a half years, no
person has worked harder or done more to give our families and
communities the tools that they need to make technology work for them
and to make it a pathway to a brighter future. And, of course, we see
the results in all of the great economic news in most parts of our
country -- 16 million new jobs, new records for small business creation
every year now, 78 percent of America's schools wired to the Internet,
and the biggest increase in education opportunity in a generation.
The President is here today to talk about how the United States of
America can keep this progress going and continue to address the year
2000 problem today. It is my great honor to present to you, ladies and
gentlemen, the President of the United States, Bill Clinton.
(Applause.)
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