    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [March 11, 1996]
    [Pages 427-432]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Dinner in New
    York City
    March 11, 1996

        Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker--[laughter] It has a nice ring to
    it. Thank you, Dick Gephardt, for your words and for your work, and
    thank you for not losing heart in the last year and for helping me to
    carry on the struggle that we have fought in Washington.
        Thank you, Martin Frost, for your energy. When Martin Frost was up
    here announcing that this was the most successful event by the

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    Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ever held outside
    Washington, I thought, my God, even people in New York can't tell him
    no. [Laughter] Just anything to get him off the phone. [Laughter] I
    still don't know how many things are in Martin Frost's district just
    because I wanted to stop having him walk a dog to the bone. He's great.
    We are very fortunate to have Martin Frost in this position of
    leadership at this time, and I am making fun of him only because of my
    affection and admiration for him and for the efforts that he's made.
        I thank Congressman Rangel and all the members of the New York
    delegation, all the members of the New Jersey delegation who are here;
    all the other officials; my former colleagues and good friends Jim
    Florio and Mario Cuomo; and to all of you who have come to help in this
    important endeavor, thank you very much.
        I was thinking tonight about what, if anything, I could say that you
    all haven't heard before, or whether I could say it in a different way.
    Some of you have heard me say this, but a few years ago Tina Turner came
    to Little Rock to give a concert, and the man that ran the place where
    the concert was knew that I was a big Tina Turner fan so he gave me six
    tickets. And so I got up a bunch of my staff and we went to the concert.
    Normally, I had these tickets. When I got tickets they were carefully
    buried in the middle of the crowd so I wouldn't be noticed. The Governor
    doesn't like to be noticed at rock concerts. [Laughter]
        This time, he put them on the front row. So there I was watching
    Tina Turner and that tenor saxophone player of hers that looks like he
    could bench press 500 pounds on a cold day; and she gave the whole
    concert and at the end of the concert she sang her first big hit,
    ``Proud Mary.'' And she started to sing it, the band was playing the
    introduction, the crowd started clapping, and she said, ``You know
    something? I've been singing this song for 25 years, and it gets better
    every time I sing it.'' [Laughter] So I was thinking, what can I say
    that would kind of replicate that? [Laughter]
        You all know why you are here. What I'd like to do is to put it in
    some larger context. You heard Dick Gephardt say what I believe deeply
    to be the truth: The American people are living through the period of
    most profound change in the way we work since we moved from being an
    agricultural to an industrial society. And when you do that it changes
    the way you live, just as it did 100 years ago when we moved from the
    rural areas to cities and towns.
        Now we are changing the way we work; we are changing the nature of
    the workplace; we are changing the nature of the global markets, and
    it's thrown everything up in the air. It is an age of enormous
    possibility in which people expect those in public life to change in a
    manner that is appropriate to the challenges of the time. That is at
    least the consistent thread you can see in the recent elections.
        Now, in 1992 most people thought the race was between candidates who
    wished to have change in America and those who thought we were getting
    along all right just by going along. In 1996 the election will be
    between two very different visions of change. And it is very important
    that every American understand that. There is no status quo option in
    this election. There should not be a status quo option in this election,
    but the change could hardly be more profound than the two different
    visions offered in this election, as you can see now from 3 years of
    experience.
        When I ran for President in 1992 I did it for pretty straightforward
    reasons: I wanted my country to go into the 21st century with the
    American dream available to every man and woman, every boy and girl,
    without regard to race, religion, or background, who was willing to work
    for it. I wanted to see our country continue to be the world's leader
    for peace and freedom, for prosperity and security, in an evermore
    interdependent but still quite dangerous and unsettled world. And I
    wanted to see this country come together again around its basic values
    of responsibility along with opportunity, of family and work, and of
    community. I was tired then and I'll tell you something, I'm more tired
    today at seeing people who try to constantly divide the American people
    at election time for short-term political advantage in ways that clearly
    undermine the long-term interests of this country, and I hope you are
    too.
        Now, if you look at the last 3 years and you look at where we're
    going, for my money it is clear which direction we should take and what
    kind of change we should have. In 1993, the Members that are here took a
    very courageous stand against unanimous opposition from the other party
    and said we had to reduce the deficit, but we had to reduce it in a way
    that would still permit us enough funds to invest in edu-

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    cation, in research, in technology, in building the future of the
    American economy. They said if we did it our way we would have a
    recession, and therefore they would not support us. We now have 3 years
    of evidence. They were wrong. They were wrong. Interest rates came down;
    investment went up. We learned last month now that in the last 3 years
    and 1 month, 8.4 million jobs have come into the American economy--each
    year higher wage jobs than the year before.
        Four years ago only 20 percent of a modest number of new jobs were
    high-wage jobs. In 1995 over 55 percent of the new jobs were high-wage
    jobs. We're generating more jobs and they're better jobs because the
    strategy is the right one. Why, if we're following a strategy that is
    right, would we want to take a right turn, a severe right turn to follow
    a strategy that was wrong the last time it was tried?
        If you look at the role this country is playing in the world, I am
    proud of the fact that there are no Russian missiles pointed at the
    United States. I am proud of the fact that the United States Senate has
    ratified the START II treaty. I am proud of the fact that we have been a
    force for peace and freedom from Haiti to Northern Ireland, from the
    Middle East to Bosnia. I'm going to get on an airplane tomorrow and fly
    to Egypt to try to help get the Middle East peace process back on track
    by establishing the conditions of security without which no people can
    make an honorable peace. And I want your support in that.
        I'm proud of the fact that after 6 years of haggling around, the
    Members here passed a balanced crime bill that put another 100,000
    people on the street in police uniforms and that the crime rate is
    coming down all across America and that the poverty rate and the welfare
    rolls are down. I am proud of that. Now, does that mean that we should
    run on our record? No. But our record is an indication that we know what
    we're doing and that the direction is right, that the pace of change--
    the direction of change is right.
        As I said in my State of the Union Address, there are all kinds of
    things going on in this world because of the pace of change that are
    apparently contradictory. I was in New Jersey today, and they were
    asking me about the corporations that are downsizing their employees
    there. How can we be creating 8.4 million jobs and people be losing
    jobs? I know that there are hourly wage earners that have not gotten a
    raise. I know there are areas in the inner cities and rural areas that
    have still not gotten the benefits of the economic recovery.
        But let's start with first things first: Do no harm. The 8.4 million
    jobs we have in this country in the last 3 years is the sum total of the
    net jobs generated by all the big seven economies in the world; that is,
    the other six have netted out zero, and we've netted out 8.4 million. So
    let's not diminish what has been done. We have to continue to create the
    jobs.
        Then we have to create the conditions of economic security without
    undermining the dynamism of the economy. The old safety net systems we
    had don't work anymore because the nature of work and the nature of the
    workplace is changing. We have to find new ways to do that without
    undermining the dynamism of the economy. We can do it. We can do it.
        I'll just give you one example. There is a bill on the floor of the
    Senate right now that has been voted out of the committee that has about
    50 cosponsors, Republican and Democrat, which says simply that you can't
    lose your health insurance if you have to change jobs or if somebody in
    your family gets sick. The business lobbies and the labor groups are all
    for it; only the health insurance groups are opposing it. And it has not
    been brought to a vote. But that is wrong. That bill should pass. That
    is the kind of thing we need to do, and you ought to ask for it to be.
        We have to find new and innovative ways to make it easier for small
    businesses to take out 401(k) pension plans and for people to keep their
    pensions when they change jobs. We have to set up education and training
    opportunities that are immediately there when people are dislocated and
    that are there for a lifetime. In the tax cut proposal that I have made,
    I think the most important tax cut we could give the American people is
    a tax deduction for all costs of education after high school for up to
    $10,000 a year. That is the sort of thing we ought to be doing.
        If you look at this whole area of education, this is a big area. We
    know that the added benefits of education to income, to productivity, to
    being able to find a new job when you're dislocated are far greater now
    than they were just 10 years ago. The earnings gap between high school
    graduates and college graduates in their first year of work has doubled
    in a decade. We know that.

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        Therefore, we should be investing in the potential of our young
    people, starting with Head Start. We should help schools who are willing
    to go for national standards of excellence and be held accountable for
    them but who have poor children and limited resources to get the help
    they need as long as they're shooting for higher standards and they're
    being held accountable. We should do more to help people with good loan
    programs and good scholarship programs, not less. The people who want to
    cut education funding would make all of our economic problems worse. If
    you want to see the American people grow and grow together, be for the
    party that is for investing in education in ways that will have returns
    to the American economy and for all people.
        Today the Vice President and I were in New Jersey talking about
    another one of our great challenges. We visited a Superfund site that
    has only been partially cleaned up. And we cannot finish the cleanup
    because the Congress in this year is running the Government by
    continuing resolution with a big cut in environmental enforcement. And
    they wanted to pass a huge cut in environmental enforcement as a part of
    the budget bill that covers the EPA.
        Now, you have to decide. They believe that we have to give up on a
    lot of environmental protection to grow the economy and that the best
    thing you can do for the economy is just to get out of that whole
    business and let the people who were affected come in and rewrite the
    laws however they like. We believe that you can grow the economy over
    the long run only by protecting the environment. We have not been
    bullheaded about this. We've cut back on a lot of bureaucracy that was
    unnecessary. We have moved prospective Superfund sites that really
    weren't polluted out of that category so that they can be developed in
    cities all across America. We have worked in unique partnerships with
    businesses, from the Big Three on a clean car that will triple
    automobile mileage to 50 or 60 companies now that we have said if you
    could meet the clean air and clean water standards on your own, you can
    throw away the rulebook; all we want are results. But we will never,
    never knowingly do anything that will undermine the environmental future
    of this country.
        If you want to create more high-wage jobs, if you are concerned
    about people in a lot of these big companies that are being dislocated,
    invest more in the companies of the future that will be cleaning up the
    environment and preserving the environment. It is good for the economy,
    and it is essential for our quality of life. It's a big choice for you
    to make, two very different views of change.
        If you look at the challenge of crime and drugs and violence, it is
    still a huge challenge. Last week we kicked off the new tenure of our
    drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, who was, until he retired as a four-
    star general and the commander of our Southern Command south of our
    borders, the most decorated American soldier still in uniform. He is a
    good man and a brilliant man who believes we have to have a combination
    of enforcement to interdict drugs before they come into the country,
    enforcement of the laws here, and prevention and treatment programs.
        If you believe that we have to have a balanced approach to that,
    that is our view of the world of the future. If you look at the crime
    bill, we finally have done something as a country that is working on
    crime. For years the American people thought it wouldn't work. Mr.
    Schumer carried on his long and lonely battle for the assault weapons
    ban. Thank you, sir.
        The battle for the Brady bill--far more partisan than it should have
    been. When I went up to New Hampshire not very long ago, I was talking
    to a lot of those folks and I said, ``You know, in New Hampshire and
    Arkansas, where I come from, more than half the adults have a hunting or
    fishing license or both.'' We lost a Congressman in New Hampshire in
    1994 because he voted for the assault weapons ban. I told him, I said,
    ``You know, you folks just had a great deer season. And contrary to what
    they told you in 1994, every New Hampshire hunter who wanted to go deer
    hunting with a weapon that he had in 1994 got to do it. They didn't tell
    you the truth.'' But I'll tell you who doesn't have guns: Over 60,000
    felons couldn't get a gun because of the Brady bill. We were right, and
    they were wrong. They were wrong.
        The program to put 100,000 police officers on the street is plainly
    working to drive down the crime rate. The police commissioner of this
    city was on the cover of one of our major magazines just a few weeks ago
    because of the success of community policing. We are now making
    community policing possible all across America. I have been in community
    after community

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    where police chief after police chief has come up and said, ``Mr.
    President, the National Government never did anything for us before,
    never really did anything for us to help us fight crime. But those
    community police officers, they're helping us to prevent crime.''
        We can't jail our way out of this crisis. We have to get to know the
    people on each block. We have to get to know these kids. We've got to
    make it safe to walk to school. We've got to increase security by
    preventing crime. Community policing works. Their answer is to turn it
    into a block grant and hope for the best. Our answer is to stay with the
    law enforcement people of this country and do what works. It's a big
    difference, two different views of change.
        And the American people will have to decide. If we're bringing down
    the crime rate and people desperately, desperately want to be safe on
    their streets, why in the wide world would we take a dramatic U-turn and
    move away from a strategy that is making the American people safer? That
    is the right thing to do, and these Democrats need your help so that we
    can stop any attempt to back away from something that is lowering the
    crime rate and making the American people safe.
        You know, we talk a lot about families and family values. Well, in
    the last 3 years, maybe the best thing we did for family values was to
    pass the family and medical leave law. I'm proud of that. I wish it
    hadn't been as partisan an issue as it was. We had a few Members of the
    other party for it.
        We've worked hard, the Vice President and I have, for the V-chip and
    the telecommunications bill, and I thank Congressman Markey who is here,
    who really was the father of that fight, trying to improve the quality
    of television that our children see.
        I guess it just depends on how you define it, but you know, the real
    family heroes to me in this country are the millions of parents that
    tomorrow will get up and go to work. They'll work full time, all week,
    for the minimum wage, for $4.25 an hour. And they'll come home and try
    to raise their kids on it, and they'll obey the law and pay their taxes,
    do their best to get by. If we don't raise that minimum wage within a
    year, it will be at a 40-year low in terms of what it will buy. I don't
    know about you, but that's not my idea of the 21st century America I
    want. The Democrats are, I believe, to a person for raising the minimum
    wage. And we can't even get a vote on it. That is the difference in our
    approach from theirs.
        And let me just say, in the end I think it all comes down to what
    you think our role is together. If you were to ask me, ``Mr. President,
    what is the most important lesson you have learned as President,'' I
    would say it is that we don't do very well when we're divided, but when
    we're united, the American people never lose. And I believe the role of
    our Government in Washington should be to help individuals and families
    and communities make the most of their own lives and to meet these
    challenges of the future, to build stronger families and better
    childhoods for all children; not--not--under the guise of a popular
    label like welfare reform, be tough on children. We should be tough on
    work, not tough on children.
        We should build an educational system that gives everybody
    opportunities for a lifetime. We should build a new fabric of economic
    security for everyone willing to work for it that does not undermine the
    dynamism of the American economy, which is the envy of the world. We
    should continue the fight against crime and violence in ways that will
    work. We should continue the struggle to meet our environmental
    challenges in ways that will enhance our economy and protect our
    precious quality of life. We should not withdraw from a world that needs
    our leadership for peace and freedom.
        And yes, we should continue to reform the Government. But my fellow
    Americans, let me remind you that the Federal Government today is the
    smallest it's been since 1965, under legislation adopted entirely by
    Members of our party, without a single, solitary vote from the other
    side, not one. We are removing 16,000 pages of regulation from the books
    that we think are not necessary. But what we do not wish to remove is
    the ability of your Nation to work together, to strengthen the
    childhoods of poor children in America, to help those working families
    out there who have children with disabilities, to recognize the dignity
    of people who have to rely on Medicare and Medicaid for their health
    care in this world.
        We don't believe we should walk away from our partnership with the
    police on the beat or our partnership with the teachers in the classroom
    or our partnership with our allies around the world for peace and
    freedom.
        So I say again, if you ask me to put it in a word, it is: Do you
    believe we're all in this

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    together, or would you rather go back to the time when Americans were
    left to fend for themselves?
        This is not about big Government. The era of big Government is over.
    It's about whether you want a weak, divided Government that says, ``I
    hope you do well, but you're out there on your own.'' The American
    people don't want that. When there is a disaster, nobody wants a weak
    emergency management agency. When a small-business person needs to start
    a business, nobody wants a weak SBA. Do you know that your SBA, your
    Small Business Administration--we've cut the budget and doubled the loan
    volume in the last 3 years? And we had to, because we have to make up in
    new businesses what we're losing in big businesses. Businesses owned by
    women alone have created more jobs in the last 3 years than the Fortune
    500 have laid off. And the Small Business Administration helped that.
        So we can do a lot of talk about how nice it would be if we had 20
    more seats and Dick Gephardt were Speaker and all of that; that would be
    really nice for all of us who have to work for you. But the main thing
    is what your life and your children's life and your country is going to
    be like. And I'm telling you this election is about two very different
    visions of change. There is no status quo option.
        And you now have a clear, unambiguous record of where we stand and
    where they stand on all the critical issues for the future. And I ask
    you not just to stop with the contribution you made tonight, but as
    citizens in every way you can, with all your voice and all your heart
    and all your energy to say to all your friends from now until November,
    ``We have to go forward together. We have to do this together. We can't
    go back to a time when the American people were told to fend for
    themselves. When we are together, we never lose. The 21st century can be
    America's greatest time if we will go there together.''
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:30 p.m. on the roof at the St. Regis
    Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Congressman Martin Frost,
    chairman, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; James J. Florio,
    former Governor of New Jersey; Mario Cuomo, former Governor of New York;
    and entertainer Tina Turner.