[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.