    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [June 22, 1995]
    [Pages 923-926]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Fundraising Dinner in Somerset, New Jersey
    June 22, 1995

        Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Let me begin by joining
    with Al and Tipper and Hillary and thanking tonight's dinner chairs, Al
    Decotis, Lew Katz, Ray Lesniak, Jack Rosen, and Bob Raymar. They were
    terrific, and so were all of you. Thank you for your remarkable help.
        I am also delighted to be here with two of my former colleagues,
    former Governor Brendan Byrne and former Governor Jim Florio. I thank
    them and their wonderful wives for coming tonight. I'm glad to see them.
        I want to say something selfish. I think New Jersey did a good thing
    for New Jersey by reelecting Frank Lautenberg. But we needed him back,
    and I saw it today on the floor of the Senate. And this country needs
    Bill Bradley, and you must, you must send him back to the United States
    Senate and the United States.
        I have always loved coming here. I have been, frankly, rather
    astonished from the beginning of my campaign that the State of New
    Jersey was so good to me, beginning way back in 1991 when I was a
    stranger from a small southern State, as my former adversary, Mr. Bush,
    used to say. And every time I came here I always felt at home. I felt
    that I understood the people. I felt a certain kinship.
        And when we began our general election campaign here with the bus
    tour and then ended up in the Meadowlands and then New Jersey--I have
    heard it a thousand times--always closes Republican, but it didn't close
    enough to take the State away from the Clinton-Gore ticket--I was
    profoundly grateful.
        And now I come to say to you, I thank you for this remarkably
    successful dinner. It will enable Terry McAuliffe and Laura Hartigan and
    all of our finance staff to continue on their goal of financing our
    campaign next year and this year so that I can devote my energies to
    being President and to running in a responsible way. And you have done a
    very great thing. But I also want to tell you that we need your help,
    beginning tomorrow morning, to talk to everyone you can about what is
    really at stake in this election.
        I have to tell you that there are differences now in Washington more
    profound than the partisan differences even of the last few years and
    certainly of the last 50 years. There are also opportunities to work
    together. And which way we take in the next few months will be deter-

    [[Page 924]]

    mined in part by what the American people say. And whether we keep going
    forward or take a huge lunge off center will be determined by how the
    American people vote in 1996.
        I want to say to all of you that I never could have dreamed when I
    started this that our partnership, the one Hillary and I have enjoyed
    with Al and Tipper Gore, would have been as remarkable as it has been. I
    thank Tipper for her tireless advocacy for the interests of mental
    health and women and young girls and so many other things that she has
    fought for. And I have said this repeatedly, but I believe with all my
    heart that Al Gore will go down in American history as the most
    influential and productive Vice President in our country's history.
        The other day we had the White House Conference on Small Business in
    Washington. There were 3,500 delegates there, and I think we had only
    appointed about 300; the rest were elected from their States, and well
    over half of them were Republican. And all they had been--a lot of them
    had just been fed this sort of propaganda, this steady stream of
    propaganda people put out. And the Vice President got up and introduced
    me, and we talked about our reinventing Government program.
        We reminded them that we had increased their ability to write off
    their capital expenses by about 70 percent, that we had offered a
    capital gains tax for small businesses, and that we had reduced
    regulations dramatically and we were about to reduce 16,000 more--and we
    brought them out, the 16,000 regulations--including half of the
    paperwork regulations of the Small Business Administration. And these
    people, a lot of them were literally dumbfounded. They didn't know
    whether to believe it, because that's not what the propagandizers had
    been telling them for 2 years. But it was true. They liked it. And we
    ought to be the candidate of small businesses in 1996, thanks in large
    measure to Al Gore. And I thank him for that.
        Hillary and I began this day publicly at Arlington National
    Cemetery, doing something else that is a symbol of what the choices in
    1996 will be all about. We dedicated a memorial, the groundbreaking of a
    memorial to the 1.8 million American women who have served in our Armed
    Forces but have never been recognized before. In our administration, we
    have not only promoted things like family and medical leave and child
    care for people to move from welfare to work but greater investment in
    medical research affecting women, greater access to mammograms, a
    greater commitment to the future of women's health. But I was able to
    announce today something I am very proud of: Since our administration
    has been in office we have opened 260,000 more positions and different
    roles for women in the United States military. I am proud of that, and I
    hope all of you are as well.
        The Vice President gave you a summary of the record of our
    administration. It's led to lower inflation, lower unemployment, more
    jobs, and a better future. But this is still a troubled time for our
    country, and we are trying to decide which way to go, with all the
    challenges we face in a confusing time, that I believe has far more hope
    than fear ahead for America. I ran for President because I wanted to
    restore the American dream of opportunity for those who would behave
    responsibly and because I wanted to bring this country together. I was
    sick and tired of seeing politicians exploit the differences of race and
    religion and region and income and background among Americans, to drive
    wedges between us for their own personal benefit. And I still believe
    that's what we ought to be doing in your Nation's Capital.
        Today, because of the November elections, you can ask Senator
    Lautenberg and Senator Bradley, we are back to debating first
    principles. Things that we used to take for granted are no longer taken
    for granted in the United States Congress. There are a whole group of
    people in this Congress who believe that all of the problems of America
    are personal and cultural, and if people would just get up every day and
    behave themselves there would be nothing wrong in this country, and
    therefore we don't even need a Government.
        There are those of us who believe that some of these problems are
    economic and social and that of course they're personal and cultural--if
    people don't behave, there's nothing you can do for them--but that we
    are going up or down together, and we need a partnership in this
    country.
        That is a fundamental debate. And if you want to know the difference
    between a Republican and Democrat in Washington today, it is largely
    around that issue. Are the problems just personal and cultural, or are
    they personal, cultural, and political and economic and social?
        There are people today in Washington who believe that the Federal
    Government is abso-

    [[Page 925]]

    lutely worthless except for national security, and therefore, the most
    important thing to do is to balance the budget as quickly as possible;
    it doesn't matter what else you cut. Then there are those of us who
    honestly believe we should balance the budget but believe we have an
    education deficit as well and believe we have to do this in a way that
    will grow the economy, create jobs, raise incomes, and reinforce the
    partnership between business and Government that ought to exist.
        There are people in Washington today who believe the environment is
    a nice thing and people who think right will protect it but that the
    Government should do nothing to protect it. You heard the Vice President
    say a committee of the House today voted to allow blanket offshore oil
    drilling all over the United States. You don't know the half of it. That
    is just scratching the surface. But they honestly believe the Government
    has no role in trying to protect our common natural resources. And then
    there are those of us who believe that we can find ways to protect the
    environment and grow the economy and that if we want this country to be
    around for our grandchildren and our grandchildren's grandchildren, we
    had better protect the environment while we are growing the economy.
        There are people in Washington today who believe that the only
    answer to crime is to lock more people up for a longer period of time
    and that things like the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban are a
    ridiculous infringement on the right of everybody else to do whatever
    they want to do and that what we really should do is do nothing but take
    everybody we ever catch and lock them up, throw the key away, and forget
    about everything else. Then there are those of us who believe that
    fighting crime is a more complicated thing and that the best thing to do
    is to prevent it in the first place, like dealing with any other
    problem, and that we ought to listen to law enforcement and work with
    them.
        And I'm telling you, folks, these are big, profound debates. And
    that's really what this election is all about. There are those of us who
    believe that you can be passionately in favor of life and still be for a
    woman's right to choose. And they don't believe that. So--and don't kid
    yourself, that's what this fight over Dr. Foster was all about. It was
    not about my right to choose a Surgeon General, it was about a woman's
    right to choose. It was not about whether he was capable of being a
    powerful role model for young people. He's one of the few people in
    America, one of the very few people in America who enjoyed a prominent
    social and economic position, who gave years and years and years of his
    life to reaching out to poor children and telling them they should not
    have sex when they weren't married, they should not become pregnant as
    teenagers, they should not get on drugs, they should not be violent,
    they should stay in school.
        He went into poor tenements in Nashville, he rode dusty country
    roads in Alabama to bring health care to women and children who did not
    have it and would never have seen a doctor. One of his patients said
    that he had personally talked her out of having an abortion. But because
    he had observed the constitutional right to choose, he wasn't pure
    enough, he wasn't politically correct enough for the people who are
    trying to create a brave new world in Washington with a stranglehold on
    the other party. And you better stand up against it and help us fight
    against it.
        These are big choices. Now we both want to balance the budget.
    That's good. They want to do it in 7 years, with a huge tax increase. We
    say, if you do it in 10 years, have a smaller tax increase targeted to
    education, you can increase investment in education and medical research
    and technology and our economic partnerships; you don't have to cut
    Medicare so much that you really hurt older people who don't have enough
    to live on as it is. You can have a decent, humane budget and still
    balance it if you do it in the right way, not the wrong way. That's the
    difference between us.
        They think the most important thing to do in the area of crime is to
    repeal the assault weapons ban. Jim Florio gave his governorship for it,
    and if I have to give the White House for it, I'll do it. It will be
    over my dead body if they do that. [Applause] Thank you.
        Let me just say one thing in closing. We can do this one of two
    ways. We can fight, or we can work together in good faith. Something
    happened to our whole country when that bomb blew up in Oklahoma City.
    It was an awful, heartbreaking, wrenching event, and it shook this
    Nation to the core. And we lost some of the edge that we felt for those
    who were different from us and who disagreed with us.

    [[Page 926]]

    We were all a little less willing to demonize people with whom we simply
    disagree.
        And then something good happened to this country when that brave
    young Air Force pilot, Scott O'Grady, survived for 6 lonely days in
    Bosnia and was rescued. And we saw what was best about America. And
    nobody cared if he had an Irish or a Polish name or if his skin was
    black, brown, or white. He had done something very brave and profoundly
    good that didn't have much to do with the kind of partisanship that
    covers so much of what is done in Washington.
        And it was in that honest spirit that I offered the Republicans a
    balanced budget that the Democrats and the rest of the country, in my
    judgment, can in good conscience support; that will grow and not shrink
    the economy, and build up, not tear down, the middle class; that will
    help people to move from welfare to work, not just throw innocent
    children off of welfare. That is the spirit that I am trying to capture.
        It was in that spirit that I agreed to have that conversation with
    the Speaker of the House up in New Hampshire a few days ago. I tell you,
    my friends, I did not sign on to be President just to say no, just to
    divide the country, just to try to prove I can be more clever than they
    are in these political debates. But I will not back down from my
    commitment that we have to grow the economy, build the middle class,
    reach out a helping hand to the poor, be fair to those who through no
    fault of their own need some help, preserve our environment, and bring
    this country together. I am telling you, that is the most important
    thing we have to do.
        You know, one of the greatest honors of being President is being
    able to represent you when I go to other countries. I just was in the
    Ukraine in the beautiful city of Kiev, and I spoke outdoors at the
    university. There were tens of thousands of people there. And all along
    the road, four and five deep, people were there waving their American
    flags, cheering as Hillary and I rode by. And you know, I looked at her
    and I said what I always say, ``They're not cheering for me. They're
    cheering for America, for what we are, for what we represent, for the
    hope that they feel.''
        Many of you have supported our administration's efforts in trying to
    make peace in the Middle East. They haven't asked ``me'' to do that,
    they have asked ``us'' to do that. Many of you have been involved in our
    efforts to try to help support the peace process in Northern Ireland.
    They didn't ask ``me'' to do that, they asked ``us'' to do that.
    America--that's what they think ``we'' are--bringing people together,
    bridging differences, moving forward.
        There is no country in this world better positioned for the 21st
    century, better positioned to hand down our dreams to our children than
    the United States. But now we are back to debating first principles in
    Washington. We thank you for your financial investment tonight, but we
    ask you for your voice. We ask you for your labors. We ask you for your
    passion. We ask you for your heart. We are going to have to fight and
    debate and struggle to make sure that in this season we make the right
    decisions.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:56 p.m. at the Garden State Convention
    Center.