    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [November 18, 1997]
    [Pages 1610-1611]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1610]]

    Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner
    November 18, 1997

        Thank you. Thank you very much for being here tonight. I won't take
    a lot of time because I want to just sit and visit. But I would like to
    just begin with a story.
        Yesterday I was in Wichita, Kansas, coming back from California, and
    I visited the Cessna airplane manufacturing facility--not the plane
    facility but their training facility for people they're trying to move
    from welfare to work. And we went there for a number of reasons. One was
    to announce that we now have 2,500 businesses who have committed to be
    part of our partnership to hire people from welfare and put them into
    the workplace. These 2,500 businesses are small, medium, and large.
    Seventy-five percent of them are small businesses, but combined they
    have over 5 million employees.
        The other reason I went there is because the way this Cessna project
    works is the way I'd like to see America work, not only in this issue
    but a lot of others. They receive support for a number of the things
    they've done from the Labor Department and from the Housing and Urban
    Development Department, and of course they have the framework of the
    welfare reform bill. But here's what they do: They go out and take
    people--many of them the hardest to place people on welfare--and they
    put them through a 3-month training program. And then if they go through
    that, they put them through a 3-month sort of pre-job program. And if
    they get through both, they get an automatic guaranteed job at Cessna at
    high wages and good benefits.
        And some of these people have very, very difficult home
    circumstances. They're not just--they're not taking the most well-
    educated people who just temporarily hit a bad patch and get on welfare.
    A lot of these folks are high school dropouts. Many of them are women
    who have been abused in a domestic setting. And they actually have a
    housing development across the street from the training center to give
    temporary housing to anybody who either doesn't have a car or has been
    kicked out of their house because of a violent situation.
        And I'm telling you, it was the most exhilarating thing. I was
    introduced by two women who graduated from this program, and then I met
    their children. And when it was all over, I looked at the man who was
    with me and I said, ``This is why I got into public life: to be a part
    of things like this, to change lives in this way, to do something that
    works.''
        And of course, having a good economy has helped. They have 1,000
    more employees than they had 4 or 5 years ago. But the main thing is,
    it's fresh evidence that we can make the country work if we do something
    that makes sense and we do it together and it's consistent with our
    values.
        So for all of you who have made any contribution to the fact that we
    have the lowest unemployment rate and the lowest crime rate in 24 years
    and the biggest drop in welfare in history, and we've grown the economy
    while making the air and water cleaner and the food supply safer and
    having fewer toxic waste dumps, that we've built more jobs but tried to
    help families with the family and medical leave law and tax cuts to
    raise their kids or adopt children or send their kids to college--I hope
    you'll take a lot of pride in that.
        We've got a lot of challenges up the road, but at least no one in
    America could doubt today that we can make this country work and that
    when we make it work for everybody, you see the kind of profoundly
    humbling and awesome stories I saw in Wichita yesterday.
        I'd also like to remind you that elections are contests of ideas and
    perceptions. And I think in a rational world, where everybody had equal
    access to the voters, our party would be in better shape than it is
    today, because in '93 we had a big fight over the economic direction of
    the country, and I think the evidence says we were right and they were
    wrong. But they profited from it.
        In '94 we had a big fight over our crime policy, and we stood up to
    the people who said I was going to take their guns away if we passed the
    Brady bill and the assault weapons ban. And I think the evidence is, we
    were right and they were wrong.
        I think the evidence is our environmental policy, our education
    policy, our family leave policy--all these things, I think, our party
    has been on the right side of history and on the right

    [[Page 1611]]

    side of the basic values of America. And I think the more people like
    you help us to get our message out and make our points, the more you'll
    change America and the more, parenthetically, people will know who did
    what, when, and why.
        So there is a direct connection between what I saw in Wichita
    yesterday and your presence here tonight. And we have to make a lot more
    of those stories in the future. And I'm very grateful to you for your
    role in doing that.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:44 p.m. in the Chesapeake Room at the
    City Club of Washington.