[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
[May 4, 1993]
[Pages 561-564]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Democratic Congressional Dinner
May 4, 1993

    For a minute there, I thought I was at a meeting of the Republican 
Senate caucus. [Laughter] I'm so glad to see all of you. I can't tell 
you how much I appreciate that warm greeting, how very much I appreciate 
being here with Speaker Foley and Senator Mitchell and Majority Leader 
Gephardt and Senator Graham, Senator Boxer, Congressman Fazio, 
Congressman Torricelli, and all of you out in the audience tonight who 
did so much to make our victory possible last November and who have done 
so much to try to help us make a difference to America.
    I also want to say a special word of thanks to the Vice President. 
We have developed a remarkable partnership. And you know, sometimes when 
I hear him introduce me, I really think he believes it. He almost 
convinced me, I believe it. [Laughter] I can tell you this, that when 
the record of this administration is written, one thing will go down in 
the history books: There will never have been a Vice President in the 
history of the Republic who played such a constructive role in helping 
to advance the public interest.
    I come here tonight on two missions: First and obviously, I want to 
support this fundraising effort. I want more Democrats to win in '94. I 
need every one of you. I want all of you to be reelected. And I know 
that in major part--[applause]---yes, that's worth clapping for. I'm in 
a little different position than a lot of Presidents; I got elected 
because I wanted to do something. If you don't want to do anything, you 
don't really need the Congress. If you want to do something, you have to 
have a partnership, an unprecedented one, to get things done and move 
things forward. But this is about more than winning elections. It's 
about what the elections themselves are for.
    Today I had a wonderful experience. I invited the man who brought me 
into the Congress

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the first time when I was a college student, Senator J. William 
Fulbright, who will be 88 tomorrow, I invited him to come have lunch 
with me at the White House today. And he told me he had not been there 
since President Nixon was in office. It was wonderful. We had lunch 
there, and then we went up to the Oval Office and sat around, and we 
started talking about some of the great people who served our party and 
our country. And we got to talking about Senator Mike Mansfield, who as 
you probably know is 90 and walks 5 miles every day, one of our most 
distinguished Ambassadors to Japan ever. And he told me that he had 
dinner with Senator Mansfield about a month ago. And Mike looked at him 
and he said, ``Now, Bill, how old are you?'' He said, ``I'm 87.'' And he 
said, ``Oh, to be 87 again.'' [Laughter]
    I say that to try to give some perspective beyond the moment to the 
work we are about. I ran for this job not just for the privilege of 
living in the White House and even for the wonderful privilege of being 
with all of you on a regular basis but because I thought together we 
could make a difference in the history of this country. If we live to be 
87, 88, or 90 and we look back on our lives, we will doubtless measure 
the quality of those lives by whether we did something with the jobs we 
hold, or whether, if we are in the private sector, we did something to 
help affect and shape the public interest.
    No one ever said this was going to be easy, but I think it is clear 
that fundamentally we have changed the direction of the Government. A 
few days ago there was a remarkable article in the Wall Street Journal 
by the political columnist who said that, beyond all the smoke and 
fight, look at what's happened in the last 100 days. The question used 
to be, would the Democrats ever really lower the Government deficit? Now 
the question is, how much and how fast? The question used to be, would 
we ever do anything about health care? And now the question is, what and 
how quickly? The question used to be whether the Government really had a 
role working with the private sector to help revitalize the economy in a 
tough global economy. Now the issue is, what is the nature of the 
partnership between Government and business to create jobs and help 
Americans compete again? The question used to be, the columnist went on, 
whether Government was intrinsically bad or whether it could be made to 
work for people. And this crowd believes you can make Government work, 
believes it can be different, believes it can lead us into the future, 
believes we can work together. Now, I don't know about you, but I think 
that's a pretty good start.
    And it is very easy, my fellow Americans, to say you want to put 
Government on the side of the middle class, and you want to reward the 
values of work and family, that you want to offer opportunity and demand 
responsibility and reestablish the bonds of American community. But I'll 
tell you something: It's a lot easier to say it than it is to do it.
    Everybody knows the broad outlines of the last dozen years, that 
most working-class people have worked longer hours for lower pay to pay 
higher taxes; that there has been a dramatic increase in inequality; 
that there have been almost no private sector jobs created for the last 
3 years; that even when we have increases in productivity, they don't 
yet manifest themselves in higher employment. Everybody knows that we 
had this gaping deficit that was caused by big tax cuts, big spending 
increases, first in defense and then when defense went down, exploding 
health care costs and costs to maintain interest on the debt.
    The question is, will we do anything about it? Will we really move 
to deal with the enormous debt, to invest in our future and create jobs, 
to make the Government work again for ordinary people? Well, in the 
first 100 days, we've shown both the up and the down sides of that. 
We've shown what happens when the President and the Congress work 
together, and we've also seen a little bit of the hazards of gridlock.
    I'm proud and grateful for those of you who stood with me in our 
efforts to change, because I think the people prefer action over 
inaction, innovation over inertia, and decision over delay. I believe 
more than anything else, two-thirds of the American people want us to do 
what I saw on a sign when I was on my way with Senator Moynihan up to 
Hyde Park to Franklin Roosevelt's home a few weeks ago. There was a guy 
standing out in the road--it was 8 degrees and several hundred people 
standing alongside the road--one guy had a sign that said, ``Just do 
something.'' I believe the people want us to do something. I believe 
they're tired of do-nothing Government.
    Thanks to the leadership of this Congress, just 17 days into this 
administration, after 8

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years of gridlock and vetoes, we made the family and medical leave law 
the law of the land. That's something to be proud of. Because of 
innovations in the executive branch with people who never had their 
opinions asked before, just 44 days into this administration when we 
extended unemployment benefits, we did it for the first time with a 
program that provided new opportunities for job training for the 
unemployed. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of paying people to be 
out of work. I want to invest in putting them back to work. And that's 
what we're trying to do.
    In record time and for the first time in 17 years within the legally 
mandated time, the Democratic leadership in the Congress passed a 
blueprint of our budget which, I want to remind you and all the American 
people tonight, reduces the deficit by over $500 billion over the next 5 
years, with over 200 specific budget cuts--over 200 specific budget 
cuts--and tax increases, the overwhelming burden of which fall on people 
like us in this room, because we're Democrats and we want to relieve the 
middle class and the working people of the burdens of the last 12 years.
    And you know, when I hear all this talk from the people who hear our 
adversaries talking about taxes, they say, no taxes without the spending 
cuts. I say, I agree, but that's what we're going to do. The Democrats 
are not about to raise taxes unless we cut spending. That's what we're 
about. But the difference between us and the other side is we asked them 
for their spending cuts and we're still waiting. We're the ones that are 
cutting unnecessary Government spending, and we're going to bring this 
deficit down. And it's time to tell the American people the truth.
    The Vice President already mentioned it, but you look at what's 
happened to interest rates just since the election and we made clear 
that we were going to bring this deficit down. I don't know that they 
can get a lot lower than they are. The economists estimate that if we 
can keep interest rates at their present level for a year, that will put 
over $110 billion back into this economy as people refinance their homes 
and their businesses and are able to get credit who couldn't get it 
before. Just think of that.
    Now, the other guys talked about it for 12 years, and they took our 
national debt from $1 trillion to $4 trillion. We've had 100 days, and 
we've done something about it. And if we can keep these interest rates 
down and be serious about this budget, it's going to put $100 billion 
back into the pockets of ordinary Americans to invest in this economy 
and to grow it.
    We also are working hard to deal with the health care crisis, 
without which we will never bring our budget into balance, we will never 
make our American industries fully competitive, and we will never 
restore real security to America's families. How can we, any of us, 
tolerate going on 1 more year, 2 more years, 3 more years with a health 
care system that costs a third more than any other system in the world, 
leaves 37 million of our people without insurance, and strikes terror 
into the hearts of millions of people who have health insurance but are 
so scared they're going to lose it because of problems with their 
business or because someone in their family will be sick and they'll 
never again be able to change jobs without losing their health 
insurance.
    I believe we can do better. This is a problem others have solved. We 
are up to the task, and the time has come to do it, to liberate this 
country's economy and restore security to America's families.
    This administration has proposed an education bill that will 
establish the national education goals as the law of the land, establish 
tough new standards for our schools, and give flexibility for people all 
over the country to try new experiments to see what can be done to make 
these schools work better. We're not just talking about it; we're trying 
to do it. We are trying to open the doors of college education to all 
Americans by making it possible for anybody to borrow money and pay it 
back as a small percentage of their income and by letting thousands and 
tens of thousands of young people do national service to pay off a part 
of their college loan or earn credit to go to college. That will be the 
best program we could ever pass for this country.
    When I have heard the rhetoric of family values for years and years 
and years now, I see every year more pressure on families, less evidence 
we're valuing families. That's what the family and medical leave law was 
all about. You think people who have to work ought to be good parents. 
Give them the right to do it. And that's what we want to do. That's why 
our welfare reform program will move people from dependence to 
independence. That's why we want

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the earned-income tax credit to be increased, so we can say a simple 
thing to America's families: If you work 40 hours a week and you've got 
a child in your house, you shouldn't live in poverty. Your country is 
better than that, and the tax system ought to reflect it.
    Now, you know it's a lot easier to talk about than it is to do, 
because we have to do in ways that require all of us to change. And now 
the United States Congress is getting to the hard part. They are going 
to be called upon to make the decisions on the budget to make good that 
commitment to reduce the deficit by over $500 billion without throwing 
large numbers of Americans out of work, because we have to continue to 
invest in education and technology and the things that will make us 
competitive in the future. That is the test. We know how to do it. It is 
hard to get from here to there. There will always be those who really 
don't have much of a stake in change and love to complain; who will say, 
well, we should do it this, that, or the other way. There will be those 
who sing the siren's song that there is somehow a painless way to 
change. I don't know about you folks, but I'm 46 years old; I've been 
trying to lose 15 pounds for 2 months. There's no painless way to do 
that. [Laughter] There is no painless way to do that.
    This is a time not just for vision but for discipline and for 
maturity and for understanding that if we are going to turn this country 
around, as I have said so many times, we are not going to be able to 
ask, ``What's in it for me?'' We're going to have to say, what is in it 
for us? How can we all give something so we can all get something? How 
we can give today to get tomorrow, that is the test before us. So I ask 
all of you to support the Members of Congress with the budget cuts, with 
the revenue increases, with the targeted investments that will change 
this country and lift up this economy and keep going what has happened 
that is good already. We have got to have the courage to do it.
    And finally, let me say that I think it is important that we do our 
best to reconnect people to the political process who voted in record 
numbers in November, could never afford to come to a dinner like this, 
but desperately care about their country. You would not believe the 
volume of letters we are getting in the White House. We've already 
gotten as much mail in the first 3 months, somebody told me yesterday, 
as my predecessor did in a whole year. And I say that not to criticize 
him or to laud myself. That has nothing to do with it. A lot of it's 
critical; that's good. We've opened the doors of possibility to people, 
and they think maybe, just maybe, their Government is going to listen to 
them again.
    That's why I feel so strongly about all these political empowerment 
bills. That's why I believe in the motor voter bill--I'm glad we got a 
conference report on it--because it will say to kids, we want you to 
vote. That's why I believe in the work the Vice President is doing to 
literally not just save money but change the whole way Government 
operates and make it more friendly to people who want to access it. 
That's why I feel so strongly that the House did the right thing in 
passing that enhanced rescission bill. That's why I believe we ought to 
pass a campaign finance reform bill, not because I don't want you to 
give but because I want them to be able to give, too. And I want people 
to believe that everybody has got a stake in the system. Because if we 
can reconnect those people to the system, then they will understand that 
change is a long and hard road.
    In 1918, the famous German sociologist Max Weber said that politics 
is the long and slow boring of hard boards. We have come to the hard 
part. Mario Cuomo used to say, ``You campaign in poetry, and you have to 
govern in prose.'' The time has come for the prose. And people need to 
read it straight and clean and clear from the shoulder, with all the 
varnish off, as honestly as we can.
    We are being called upon now to see whether we have the courage and 
the discipline and the will and the vision to change. I believe we do. 
And I came here tonight not only because I want you to keep your jobs 
but because I hope if we can live to be 88 or 90 years old, like Bill 
Fulbright and Mike Mansfield, we can look back and say this was a time 
when we lifted America to new heights, we met our challenges, and we did 
our jobs.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 8:50 p.m. at the Washington Hilton.