    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [October 21, 1997]
    [Pages 1405-1408]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Dinner
    October 21, 1997

        Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your
    exuberant welcome. Thank you for what it means. You know that our
    country is better off than it was 5 years ago. You know it's because we
    worked together to change the direction of this country. And you know
    that's what really counts in the lives of the American people. We could
    use more of you in Washington, DC, reminding people here about what
    really counts in the lives of the American people. And we thank you for
    your support.
        I want to thank, first of all, Tom Daschle. There is no way that I
    can convey to you the extraordinary leadership that he has given to the
    United States Senate and the Democratic caucus. Senator Kerrey talked
    about it a little bit. It's really an easy job; there are no egos in the
    Senate. [Laughter] Everybody comes from the same kind of place; there
    are no genuinely conflicting interests. [Laughter] It's always fun to be
    in the minority when you're getting your brains beat out; there's no
    difficulty there. [Laughter] It's an extraordinarily difficult job. He's
    done it with grace and good humor, with brilliance and insight and
    genuine courage on occasion after occasion. And this country is very

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    fortunate that Tom Daschle is in the leadership of the Congress.
        I want to thank my longtime friend Senator Bob Kerrey for his
    willingness to do this job in the toughest of all times and to do it
    superbly well and to continue to fight to push our party and our country
    toward change. Whether it's reforming the IRS, facing the difficult
    issue of entitlements, Bob Kerrey is always willing to be on the cutting
    edge of change. And my belief is that every single election, if given
    the chance, will be an election where the voters vote for the future.
    And we have tried to give them a chance to have a Democratic Party that
    was about the future, in no small measure because of you, Senator
    Kerrey, and we thank you for it very much.
        Lastly, let me thank Senator Torricelli. I had the privilege of
    campaigning side by side with Bob Torricelli in New Jersey last year.
    And they said the polls were really close, and then something happened
    at the end and they miraculously opened up. They opened up for him, and
    they opened up for me. And the people of New Jersey have been very good
    to me now twice. But in 1996, it was an extraordinary election. And
    also, it was amazing how that nip-and-tuck Senate race just ballooned at
    the end, and Senator Torricelli opened his substantial lead. I think
    it's because people saw that if they voted for him, they would have
    somebody who (a) was on their side, and (b) wasn't afraid to fight for
    them.
        And when I see Bob Torricelli trying to cut through the smokescreens
    and the rhetoric and the hot air and the disingenuous arguments that he
    has been willing to take on almost singlehandedly, day-in and day-out,
    to stand up and fight for his party, his President, and his principles,
    it makes me thank goodness that he is a United States Senator. And I
    will never forget him.
        And I want to thank the Senators that are the cochairs of this event
    tonight, Senator Bingaman, Senator Bryan, Senator Rockefeller, Senator
    Mikulski, Senator Ford. I want to join in what has already been said by
    Bob Kerrey about Wendell Ford and John Glenn and my longtime dear friend
    Dale Bumpers. I didn't want any of them to quit, and I was mad about it
    for 2 or 3 days. And then I realized it was not my choice and not my
    life. And they have more than served their country and more than paid
    their dues. But this is a much, much better America because of the
    service that has been given to us by Wendell Ford and John Glenn and
    Dale Bumpers. It's a better country, and we should all be grateful.
        I come here tonight to say that we should go into the contest in
    1998 united, and we should go into the contest based on the issues. Let
    the other side continue to follow the politics of personal destruction.
    Let us tell the American people what we have done and what we intend to
    do. Let us give them a chance to vote for their future and their
    children, for a vision of America in the 21st century that will give us
    opportunity for everyone responsible enough to work for it, a country
    that is coming together instead of being driven apart, and a Nation
    still strong and visionary enough to lead the world toward peace and
    freedom, prosperity and security. That is our job.
        And when you come here and make your contributions and support our
    endeavors, I want you to know that that's what the leaders of this
    organization believe and that's what I believe.
        We had success in 1996 for some very simple reasons. One, we
    promised to get rid of trickle-down economics and replace it with
    invest-and-grow economics. The American people had an economic policy
    that worked, and it affected their lives.
        Second, we promised to get rid of hot air and tough talk on crime
    and replace it with tough and smart action on crime. We had a crime
    policy that worked, and it made a difference in people's lives.
        We promised to get away from tough talk and anecdotes about welfare
    and try to give people a new approach to welfare that would reward work
    and childhood, that would be tough in work requirements but good for
    children. And it's working.
        We promised that we would fight for a clean environment, even as we
    tried to grow the economy. And we fought off a ferocious attack on our
    environmental protections.
        We promised to fight for a safe and secure workplace, even as we
    tried to grow the economy. And we fought off a ferocious attack on the
    rules which protect workplace safety.
        We promised to modernize the Government. We downsized it by 300,000
    without putting people in the street, got rid of thousands of pages of
    regulation and hundreds of programs, and put more money into education
    and technology. And it's worked. We promised we could

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    reduce the deficit and grow the economy and invest more in our people,
    and it has worked.
        That is what accounted for the success in 1996. Ideas have
    consequences. And people who are willing and disciplined enough to
    implement their ideas can change the course of a country. That is what
    this is all about. Don't ever forget that what you do here has
    consequences.
        And we had a balanced budget that passed by overwhelming bipartisan
    margins in both the Senate and the House. And I was glad of that, glad
    to celebrate it. But I think you know which party was passionately
    fighting for the biggest increase in aid to education since 1965, for
    the biggest increase in aid in access to college since the GI bill in
    1945, for our ability now to say that we have truly opened the doors of
    college to every American responsible enough to work for it. I think you
    know which party was fighting for the $24 billion to provide health
    insurance to 5 million children in working families who don't have it
    today. I think you know which party was fighting for that.
        But what I don't want you to ever forget is, before we ever passed
    that budget, the deficit had already been reduced by more than 80
    percent from its 1992 high, because of the votes taken only by members
    of your party in 1993 to drive the deficit down and get the economy
    going again. And nobody should ever be permitted to forget it.
        We've got a lot to do in the future. We have to raise the standards
    of our schools and give people more choices in the public schools they
    attend and make things that work more prevalent in all of our school
    districts.
        We have a big challenge to face in fulfilling our solemn
    responsibilities on global climate change. We have 4 percent of the
    world's people; we contribute 26 percent of the world's greenhouse
    gases; we enjoy 22 percent of the world's economic growth. The climate
    is warming more rapidly than any time in the last 10,000 years. No one
    knows when something bad will happen or exactly what it will be, but the
    overwhelming consensus of scientists is that we must reduce our
    greenhouse gases. I am prepared to see the United States take the lead.
    But I am not a pessimist. Every single action the United States has
    taken since 1970 to clean up our own environment has led to more jobs, a
    diversifying economy, a stronger American economy, a brighter American
    future. And so will this. And that's what we're going to do. But I
    refuse to hide our heads in the sand. We have to face that.
        The Democratic Party will have to prove in the next couple of years
    that we can preserve Social Security and we can preserve Medicare for
    the next generation without bankrupting our children and our
    grandchildren to pay for it. That is the responsible position, and we
    can do it in a progressive way. But we are the party that will have to
    do the work if you want it to be done in that way. We have to keep
    pushing forward into the future.
        The Democratic Party should pass, working with our friends in the
    Republican Congress who will agree with us, a genuinely progressive
    settlement to protect our children from the dangers of tobacco. And we
    can do it in the right way, and we need to do it immediately--next
    year--as quickly as we can.
        Tomorrow the First Lady and I are hosting the first-ever conference
    at the White House on child care. We know that there are millions of
    people who have to go to work every day worried about whether their kids
    have adequate child care or worried about how in the world they're going
    to pay for it. We know that child care takes almost 20 percent of the
    average lower income person's paycheck. We've got to make sure that if
    we're really going to balance work and family in the 21st century,
    people can have adequate and affordable child care.
        There are lots of things to do out there. But we have to be bound
    together by our vision. We stand for opportunity and responsibility. We
    stand for work and family. We stand for individual liberty and the
    community. And we know America cannot be strong at home unless it is
    strong abroad.
        I pray that the Democrats never turn away from our responsibilities
    to lead the world toward peace and freedom and prosperity and security.
    Whether it's in the Middle East or Northern Ireland or Latin America or
    South Asia or the Far East or in Africa, we have got to work to see that
    the people of the world keep growing together. We must never return to
    war, and we must try to stop the wars that exist now, and we must expand
    our opportunities to relate to each other in more peaceful, productive
    ways.
        I want to thank the Democratic caucus for one other thing.
    Unanimously, our caucus--unanimously--voted to support campaign finance
    reform this year, and I thank them--

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    every last, single one. I don't know how long we will have to labor
    under the illusion that somehow there is no responsibility for this
    issue or somehow everyone is responsible. The White House is for
    campaign finance reform. The Democratic caucus is unanimously for
    campaign finance reform. The vast majority of the Members of the House
    in our caucus are for it. We will get it--when we can get enough help
    from our friends in the Republican Party, we will have campaign finance
    reform. And I hope that it will become clear that that is what has to be
    done.
        Lastly, let me say, be of good cheer when you go into this campaign.
    If you read American history books, you will see that, typically, in the
    second term of an incumbent President, the party of the President
    normally doesn't do all that well at midterm elections. There is a
    reason for that. People think the sun is setting and the energy is
    running out and the steam is getting weak. Well, the sun is not setting,
    the energy is not running out, and I will be working full tilt until the
    last minute of the last hour of the last day. And I want you to give me
    a Democratic Senate to work with.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:35 p.m. in the Ballroom at the Hyatt
    Regency Hotel.