    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [October 16, 1995]
    [Pages 1606-1610]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Luncheon in Dallas, Texas
    October 16, 1995

        Thank you very much. Lloyd Bentsen already said this, but I want to
    reemphasize that in my opinion, when the history of our administration
    has been written, even those who disagreed with a lot of things I did
    will say that, unquestionably, Al Gore was the most important and
    influential Vice President in the history of the United States of
    America. No other person has been given so much responsibility, and no
    other person has fulfilled it so well, whether it was in the reinventing
    Government movement or in setting environmental and technology policy or
    dealing with our attempts to work more closely with the Russians across
    a wide range of issues--and I tell you now there are no Russian missiles
    pointed at the people of the United States for the first time since the
    dawn of the nuclear age because of the things that we've been doing--or
    working with Secretary Cisneros on our community empowerment strategy.
    Right across the board he has made a terrific difference, and besides
    that, he gives great introductions. [Laughter]
        I want to thank Frank and Debbie for doing such a wonderful job,
    along with all of you on the steering committee. Thank you very, very
    much.
        I thank Secretary Bentsen for being here, for his remarks and for
    his remarkable service to our country. This country has had very, very
    few Treasury Secretaries in its long and distinguished history that have
    had anything like the impact that Lloyd Bentsen had on the economic
    policy of the United States, as you can see from what others have said
    about the statistics, to very, very good effect. And a lot of the things
    we had to do were not easy at the time. I'll say a little more about
    that in a moment. But I want to say thank you, and I miss you.
        I look around this room and I see some people in this room, like my
    dear friend B. Rapoport who spoke with me at the University of Texas
    this morning, and Jess Hay and Audrey and Betty Jo, people I've known
    more than 20 years and others that I just met since I have been running
    for or become President. Perhaps there are a few people here I have
    never met before. I'm going to try to correct that before I leave this
    office--all over the country. But I want to thank all of you for coming
    here, and I hope you're coming here in common cause.
        This is a remarkable day for our country. In Washington, DC, there
    may be as many as one million black men actually marching even as we
    speak here today. And they are doing it, I believe, for the same reasons
    and based on the same values that the people of Dallas elected Ron Kirk
    the mayor. They are saying that we have to do two things in this
    country: We have to see people who are in difficult circumstances
    reassert their own discipline and dedication to personal responsibility
    for themselves, their families, and their communities; and then we have
    to bridge this foolish racial divide that continues to plague us, even
    30 years after President Johnson saw through the passage of the Voting
    Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, because we tend to see the world so
    differently through our different experiences and lenses. And that's
    what I went to the University of Texas to talk about today. I don't want
    to reiterate what I said there, except to say that I think there is
    fault on both sides and merit on both sides.
        I think that the better part of wisdom now is to do two things,
    first of all, to really have every citizen seek out someone of a
    different racial or ethnic group and engage in the kind of conversations
    people think they have but don't really, in which people can be frank
    and brutally honest about what they honestly feel but in which they have
    the discipline to listen and open their ears and their minds and their
    hearts and hear others. I find so often in Washington, DC, perhaps
    especially in Washington, DC, people say a lot, but they don't listen
    very

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    well. And I've taken to calling the Speaker of the House once a week and
    just trying to listen, whether I need to or not--[laughter]--just
    because I think that it's important for us to listen to one another, for
    people of different views to actually hear and be able to say what
    someone on the other side of an issue really believes.
        The second thing I think we have to do is to follow people like your
    mayor or our wonderful Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who
    actually bring people together to get things done.
        I'm deeply indebted to Texas for so many reasons, for Lloyd Bentsen
    and Henry Cisneros and, of course, for Bill White, who until recently
    was the Deputy Secretary of Energy. And my lifetime friend Mr. McLarty
    has a car dealership in Texarkana. I don't know if that counts or not,
    but I think it does. [Laughter] We're still trying to sell Ross Perot
    down there. [Laughter]
        We've tried to work hard with the people of Texas, and one thing
    that I've been really proud of is the support that we've been able to
    maintain through both Congresses--one in Democratic hands, one in
    Republican hands--for the space program, something that I strongly
    support and believe in, and the Vice President does as well. And I thank
    the Members of the Congress who are here for representing Texas so well
    and for helping us to move this country forward.
        I'd like to--there's hardly anything left for me to say because
    everybody who's spoken before did so well. And maybe I ought to sit down
    while I'm ahead. But what I'd like to do today is just to make a few
    points that I hope you can make to others in the days and weeks and
    months ahead, because I think the election in 1996 and the budget debate
    we are having now in 1995 will shape the kind of people we're going to
    be well into the 21st century.
        Let me begin by saying that I am very upbeat about where we are and
    where we're going, not only because the economic news--although it's
    good; we do have the lowest combined rates of unemployment and inflation
    we've had in 25 years, and I'm proud of the work that everyone did on
    that. Of course, there's still things to be done. We're going through a
    period of profound change from an industrial to a technology-based,
    information-based economy, from the cold war to a global village. And
    whenever these kind of big changes happen and the shakeout is occurring,
    there are a lot of people who kind of fall behind, and we have to catch
    them up.
        We have to not only create jobs, we have to figure out how to raise
    incomes. That's why we are trying, even in this Congress, to pass the
    ``GI bill'' for America's workers that would permit people who lose
    their jobs to get a voucher from the Federal Government to take to the
    nearest community college to immediately begin job training. That's why
    we want the tax cut to emphasize giving families a deduction for the
    cost of education after high school, so people can continue to
    strengthen their ability to earn good incomes.
        But basically, this economy is going in the right direction. And the
    most important thing is that we permit those of you in the private
    sector to succeed by following good, sound policies on the deficit, on
    trade, on investment in education, on research and development, on
    technology, on helping the communities that have been left behind to
    attract investment and to put people to work.
        The Vice President talked about our successes on the social front.
    There is a real reawakening today. What you see in this march in
    Washington is really not confined, by any means, to black men, or black
    men and black women. What is going on today in Washington is a
    manifestation of a sweeping feeling in the country that the time has
    come for everyone to assume a higher measure of personal responsibility,
    to try to come to grips with the incredible dimensions of the social
    problems that we have allowed to foster and fester in this country over
    the last generation.
        And I believe our policies have played a role. I believe our welfare
    reform policies, I believe our crime bill, I believe a lot of the things
    we have done have played a role. But the American people are leading the
    way to bring the crime rate down. The welfare rolls are down. The food
    stamp rolls are down. The poverty rate is down. The teen pregnancy rate
    is down in America.
        Now, they're all still too high, every one of them. But the point is
    that we are at least gaining on it for a change. And what we need to do
    is to keep gaining on it. There will be problems in this old world as
    long as people like you and me inhabit the planet because we're not
    perfect. But the issue is, are we gaining on it, are we getting closer
    every day to living by the values we believe in, to lifting up the

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    potential of every person, to giving everybody the chance to be the kind
    of person that they ought to be? The answer is, we are. And what we
    ought to do is to continue that.
        We still have some troubling problems. For example--can you explain
    this--drug use is down among young adults, but casual drug use is up
    among juveniles. The crime rate is down among young adults, but random
    crime is up among juveniles. Why? We're gaining on it, but there's still
    too many kids out there raising themselves. And we have to keep working
    on that.
        We know now that we can make progress. For years, I heard people
    talk about social problems in almost hopeless terms. Now we know we can
    do something about this. And now there is no excuse for our not doing
    it. But we can do this.
        There is a lot of talk--I don't want to be too political today, but
    we all know every time I come to Texas a hundred of my friends say,
    ``You know, if you just spend more time down here, we could carry this
    State.'' Then I leave, and all the Republicans say, ``Oh, you know, he's
    just another one of those Democratic liberals.'' And I hate to say it,
    but every one of them that wants to replace me, except one or two, has
    spent a whole lot more time in Washington, DC, in the last 20 years than
    I have. [Laughter]
        But next time you hear that, ask them, of the last three
    administrations which one reduced the deficit more, which was the only
    one to produce a balanced budget, which one reduced the size of the
    Government, the number of regulations more, which one gave more
    authority to State and local governments and the private sector and
    reduced it from the Government, which one passed the toughest crime
    bill? The answer to all of that, obviously, is our administration.
        I say that not to be political myself but to say that the political
    attacks on this administration may be helpful at election time, but they
    actually cause a lot of voters to do something that's not in their own
    interests. And sometimes the conventional wisdom just kind of gets a leg
    up and people just keep on repeating it. So I want you to go out and
    help refute the conventional wisdom, not because I think anything I've
    done in the past justifies reelection--I think people should be
    reelected based on what's going to happen in the future--but because it
    is evidence of the values this administration has and the record of
    performance we will make if we continue into the future.
        And you should confront people. You should talk to people. Just in
    the way I want us to bridge the racial divide, we have to bridge the
    political divide. The thing I think that surprised me most when I got to
    Washington was how intensely partisan the place was and how people got
    away with doing that. Because mostly in a State capital around the
    country or in a city hall, you'd just collapse; people would just get
    rid of you if you were so intensely partisan you never worked with
    anybody else. You'd never do anything else.
        And it's one of the reasons we had to make some tough decisions.
    I'll just give you one. Lloyd Bentsen will vouch for me on this. When I
    went to Washington, I knew from talking to Alan Greenspan and a lot of
    economic experts that if we could get the deficit down at least $500
    billion over 5 years, we'd have a big drop in interest rates and a big
    boom in the economy--we knew that--and that the $500 billion, as
    Secretary Bentsen said to me over and over and over again, was sort of a
    psychological barrier. If we could just get by it, boy, we could get
    this economy going again. So we decided that come hell or high water,
    that's exactly what we were going to do.
        And after I'd been in Washington about a week, I was informed by the
    then minority leaders of the Senate and House, now the Senate majority
    leader and the Speaker, it didn't matter what I did, I would not get one
    single, solitary Republican vote for deficit reduction for my budget.
    And one of them was candid enough to say, ``It's great because this is a
    free thing for us. If it works, we'll deny that it worked and claim it's
    a tax increase. If it doesn't, we can blame you. You won't get any votes
    from us, not one.'' And they were as good as their word. They didn't
    have a single one for it. [Laughter]
        Now what did that mean? Since--and you ask your Members of the House
    here. What it meant was, since we had to pass the budget with only
    Democrats and we had to reduce the deficit $500 billion, we had to raise
    taxes on a lot of you more than we wanted to, and we had to cut spending
    less. In the end, Lloyd Bentsen said, ``We have to do this because all
    the people that pay more in taxes will make even more in income if we
    get this economy

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    going again.'' And so we did it. He didn't want to do it. I didn't want
    to do it. We wound up with a budget that was not ideal but was still
    right for America in an intensely partisan atmosphere.
        I had never been in anything like that before, and I still think
    it's not good for America. I think there's enough differences between
    Republicans and Democrats to run 500 elections, much less just this one
    coming up in 1996. So there ought to be some argument for just getting
    up tomorrow and trying to work something out so the country's interest
    will be served and still let people make their decisions. That is what I
    am committed to doing. But I am not, I am not going to do anything as
    President that I believe will make the America of the 21st century, that
    the children that are here in this luncheon today will grow up and live
    in, less than it ought to be. That's what this whole budget debate is
    about.
        Don't let anyone tell you this is a debate about balancing the
    budget. Every outside credible source says both these budget plans are
    good plans to balance the budget. Every one. Every one. Our plan gets a
    balanced budget in 9 years; theirs does in 7. Our plan has a smaller tax
    cut more targeted toward education and childrearing. Our plan uses
    conservative economic forecasts that are consistent with our historic
    performance, even though we're going to grow more, I think, if we do
    this right.
        But their plan, I believe, violates our most basic values. I believe
    this is really a contrast between those who really think that winner-
    take-all is all right, let the market decide everything, and those of us
    who believe that America is a place where everybody ought to have a
    chance to win. It's a contrast between a plan that is committed to
    growing the middle class and shrinking the under class and a plan that
    would certainly shrink the middle class and grow the under class. That's
    not the 21st century I want to live in. It's a contrast between a plan
    that would continue to honor our obligations to our parents and to our
    children, especially the poorest children among us, and one that would
    say that's somebody else's problem. That is the difference.
        Everybody knows we have to slow the rate of growth in medical care.
    But their plan would impose great new burdens on some of the poorest
    elderly people in this country. They would say to all of these people
    out there living on $300 or $400 a month that you have to pay more for
    your Medicare and Medicaid, even if you can't afford to pay it. They
    would say to medical centers and urban hospitals that we're going to cut
    way back on your Medicaid payments, and we hope you don't have to close,
    but if you do, it's too bad.
        We have to slow the rate of medical inflation, but we have to do it
    in a disciplined way so that we understand the consequences to the
    University of Texas Medical Center, to the urban hospitals throughout
    Texas, to the rural hospitals that provide the only health care people
    have out in the country, and to elderly people, many of whom barely have
    enough to live on, not to mention the fact that 1 in 5 children today--
    more than 1 in 5, 22 percent, are eligible for help from the National
    Government to deal with their health care needs. And they're our
    children, too, not just the kids that can afford to be at a luncheon
    like this because their parents have done well. But they're our
    children, too, and they're our future, too. And we owe them something.
        So, yes, I propose to slow the rate of medical inflation, but I
    don't want us to go plumb off the side of a mountain before we know
    where we're going. It is not prudent, and it is not consistent with our
    values.
        I don't support one incredible provision of that budget of theirs
    which would actually raise taxes on families making about $20,000 a year
    with two kids by cutting back on the working families tax credit, a
    credit signed into law under President Ford, a credit expanded under
    President Bush, a credit President Reagan said was the best antipoverty
    program ever devised because all it does is to cut taxes and give tax
    credits to working people who don't have enough money, even though they
    work full-time, to get above the poverty line because they've got kids
    at home.
        And Lloyd Bentsen and I designed a program that, over a period of
    years, would enable the United States of America to say, if you will
    work 40 hours a week and you have children in your house, you will not
    be taxed into poverty by your Government; your Government will lift you
    out of poverty. We want people to work, not be on welfare. And we want
    people to be successful when they're doing their best to work and raise
    their children. Why in the world we would do that is beyond me.

    [[Page 1610]]

        I don't think it's smart to cut back on our environmental
    investments. The Vice President could have told you, but he's too modest
    to say this. He told me, the first time I ever met him, that all this
    scientific dispute about whether the globe was warming up was bogus,
    that it really was, and we were going to be in trouble. Just a couple of
    weeks ago, we see a whole new raft of scientific evidence and almost
    unanimity of opinion now that global warming is real, that there is a
    hole in the ozone layer that is going to affect the whole future of the
    planet, including the future of the United States. I don't believe
    eliminating the modest amount of money we invest in studying global
    warming and what our response ought to be to it is a very good way to
    balance the budget.
        And at a time--we just came to the University of Texas, which every
    Texan is proud of--I don't think on the edge of the 21st century there's
    a single business person in this audience who would knowingly cut a
    corporate budget for education and training, research and development,
    or technology. The idea that we would consider on the edge of the 20th
    century cutting back our investment in helping poor kids get off to a
    good start in school or providing scholarships and loans to people going
    to college is a mystery to me, since we don't have to do any of that to
    balance the budget. And you don't have to take my word for it, ask Lloyd
    Bentsen. We do not have to do any of that to balance the budget.
        So don't be fooled. This fight over the balanced budget--when you
    see your Representatives go back to Washington, it is not about
    balancing the budget. We can balance the budget, cut taxes, protect
    Medicare without destroying the social contract and forgetting about our
    obligations to one another. That is what this is about.
        So I ask you to leave here doing two things: One, go out and talk to
    people who are different from you, just like I asked the people at the
    University of Texas today, tell them what you heard here and listen to
    what they think; two, tell the people of Texas we can balance the budget
    without stepping on our values and trampling on our future and walking
    away from our obligations to one another.
        And that is what we are determined to do. I go back to Washington
    with that determination because I believe that we're going in the right
    direction economically, we're going in the right direction socially, we
    are better positioned for the next century than any country on the face
    of the Earth, if we will simply face up to our responsibilities and deal
    with them with common sense and good values instead of turning them into
    some sort of ideological fight that will tear the American people apart.
    I want to bring us together and move us forward.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:20 p.m. in the Plaza Ballroom at Le
    Meridien Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Debbie and Frank Branson,
    luncheon cochairs; Bernard Rapoport, chairman, board of regents,
    University of Texas, and his wife, Audrey; and Democratic fundraiser
    Jess Hay and his wife, Betty Jo.