    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [January 30, 1995]
    [Pages 120-124]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Democratic Governors Association Dinner
    January 30, 1995

        Thank you very much. I appreciate your enthusiasm. Chris Dodd has
    that effect on everyone. [Laughter] Governor Carnahan and Jean, thank
    you very much for your service here and for your success tonight. I
    really would like to say a special word of thanks to my neighbor Mel
    Carnahan. He helped me when I ran for President. He helped me even when
    he was in the midst of a tough primary when it could have done him no
    good at all to be for anybody running for President. But he survived me,
    and he got elected--[laughter]--and then I got elected. We worked
    together fighting floods, reforming welfare, doing a lot of things, and
    I am honored to be his friend and his partner.

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        I want to say a special word of appreciation, too, to the DGA vice
    chair, Governor Caperton, and Rachel. I have been their friend for a
    long time, and I'm looking forward to working with them.
        I also want to say a personal word of appreciation to your outgoing
    chair, Evan Bayh, and to Susan. They did unbelievable work with the help
    of a lot of you in a very, very difficult year, and I will never forget
    all the efforts Evan Bayh made. And you know, where I grew up, we always
    say, ``It's a long road that doesn't turn.'' And when the road turns,
    don't forget that Evan Bayh was there for us when it was tough, and he
    did his part.
        I thank Katy Whelan and Mark Weiner for the wonderful work that they
    have done for the DGA. They have really been terrific.
        I'm sure glad to see all of you. And you're so quiet. You know, over
    New Year's I was talking to a lot of interesting people, and a lady came
    up to me who was a college president, and she said, ``You know, I really
    identify with you. Being president is just like running a cemetery.
    There's a lot of people under you, but nobody's listening.'' [Laughter]
    Well, I've had that feeling for the last couple of years from time to
    time, but I think that also is beginning to change. Lord knows, I gave
    it a good test last Tuesday night in the State of the Union--
    [laughter]--and it turned out the American people were listening.
        I want to express my appreciation also to Chris Dodd and to Don
    Fowler, to Debbie DeLee for leading our Democratic Party. I thank Chris
    and Don especially for being willing to come on at this time and to help
    us remember who we are and why we are Democrats and what it is we're
    supposed to do now, and I thank them. They've done a wonderful job.
        You know, there are days when I really miss being a Governor. I
    loved it. I mean, we also had public housing and security, and people
    called us by something other than our first names. But nobody ever
    sprayed the front of the Governor's mansion with an assault weapon or
    tried to land a plane in my back yard. [Laughter] But most days, I am
    profoundly happy to have the chance to wage these battles, and every day
    I am honored for the opportunity and the obligation to do it.
        You know, it's kind of fashionable now for our colleagues in the
    other party to quote Franklin Roosevelt. They like his words, you know;
    it's optimism and hope and everything. And when they do it, they have a
    little spin on it. They say, ``Now, Roosevelt was the right person for
    his time, and the Democrats were right for their time.'' If you really
    read between the lines, they basically say, ``Okay, okay, everything
    that was worth doing in the 20th century, the Democrats did.'' I agree
    with that. But their line is something like, ``Well, the reason that's
    so is that in the 20th century we had an industrial age dominated by
    large, powerful organizations, and we needed a Democratic Party that was
    the party of National Government to protect the common people and the
    little children and the elderly and others from abuse by large private
    organizations. But in the 21st century, the world will be very
    different. It will be more rapidly changing, more entrepreneurial, less
    bureaucratic, the age of the PC, not the mainframe.'' You've heard all
    that stuff. ``And therefore, we don't need the Democrats any more.
    They're an anachronism. But we like Roosevelt's words.''
        Well, I say to them, I know the world is changing, and I know we
    need to reduce the size and reach of much of the Federal Government's
    activities. As a matter of fact, we started that. We're glad to have
    their help in going forward with it. But the issue facing America is the
    issue that has faced America from the beginning and, certainly, the
    issue that has faced America repeatedly in the 20th century, as we stand
    at the dawn of a new era. It is still: Can we really guarantee the
    American dream for all Americans willing to work for it? And can we find
    ways with all of our incredible differences to come together as a people
    to do what we have to do? If you go back through the 219 years of
    American history since the issuance of the Declaration of Independence,
    you find those challenges over and over and over again. Will we do what
    it takes to expand the American dream and keep it alive for all of our
    people? Can we find a way, with all of our differences, to come
    together, because we know that's the only way we're ever profoundly
    strong? I say to you that there is still something for the Democratic
    Party to do.
        Consider, consider the differences in their Contract and our
    Covenant. Consider what is good about what they want to do and what is
    good about what we want to do and what is sort of open to question, and
    you will see where we should go. Because there is no ques-

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    tion that if we really want to guarantee the American dream in this new
    economy for all of our people, what we have to do is to empower people
    to make the most of their own lives, to find a way to continue to
    enhance opportunity even as we shrink the bureaucracy, and to strengthen
    our sense of citizenship and community as a fundamental condition of
    America's security, opportunity, and responsibility.
        Yes, yes, yes, we must change the Government. Yes, we have to shrink
    it. There's 100,000 fewer people working for the Federal Government than
    there were on the day I became President, and there'll be another
    170,000 more leaving if no new laws are passed by this Congress. But
    what about empowerment? Which party wanted family and medical leave?
    Which party wanted to immunize all the children in this country against
    serious disease? Which party said, ``We can't afford to keep wasting
    money on the college loan program. Let's cut the cost of it, make it
    available to more Americans, and make it cheaper for students''? The
    Democratic Party did that.
        Yes, we should reduce the tax burden on people that are paying all
    they can afford. You know, that's the only secret I kept from the press
    the last 2 years. We cut taxes on 15 million working families, kept it a
    total secret from the American people. [Laughter] I'm still trying to
    figure out how we did it, but it's not too late to let them know.
        Yes, we have to do better. But there is the right way to do it. Our
    middle class bill of rights could more properly be called the bill of
    rights and responsibilities because you can't get the tax break unless
    you're trying to raise your kids or educate them or educate yourselves
    or take care of your families. In other words, we reward, by reducing
    the tax burden, people who are carrying on the work of citizenship and
    making the country stronger for everybody. We lower people's taxes and
    raise their income in the short run in a way that will also raise their
    income in the long run. That's why we ought to have a tax deduction for
    education costs after high school. That's why we ought to have an IRA
    that can be drawn on for education or health care or care of an elderly
    parent. That's why we ought to lower the cost of raising young children.
    That's why we ought to collapse all these terrible plethora of programs,
    and instead of letting people sign up for a Government program, give
    them a chit worth cash that they can take to the local community college
    when they're unemployed or they need job training. Yes, we have some
    good ideas. Let's cut the taxes, but let's do it in a way that raises
    the economic power of America in the long run and helps middle class
    families to build their lives.
        And while we're at it, let's not forget that the last time the
    country got in a total fever over tax cutting, we overdid it, and we
    wound up with a terrible burden. And the Democrats are not blameless,
    because then there was a Republican President and a Democratic Congress.
    And when power is divided, one of two things can happen: You can either
    share the responsibility and say both have to be responsible and move
    forward, or you can point the finger of blame and hope that everybody
    can escape responsibility.
        Well, we tried it the second way, folks, and it didn't work out very
    well. When you make out your checks to the Federal Government to pay
    taxes in April, remember this: Interest payments on the Federal debt
    will require the amount equal to 36 percent of your personal income tax.
    And 27 percent of it, 27 cents, more than a quarter of every dollar you
    pay to the Federal Government in personal income taxes, will be required
    to pay interest on the debt run up between 1981 and the day I became
    President.
        So yes, it's okay to cut taxes if we do it in the right way, but
    let's pay for these tax cuts with spending cuts. Let's don't put more
    debt on our children and more burdens in that budget.
        So, we have an agenda: to empower people, pass the middle class bill
    of rights and raise the minimum wage and reform the welfare system so
    people can go to work. And we have an agenda to reduce Government more.
    The Vice President's coming back with another round of reinventing
    Government. And we're going to make it smaller, and we're going to have
    it do better.
        Look at the way the emergency management programs work now. I just
    talked to the homebuilders today in Houston, and I reminded them that
    Henry Cisneros, since he's been head of the Housing and Urban
    Development Department, has reduced the size of that Department by 10
    percent, eliminated all the regional offices, and cut the time for loan
    processing from 4 to 6 weeks down to 3 to 5 days. That's a Demo-

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    cratic way of reinventing Government that serves better with less.
        You can say, ``Well, maybe this won't work.'' Well, maybe it won't,
    but it's worked pretty well for 2 years. We have almost 6 million jobs
    more than we had 2 years ago. We've reduced the debt on our families by
    over $600 billion, about $10,000 a family. We've seen in the last week
    that 1994 was our best year economically in terms of growth and in terms
    of personal income increases in 10 years. And we also had the lowest
    combined rates of inflation and unemployment--what President Reagan used
    to call the misery index--the lowest in 1994 it's been in 25 years.
        But we have a long way to go, because we all know that our rising
    tide is not lifting all boats. We know that a lot of people are not
    doing better economically. We all know there are still challenges ahead.
    But let's keep our eye on the goal: What's best for the American people?
    Empower them to compete and win. Do what we can to give them a
    Government that offers more opportunity with less bureaucracy. And
    finally, let's not forget that for those who are willing to be
    responsible, this country is best when it works together, when there's a
    sense of partnership, a sense of citizenship, a sense of community.
        We have worked with innovative Governors in this room and their
    predecessors in health care, in welfare reform. We've worked with
    Governors like Governor Chiles, Governor Kitzhaber, Governor Dean on
    health care reform, and we're not through with that issue. We plead
    guilty to wanting to get the 40 million Americans, most of them in
    working families, who can't have health insurance--we think we ought to
    have it for them, and we think there must be a way to do it that all
    Americans can agree on. We plead guilty to believing that when people
    change jobs, they ought not to lose their family's health insurance. We
    believe that. That's what we believe. And we can do these things in ways
    that build our community.
        Watch the debate on welfare reform. Should we require
    responsibility? You bet we should. Should we just give people a check
    forever and a day, no matter how they behave or what they do? No, we
    shouldn't. No, we shouldn't. But the focus ought to be on liberating
    people, moving them from welfare to work, moving them from having
    children to being the best possible parent. It should not be on
    punishing people because they're poor or because they made a mistake. If
    that were the criteria, a bunch of us were once poor, and all of us have
    made mistakes, and none of us want to be punished for either one.
        So, let us approach this welfare debate with a sense of excitement
    and determination but also a little bit of humility. If anyone knew the
    answer to this problem, it would have been fixed by now. But the welfare
    debate embodies all the things that are going on in our culture now: our
    worry that Government doesn't give us our money's worth; our fear that
    our profoundest problems are really cultural, not political or economic,
    that something is amiss in our society and we've got to get our values
    right again; our deep understanding that we don't really have anybody to
    waste and when people aren't being as productive as they ought to be, it
    hurts the rest of us and our economic future as well. All of this is
    there in this debate.
        Now, Saturday we had a very good meeting with Republicans and
    Democrats from the Congress, from the Governors, from the local
    governments around the country. And on Friday, I got ready for that
    meeting by spending an hour with four women who had worked their way off
    welfare. And I'm telling you, what I heard Friday is what I have heard
    now for 15 years. The people who know how broke the system is, best, are
    those who've been on it, who've been trapped by it, who regret it,
    who've resented it, who struggled and worked and slaved to get out of
    it. It is that that we should tap into.
        We are the party of change. We brought the deficit down. We reduced
    the size of the Government. We put welfare reform and health care reform
    and aggressive, expansive trade on the world's agenda and on America's
    agenda. It was our administration that first had a Commerce Secretary
    like Ron Brown that went around selling American products all over the
    world, not the Republicans.
        So I say, let's extend the hand of partnership to those in the other
    party. Let's say, ``We hear you. You want to reduce the size of
    Government? You want to reduce regulation? You want to give more
    authority to the States? You want to privatize those things which can be
    privatized? So do we.''
        But our contract is a covenant. We want to create opportunity, not
    just bash Government. We want children to have a future no matter

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    where they come from, what their roots are, what their disabilities are
    by virtue of their birth. We believe that America works best when
    everybody's got a chance at the brass ring. That is our credo, and it
    will always be. And that's why the Democrats are coming back.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:06 p.m. at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. In
    his remarks, he referred to Gov. Mel Carnahan of Missouri and his wife,
    Jean; Gov. Gaston Caperton of West Virginia and his wife, Rachel; Gov.
    Evan Bayh of Indiana and his wife, Susan; Katherine Whelan, executive
    director, and Mark Weiner, treasurer, Democratic Governors Association;
    Gov. Lawton Chiles of Florida; Gov. John Kitzhaber of Oregon; Gov.
    Howard Dean of Vermont; and Democratic National Committee officers
    Senator Christopher Dodd, general chairman, Donald Fowler, national
    chairman, and Debra DeLee, former interim chair.