[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
[May 21, 1997]
[Pages 638-640]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Reception
May 21, 1997

    Thank you very much. Senator Kerrey, thank you so much for what you 
said. I certainly hope someone taped that; I may need it later. 
[Laughter] Thank you, Senator Torricelli, for your tireless efforts, 
your great energy. I thank all the other Senators who are here from our 
party. I have seen Senators Harkin, Dodd, Mikulski, Breaux, and 
Rockefeller. I'm sure I've missed someone. Who else is here? Senator 
Graham, Bryan. Bumpers is not here, is he? Dale Bumpers came to a 
fundraiser? My Senator is here. Give him a hand. [Applause] That's 
great. [Laughter]
    Anyway, I want to say a special word of appreciation to Senator 
Daschle, who took on the leadership of our party and the Senate at a 
difficult time. And I think that every single Member of the United 
States Senate would have to say that he has performed with incredible 
skill and discipline and leadership and humanity. And we are very 
grateful to him.
    Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for being here tonight. I'm here 
because I want to see the Democrats who are running for reelection win. 
I want to see Senator Biden have a chance to chair the Judiciary 
Committee. I want Senator Hollings--I know he's here--to be reelected, 
and Senator Boxer, Senator Murray, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun.
    I'm here because even though we have had occasional well-publicized 
disagreements, the last time I checked, the Democratic Congress has 
supported me more frequently than the Democrats supported my last three 
Democratic predecessors. So I am very grateful for the partnership that 
we have had. It means a lot to me, and I thank them for that.
    And I'm here because I wanted to tell all of you who contributed to 
us so that we could all be here tonight, I am proud of you. You are 
doing what it takes to make the American political system work. And you 
ought to be proud of yourselves, because if it hadn't been for you, a 
lot of us would not be here doing the things which have been done to 
advance the cause of the American people. And I hope you will always be 
proud to be here among your friends who agree with you and who are 
trying to move this country forward. And thank you, Dale Chihuly, for 
your support and your artistic gifts to all of us. God bless you, sir.
    Ladies and gentlemen, for almost 4\1/2\ years now we have worked 
hard to lead this country into a new century with a different way of 
governing America. In 1992, our country was drifting and divided, and I 
had a new idea, that we could bring the American people together and 
move us forward if we thought about what it would take to essentially 
preserve the American dream for everyone in the 21st century. 
Opportunity for all, responsibility from all, everybody is part of our 
community, and we're prepared to lead the world toward peace and freedom 
and prosperity--a very simple program.
    At the time, Democrats had had a hard time commanding national trust 
because people said, well, we couldn't be trusted because we'd spend 
every dollar we got our hands on; we couldn't be trusted with the 
deficit; we couldn't be trusted to manage the economy; we couldn't be 
trusted with defense; we couldn't be trusted with foreign policy; we 
couldn't be trusted with crime. You remember all that whole litany that 
our friends on the other side used to say about us.
    Well, now we have 4\1/2\ years of experience. Yes, we're going to 
pass a balanced budget plan; but don't you forget, 77 percent of the 
work has been done, done entirely by Democrats who voted in 1993 for the 
economic program that represented the philosophy the voters ratified in 
1992. And we were right, and that's why we can balance the budget today 
and continue to invest in our country and move us forward.
    Senator Daschle talked about a record number of new jobs. We've also 
got the lowest employment rate in 24 years, the lowest inflation in 30 
years, the highest business investment in 35 years. And here's something 
important to Democrats, the biggest decline in inequality in incomes of 
working families in over three decades. That's what we came here to do; 
that's what we're doing; and that's what we're going to do more of if 
you help us keep these people in the Senate and bring some friends along 
so that we can have a majority and continue to move this country 
forward.

[[Page 639]]

    Crime has gone down 5 years in a row for the first time in over two 
decades. We've had the biggest drop in welfare rolls, before the welfare 
reform bill was signed, in 50 years. The Democrats have a lot to be 
proud of. And we have a lot to do. And all elections are about the 
future.
    Now when this agreement passes, it will provide for a balanced 
budget that has the biggest increase in education in a generation; 
enough funds to continue protecting the environment and close 500 of the 
worst toxic waste dumps and continue our work to try to preserve our 
national parks, to try to save the Florida Everglades, to try to move 
this country forward environmentally. It contains funds that are 
adequate to restore almost all of the cuts in--wrongful cuts in aid to 
legal immigrants that were imposed last year by the Congress. And it 
provides funds to help us make sure that all those people we are 
telling, ``You have to move from welfare to work,'' will actually be 
able to get from welfare to work and will be able to have a job when 
they get there.
    Yesterday we announced a new partnership with 100 companies, that 
will soon grow into 1,000, who are committing to hire people to move 
from welfare to work. We are going to move another million people into 
the work force from welfare in the next 4 years. That is our approach: 
Don't cut people off and walk away from them; give them a chance to 
raise their children and succeed in the workplace.
    Let me just say that we have a lot of challenges ahead. We have 
cured the structural deficit in our country, but we have to attack the 
generational deficit. That means that we have to recognize that while 
poverty is at an all-time low among senior citizens, and we're proud of 
that, it's twice that high among our children. And we can't let it get 
worse as those of us in the baby boom generation move toward our 
retirement years. We have to literally carry out a crusade to take care 
of the future of the children of this country. Part of the things that I 
like about this budget is that it's got funds in there--$16 billion 
worth of funds--to extend health insurance to half the kids in this 
country who don't have it. And we shouldn't quit until we finish that 
job.
    And finally, let me say, we have one big debate still raging in our 
party and in our country. And I'm clearly on one side, and I'm here to 
plead guilty. I believe it's good for America to lead the world to a 
more open economy, to more peaceful arms arrangements, to more 
cooperation, to more democracy. And I believe we did the right thing in 
the last 4 years to conclude over 200 trade agreements, the largest 
trade record of any administration in the history of the country. That's 
one of the reasons in the last 2 years more than half of the new jobs 
coming into our economy have paid above average wages.
    I believe we're doing the right thing to make an agreement between 
NATO and Russia, which I'm going to Paris to celebrate next week. I 
believe we're doing the right thing to open NATO membership to new 
members so that we can avoid having a 21st century like the 20th century 
and, frankly, virtually every century before it where wars were fought 
and people were killed on the soil of Europe.
    I believe it's a good thing for the United States to try to make 
peace in the Middle East and Northern Ireland and Bosnia, to try to ask 
our friends in Greece and Turkey to work with us to resolve their 
problems. I believe it's a good thing for us to care about what's going 
on between India and Pakistan and hope that it can be worked out. I 
believe it's a good thing for us to believe that here at home our 
incredible racial and ethnic diversity should be seen as an asset. And I 
am proud of the fact that I have consistently opposed the dismantlement 
of all affirmative action programs. I think it is a terrible mistake, 
and you can see it in the enrollment figures in these colleges and 
universities in Texas and California now.
    So that's what I believe. And it's hard to quarrel with the results 
now. If you can help us with your ideas and your contributions and with 
recruiting good candidates in all these States, we now have a record. It 
is no longer open to serious debate that when we said in 1993 you could 
shrink the deficit, cut the size of Government, and increase investment 
in education, technology, and science and research, they laughed at us 
and said, ``All you're going to do is bring on a recession and make the 
deficit worse.'' The deficit's been cut by 77 percent. You heard Tom 
Daschle say we produced 12 million jobs for the first time in history in 
a 4-year period and the lowest unemployment rate in 24 years. Our 
approach was right, and they were not, and that's why we got a budget 
agreement today that will enable us to balance the budget. All we have 
to do is to stay on

[[Page 640]]

the good issues, run on the high road, and be able to find good 
candidates and finance them, and we can keep moving this country 
forward.
    Don't you ever forget--you go home tonight--12 million people have 
jobs because we changed the economic policy of the country; 186,000 
felons, fugitives, and stalkers did not buy handguns in the last 4 years 
because we changed the policy of the country; 12 million working 
families got to take a little time off from their jobs when they had a 
sick parent or a sick child without losing their jobs because we changed 
the direction of the country. And I could go on and on and on.
    What you do makes a difference in the lives of people you will never 
meet, you will never know, who could never afford to be here tonight. 
That is the unique role you occupy in American democracy. I am very 
proud of it and very grateful to you and deeply determined to keep this 
country and our party moving in the right direction.
    Thank you for your support. Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 9:23 p.m. at the Corcoran Museum of Art. In 
his remarks, he referred to glass artist Dale Chihuly, whose work was 
displayed at the museum.