    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [September 24, 1994]
    [Pages 1607-1611]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for Senatorial Candidate Ann Wynia in
    Minneapolis, Minnesota
    September 24, 1994

        The President. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Ann Wynia,
    for that wonderful introduction and for your fine speech and for what
    you represent for the State of Minnesota and for the prospects for our
    country. Thank you, Senator Wellstone, and thank you, Congressman Sabo
    and Congressman Vento, for helping me to keep my commitments to the
    American people to move this country forward and for your outstanding
    leadership. And thank you especially, Senator Graham, for your brilliant
    leadership of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and for being
    such a good and wise and trusted adviser to me on so many issues. I wish
    Bill Luther luck. And Bruce Vento reached over and whispered in my ear
    and said, ``Now, even though he's running for Graham's seat, he's really
    going to win, Bill.'' [Laughter] Thank you, David Wilhelm, for that
    rousing speech, for reminding us what we are against as well as what we
    are for.
        Ladies and gentlemen, I came here to ask you to help Ann Wynia get
    to the United States Senate, not because, as she said, she would agree
    with me on every issue but because she would bring common sense and
    common decency to the United States Senate, something we need more of.
        You know, half the time when you see what's going on in Washington,
    you must wonder what is really going on. A lot of us who come from the
    States and then go to Washington are amazed by the level of political
    rhetoric and how abstract and almost artificial it seems. We need more
    people in the United States Congress like Ann Wynia who actually served
    the folks at the grassroots level, who actually did things to help real
    people take responsibility for their own lives like the children's
    health care plan here in Minnesota, which provided health care to 35,000
    Minnesota children. That's a lot of families that have been helped to do
    something in their own lives.
        I have been interested in and working on the whole subject of
    welfare reform for nearly 15 years, and I know that the further you go

    [[Page 1608]]

    away from the welfare recipients, the more likely you are to hear hot
    air and see no results. Ann Wynia I would like to have in the Senate
    when we pass welfare reform next year because, as commissioner of human
    services, she didn't just talk about it, she actually moved people from
    welfare to work, not talking about it but doing it.
        I want to talk with you today about what this election is all about,
    especially from my point of view as your President, someone who has
    tried hard to be President of all people, without regard to their party
    or their region or their race or their economic standing.
        Two years ago, I ran for President because I wanted to lead this
    country into the 21st century with the American dream still alive for my
    daughter and for all the children here, because I thought the Republican
    leadership in the White House was taking our country in the wrong
    direction. Their economic policy was not working; it was increasing
    inequality in our country. And their social policy seemed to be to
    divide us by race, by religion, and other ways, to preach at us instead
    of to practice and to move forward.
        I thought, frankly, we needed a new direction in Washington that
    came from the grassroots, that we needed to go beyond these partisan
    fights that had dominated both parties too much. I didn't think that the
    Government could be the savior of the American people the way we
    Democrats believed during the New Deal when it was very nearly so then.
    But neither did I think that Government could just sit on the sidelines
    when all of our competitors all around the world were taking a different
    approach. And I didn't think our Government could come off of the
    sidelines only when the special interests needed help, as opposed to
    ordinary, middle class Americans.
        I thought that we ought to run this country the way most of us try
    to run our families, our lives, our businesses, our grassroots efforts;
    that there ought to be a partnership; that the Government, after all,
    was no more than us. You all pay the bill. Everybody that works up there
    is your hired hand. Every now and then you have elections and get a
    chance to not renew contracts or vote for new people if you want. The
    Government ought to be our partner and ought to do its best to provide
    economic opportunity, to challenge citizens to assume personal
    responsibility to make the most of their own lives, and to try to
    rebuild the frayed bonds of our American communities.
        For the last 12 years before I showed up, the leadership in
    Washington talked about a balanced budget amendment and quadrupled the
    national debt; talked about helping the middle class, but taxes went up
    on the middle class and down on the wealthiest Americans; talked about
    making us competitive but reduced investment in the things which make us
    competitive, including the education and training of our people; talked
    a lot about our social problems but didn't do very much about them.
        I wanted to bring more jobs to America and help people to begin to
    raise their incomes again. I wanted to bring more educational
    opportunities and health care opportunities for people who didn't have
    them and to do something to control the spiraling costs of health care.
    I wanted to rebuild our families and our communities. I wanted to see
    this country have a Government that worked for ordinary people again.
    And I desperately wanted it to occur without the kind of partisan rancor
    that I had seen for the past several years.
        Well, after 20 months, I can tell you that we're doing a good job of
    moving America forward, but we need some help at ending the partisan
    rancor, and you can't reward it in this election.
        Here is why you ought to stick with the direction in which we are
    going. Two years ago I came here; we had the end of our bus trip here--
    5,000 miles. And after 5,000 miles, we were running late because there
    were people on the side of the road at every little crossroads. And a
    lot of you waited a long time for us to finally show up. There were tens
    of thousands of people here. And we were all caught up in the excitement
    of the moment and the promise of a new direction and change for America.
        But even with all that optimism, if I had told you 2 years ago that
    if you elected me President and we got to work up there, within 20
    months the following things would happen, you ask yourself, even then,
    would you have believed? If I had told you that we'd put our economic
    house in order, $255 billion worth of spending cuts, scores of programs
    eliminated outright, raising tax rates on only the top 1.2 percent of
    the income groups, cutting taxes for 10 times as many people, 15 million
    in working families to keep them above the poverty line so they didn't
    give up their jobs and sneak into

    [[Page 1609]]

    welfare; if I had told you that it would be a Democratic, not a
    Republican administration that would make 90 percent of the small
    businesses in this country eligible for a tax cut, that would reduce the
    Federal bureaucracy to its smallest size since John Kennedy was
    President and would reduce the deficit 3 years in a row for the first
    time since Harry Truman was President, you wouldn't have believed it
    then, but it happened.
        If I had told you then that we would expand trade for America's
    products and services, more in 20 months than had been done in any
    comparable period for the last 35 years--with NAFTA; with trade with
    Mexico up 17 percent this year; with the GATT worldwide trade agreement,
    which will produce between 300,000 and 500,000 jobs for us in the next
    few years; with new outreaches in Asia and in Latin America; with $35
    billion more in high-tech exports eligible to be sold all across the
    world; with new initiatives to rebuild shipbuilding and aerospace in
    this country and build a clean car and sell things all across the
    world--if I had told you we would do that, that we would launch a major
    defense conversion program and take the technologies of the cold war to
    create high-wage jobs in a peacetime economy, and if I had told you that
    those results would produce $4.3 million new jobs, 8 months of
    manufacturing job increases in a row for the first time in a decade,
    America rated the most productive country in the world for the first
    time in 9 years, 88,000 new jobs in Minnesota, the unemployment rate
    dropping here from 5.1 percent to 3.4 percent, tax cuts for 155,000
    working families, 26,000 small businesses, tax increases for less than
    23,000 families--if I had told you that, you might not have believed it,
    but it's so, and it happened.
        If I had told you that we would make 200,000 more children eligible
    to be in Head Start programs, immunize 2 million more kids so that all
    the children under 2 will be immunized by 1996, that we would have a
    national education strategy in a bill that set world-class educational
    standards and promoted grassroots reforms like those pioneered right
    here in Minnesota, that we would launch a national effort to have
    apprenticeships everywhere to help young people who don't go to college
    move into high-wage jobs, that we would reform the college loan program
    to make 20 million people eligible to refinance their loans with lower
    fees, longer repayment periods, lower interest rates, you might not have
    believed it, but it happened.
        If I had told you that after 7 years of deadlock we would pass the
    family and medical leave law to enable people to take a little time off,
    protecting 845,000 people right here in Minnesota; that after 7 years of
    deadlock we would have passed the Brady bill; that after 6 years of
    deadlock we would have passed a crime bill that gave you 100,000 more
    police, 100,000 more jail cells for violent offenders, ``three strikes
    and you're out,'' yes to those good prevention programs, a ban on
    juvenile ownership of handguns, and a ban on assault weapons, you might
    not have believed it, but it happened.
        If I had told you that the national service program I talked so much
    about would pass the Congress, be the law of the land, provide
    opportunities for young people all across America to rebuild their
    communities at home and earn money to go to college as well, 20,000 this
    year, 100,000 3 years from now, you might not have believed it, but it
    happened.
        If I had told you that around the world we would keep democracy and
    economic growth as our foremost goal in Russia and we would stop
    pointing our nuclear weapons at each other; that they would withdraw
    their troops from Eastern Europe and the Baltics for the first time
    since World War II; that we would make a new partnership all over Europe
    with 21 nations to have defense security as one, not being divided; that
    we would make real headway, dramatic progress on peace in the Middle
    East, a breakthrough on peace in Northern Ireland, we would be actively
    involved in conducting the first free and fair and totally multiracial
    elections in South Africa, you might not have believed it, but it all
    happened. We are moving this country forward.
        And if I had told you we would do that not with a Government that is
    bigger but one that is smaller, that began with a White House with the
    biggest work load in decades cutting its own size by 25 percent, a
    272,000 reduction in the size of the Federal work force over the next 5
    years to finance the crime bill out of savings, taking money from
    Washington and giving it to you at the community level and reorganizing
    vast sizes of the Federal Government to cut through redtape and promote
    reforms--we have given 17 States permission to embark on their own
    welfare reform programs, numerous States permission to try to find ways
    to cover all their

    [[Page 1610]]

    citizens with health care coverage--if I had told you these things, you
    might not have believed it, but it happened. That is the record, the
    truth, and the facts.
        Now, yes, to be sure, there is still more to do. We've had $100
    million spent against us in the health care battle, and we haven't won
    that one yet. But we will if we keep fighting. We still have to pass the
    welfare reform bill next year. We still have to pass the trade
    legislation, campaign finance reform, lobby reform. We have lots to do.
    But the issue is, are we going to keep doing it, or are we going to
    become more partisan, more divisive, and more hot air and less real-
    people oriented in Washington? That is what this election is all about.
        We are making progress. The economy is stronger, the deficit is
    lower, taxes are fairer, trade is greater, working families and
    communities are safer and building a new security. We are making real
    progress on hard problems against intense, organized opposition from the
    other party and from the special interests. That is the fact.
        Now, what is our challenge? Our challenge in this election is that
    many Americans are still profoundly upset with the political system,
    profoundly disillusioned, even cynical. And they are in the mood to
    throw the rascals out without distinguishing who the rascals are. But
    what are the problems?
        Number one, most Americans don't know what I just told you, do they?
    Most of you didn't know a lot of what I just told you, did you?
    [Laughter] What's the second problem? A lot of people have not felt
    these things. Why? The social problems we have, crime, the family
    breakdown problems, the violence among young people, they've been
    developing for 30 years. The economic problems we have, static wages for
    working people and troubles for farmers and people living in rural
    areas, they've been developing for 20 years. And the bad political
    policies that we've had, dividing us, the wealthy against the middle
    class, different races, different religions, all these political and
    economic and social problems we have, we had those for the last 12
    years.
        I have just been there 20 months. We are going in the right
    direction. Do not turn back. Do not turn back.
        I went there, I went to Washington with the fondest hope of reaching
    out to Republicans on all kinds of issues--health care?

    [At this point, there was a disturbance in the audience.]

        The President. Is there a doctor here?
        Audience member. No.
        The President. Help. CPR?
        Audience member. We have a doctor over here.
        The President. We need CPR, though. Who knows CPR? No, wait, wait.
    Make plenty of room. We okay?
        Audience member. Okay.
        The President. Give him a hand; he made it up. [Applause] I
    appreciate his support for the urgency of health care reform, and we're
    glad to see him up and around. [Laughter]
        Let me ask you something. I want you to know this, too. Keep in
    mind, I came to Washington not as a creature of Washington. I came to
    Washington with the fondest hope that we would be able to work together
    across party lines where we had honest agreements, that we would have to
    give a little and work a little and we'd work things out. Once in a
    while we did that.
        We had the--the debate over NAFTA was an honest debate where most
    people just voted their conscience for and against. But it's about the
    only example I can give you. You look at the economic program. I was not
    there a week in Washington as your President before I was informed by
    one of the leaders of the other party that there would be no votes for
    our economic plan, no matter what changes we made.
        So, look what they did. When we gave the middle class a fair break
    on taxes and cut the taxes for those low-income working families and
    asked the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share, every Republican
    in the Congress said no. When we reformed the loans to benefit middle
    class college students, not just poor kids, middle class kids, every
    Republican in the Congress said no. When we gave 90 percent of the small
    businesses in this country an eligibility for a tax cut, all the
    Republicans said no. When we banned assault weapons, when we put 100,000
    police on the street, when we reduced the size of the Federal Government
    by 270,000 to pay for that crime bill, when we protected victims in that
    crime bill, when we had a great section on violence against women and
    children, most of the Republicans voted no. And all the leaders did, and
    those who didn't were told they were being traitors to the Republican
    Party.

    [[Page 1611]]

        And when they got up and said that our prevention programs were
    pork, I just want to remind you that a crime bill with the prevention
    programs in it passed the Senate about a year ago with the votes of the
    Republicans 42 to 2 for. When we got close to the election and they saw
    that their obstructionist tactics and their negative tactics were having
    a positive impact on them in the poll, the 42 to 2 for changed to 6 to
    34 against in the United States Senate. A friend of mine George
    Mitchell, the Senate Democratic leader, said, ``If you took the word
    `no' out of their vocabulary, they would be mute.'' [Laughter]
        Let me tell you something, friends, we do have problems. And we must
    face them. But the issue is this administration has got a good record.
    We have kept our commitments. We are going in the right direction. We
    must see the glass is half full, not half empty.
        Yes, we still have to change more of the way Government works. But
    after years with the Republicans badmouthing Government, we are the ones
    who have reduced the size of Government, we are the ones who've changed
    regulations of bureaucracy and slashed it and given more power back to
    State and local governments; we're the ones that gave the small business
    people the opportunity to walk into the SBA today and apply for a loan
    on a one-page form and get an answer in 3 days. Those are the kinds of
    things that we are doing.
        And I just want to say this: If we're going to have the energy to
    keep solving our problems, we have to have our heads on straight and we
    have to stay with the policies that work. And when we're making
    progress, we have to know it and we have to get with it. This election
    is an opportunity for you to reassert what is best about our country,
    people pulling together and working together and moving forward. It's an
    opportunity for you to say, by the people you vote for, people like Ann
    Wynia, to send a signal to America that look, when the Congress gets
    together again, we don't care whether you're Republican or Democrat,
    roll up your sleeves and go to work. Don't say no to the other party,
    say yes to America. It's time to say yes to America.
        This is the greatest country in human history. Every time I leave
    the borders of America and represent you in another land, I just swell
    with pride. People would give anything to have the diversity of our
    economic strength. They would give anything to find the diversity we
    have in our society. There are counties in America with people from 150
    different racial and ethnic groups living in peace, even as people from
    just 2 or 3 different groups continue to kill each other with abandon in
    other parts of the world.
        And I want you to think about that when you walk out of here. You
    think about what you can do for a person like Ann and how you want to
    feel when you see your United States Senator on television coming back
    from Washington. Do you want one more slogan, one more hot-air rhetoric,
    one more divisive statement, or do you want to look at somebody you
    think is imagining what your life is like, imagining how you feel when
    you put your kids to bed at night, imagining how you feel when you go
    out to work in the field or at your office the next day? That's really
    what this is about.
        I'm telling you, other people sometimes may have a better fix on us
    than we do on ourselves. But it is no accident that the South Africans
    wanted us to spend $35 million and help them conduct their successful
    elections. It is no accident that the Israelis and the Arabs want us to
    help them work out a lasting peace in the Middle East. It is no accident
    that after hundreds of years of fighting, the turbulence in Northern
    Ireland may be coming to a close, and they want us to be involved.
        And let me say this. Even at the most difficult moment of our
    encounter last week in Haiti, the military leaders looked at the
    delegation that I sent down there and said, ``Well, if the President is
    determined to do this, and if the United Nations is determined to go
    forward, then at least we want the Americans in here; we know we can
    trust them.''
        That is what we are to the rest of the world. So let us be that to
    ourselves by voting for people who can bring out the best in us and say
    yes to America, people like Ann Wynia.
        Thank you very much, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:16 p.m. at the Minneapolis Convention
    Center.