    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [February 3, 1997]
    [Pages 105-107]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Democratic Governors Association Dinner
    February 3, 1997

        Thank you. Thank you, Governor Dean, for that wonderful
    introduction. And I thank the orchestra for playing me in. [Laughter]
    Thank you, Governor Rossello, for your leadership here

    [[Page 106]]

    in the DGA. And to our DNC general chair, Governor Roy Romer, thank you
    for agreeing to do that. I hope it made the Democratic Governors feel
    better; it sure made me feel better when you did it. Our Democratic
    national chairman, Steve Grossman, thank you for being here tonight. And
    thank you, Santita, for singing again. You got me in a good humor before
    I had to come out and speak.
        You all know that the Vice President is coming over later. I'm just
    the warmup act. [Laughter] But that's probably as it should be. At least
    that's what he asked me to say right before I left the White House.
    [Laughter]
        I thank you for understanding why I can't be here all evening. As
    you know, the State of the Union is tomorrow night, and I hope that the
    Governors who are here will be staying for it. We have a place for all
    of you.
        It's a very different city than it was a year ago. A year ago, we
    had a cold wave and a cold wave in politics so bad that it shut the
    Government down. And the American people had something to say about it
    in the months ahead after that and then definitively in November. And
    it's a lot warmer outside this year than it was last year. And I like
    it.
        All of you know that I have been deeply indebted to my own
    experience as a Governor and to the Democratic Governors for many of the
    ideas that we have brought to bear over the last 4 years. Our country
    has produced 11.2 million jobs for the first time in history in a 4-year
    Presidential administration. We have--crime has come down in every year.
    The welfare rolls have dropped by 2\1/4\ million, the largest amount in
    history. Inequality among working people has started back down again,
    after a 20-year increase, with particular drops for single parents
    working to support their children; the elderly; and African-Americans.
        In the last 4 years, thanks to the work that we have done together,
    we have, first of all, reversed our country's addiction to supply-side
    economics and substituted for it an economics based on investing in
    people, expanding trade, reducing the deficit, and ultimately balancing
    the budget in the right way.
        We have restored the family and community as the centerpiece of our
    social agenda with initiatives like the family and medical leave law,
    which we celebrated the fourth anniversary of just this week and which I
    hope to expand in this coming session of the Congress, and I hope you
    will help me do that.
        When it comes to crime and welfare, we replaced rhetoric with
    action, and that's why results have flowed. We have redefined the role
    of the Government. No longer do the American people believe, and no
    longer are they being told, that Government is the enemy. They know that
    the role of Government is to be our partner to give us the tools to
    solve our problems and to create the conditions in which Americans can
    flourish.
        And finally, we have reaffirmed the importance of our national
    community. No longer is it commonplace in our national politics to see
    victory come from dividing Americans by race, by gender, or in any other
    way. And I'm proud of that, perhaps proudest of all that we have rebuked
    the people who want to divide us as a nation. That's what the Democratic
    Party is all about.
        In the next 4 years--well, you have to wait until tomorrow night to
    hear about that. [Laughter] But let me say that in the next 4 years, I
    will still depend upon the Democratic Governors for your ideas; two of
    them you know I have embraced with particular vigor: the HOPE
    scholarship, pioneered by Governor Zell Miller in Georgia, and the idea
    of providing national certification to the most excellent teachers in
    America, pioneered by Governor Jim Hunt in North Carolina. I thank you
    both for that.
        What I want to leave you with is that I think in the last 4 years
    we've basically unlocked the potential of our country by fixing a lot of
    things that were wrong and by redefining what the stakes are. In the
    next 4 years, we have to take initiatives to shape America for the next
    50 years. And what I want you to think about when you go back home is
    this: It's not very often that a country has a period of such enormous
    peace and prosperity and yet is still confronted by such great
    challenges. And what has brought us to this moment in history is the
    incredible rate and scope of change of the time in which we live.
        We're not just moving into a new century and a new millennium; we're
    moving into a whole new way of doing things. It's changing the way
    family life works. It's changing the way work life works. It's changing
    the way people relate to each other in society and across national
    borders. It poses particular challenges for

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    our educators but also challenges for all the rest of us.
        We're also learning a lot of things that impose new responsibilities
    on us. I know that the Democratic Governors heard from my friend Rob
    Reiner, who is sitting out here at this table, who is passionately
    concerned about what happens to children from the time they're born
    until they're 2 or 3 years old. We now know things about those years
    that we never knew before. And that imposes upon us responsibilities we
    never had before because we now know we can prevent problems from
    occurring we didn't think we could, and we can unleash potential we
    didn't know was there and that requires us to behave in a different way.
        So tomorrow night, I'm going to try to talk about the next steps I
    think we have to take. But I want you to think in big terms about this.
    Every time a Governor is elected who has real vision and real
    understanding and a real willingness to take prudent risks to tap the
    potential of this moment, we have advanced the cause of freedom and
    democracy, and we've given more people a chance to light up their own
    lives. That's really what all this is about.
        Democracies normally don't do very well in times of peace and
    prosperity. They sort of get complacent and kind of go to the golf
    course twice a week. [Laughter] Sounds like a good idea to me.
    [Laughter] Unfortunately, we don't have that luxury now, not if we're
    going to do what we ought to do.
        So that's what this is about tonight. In the next 2 years, we'll be
    seeing 38 Governors' races come up for a vote of the people, affecting
    80 percent of the people who live in this country. And the decisions
    that will be made by those Governors will chart the course for the next
    century. This is a very, very important time to be making these
    judgments. And I can tell you, having now been President for 4 years and
    having been a Governor for 12 years--I could tell you a lot of things
    about that--[laughter]--but the point I want to make is there are a lot
    of things that a President can do and a lot of things a President can't.
    There are some things that can and will only be done by the Governors of
    this country, working with people throughout the States. It matters a
    great deal. You know that. That's why you're here tonight.
        But as you think about this tonight and tomorrow night at the State
    of the Union and the work that I'm going to help you do in the next 2
    years to try to make sure we elect more people from our party to the
    statehouses to move this country forward, just remember, usually
    democracies get lazy in times of peace and prosperity. The changes and
    the challenges of this time do not permit us to do this. If we do it, we
    will regret it for a very long time. If we don't, you ain't seen nothing
    yet.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 6:40 p.m. in the Regency Ballroom at the
    Omni Shoreham Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Howard Dean of
    Vermont, chair, Democratic Governors Association; Gov. Pedro Rossello of
    Puerto Rico; Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado; singer Santita Jackson; and Rob
    Reiner, founder, I Am Your Child campaign.