    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [August 7, 1997]
    [Pages 1072-1077]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Democratic Business Council
    August 7, 1997

        Thank you very much. Governor Romer, Tom, thank you. Thank you, Alan
    Solomont. I want to thank all the members of the administration who came
    to be with us tonight, and I thank all of you for your presence here and
    for your support.
        I was--a little insight on Presidential decisionmaking; here are the
    notes my staff gave me. Here are the notes I made at dinner. [Laughter]
    You can have either speech. Which one do you like? [Laughter] Two, two!

    [[Page 1073]]

        I'd like to talk to you a little bit about how I think you fit into
    all this and what we've been trying to do and where we're going. When I
    ran for President, first, beginning in 1991, I was obsessed with the
    idea that we had to prepare this country for a new century and a
    completely different economy and a whole different way of living and
    relating to each other and the rest of the world and that we didn't have
    any strategy to do it. And I believed that if we were going to succeed
    we had to create a country where, as you've heard me say a thousand
    times, there was opportunity for everyone responsible enough to work for
    it, where we were coming together instead of being driven apart, and
    where we maintained our world leadership for peace and prosperity and
    freedom.
        I thought to do that it would be necessary to save progressive
    Government and to save the progressive political party, to be vital
    forces as part of that future. I thought it was necessary to break
    through a lot of these dichotomies that seem to me to be false: that you
    were either for growing the economy or preserving the environment--if
    you have to choose, we're in trouble; that you couldn't be pro-business
    and pro-labor--if you have to choose, I think in the end the country
    loses; that you couldn't be tough on crime where it was appropriate and
    still be smart and compassionate where it made sense and where it was
    the right thing to do; that you couldn't be for respecting our diversity
    and still believe the most important thing is that we wind up being one
    America. I just think a lot of these dichotomies that have always been
    set up for us to argue about and take sides over are choices that we
    would never make in our own lives and that we should not make in the
    life of our Nation.
        And you heard Tom talking about a little of it and Roy talking about
    a little of it. It seemed to me that the right thing to do for our
    country also in the end would wind up being the right thing to do for
    the progressive cause in America and for the Democratic Party, the
    progressive party in America. We almost had to save ourselves from a
    legacy in some ways that was not entirely of the Democrats' own making.
    It was obvious to me that if we didn't do something about the deficit
    there would be no more progressives in America because the middle class
    would always be completely insecure.
        We had a meeting today at the White House, and my distinguished
    Treasury Secretary from New York City, Mr. Rubin, was making a comment
    about how people viewed a certain economic situation. And Erskine Bowles
    said--did I say North Carolina? I meant New York. Erskine Bowles is from
    North Carolina. So Erskine Bowles says, ``Mr. President, tell Bob that
    that's like the farmer in Louisiana with three hogs.'' And Bob Rubin
    doesn't know many farmers from Louisiana. [Laughter] So I told him--some
    of you may have heard me tell this story before, but when Huey Long was
    Governor of Louisiana in the middle of the Depression, he was out on a
    country crossroads one day making a speech to all of these farmers. And
    he was railing against people that had too much and how it ought to be
    spread around. And he saw a farmer in overalls, and he said, ``Now,
    Farmer Jones, if you had a million dollars, wouldn't you give up about a
    third of it and go out here on these crossroads and spread that money
    around so all the little kids could have plenty to eat and people would
    have a roof over their heads at night?'' He said, ``Of course I would.''
    And he said, ``If you had a brand-new Cadillac car, wouldn't you ride up
    and down these roads and take the old folks to the hospital and the
    young people to school that couldn't afford to get there themselves?''
    He said, ``You bet I would.'' He said, ``And farmer, if you had three
    hogs--'' And he said, ``Now, wait a minute, Governor. I've got three
    hogs.'' [Laughter]
        It seemed to me that we had to restore some economic discipline to
    this country so that people would know that their three hogs would be
    all right, so that people would know that at least they would not be
    robbed of the benefits of their own labor by the defects of the system
    in which they lived.
        And so I proposed what, at the time, was a controversial and very
    difficult budget in 1993, that only members of our party voted for, that
    was predicted to drive us into a recession. And instead in 4\1/2\ years
    it cut the deficit by 80 percent--before this last budget even passed.
    And I'm proud of that. But no one doubts the ability of Democrats to
    manage the economy now.
        I fought for expanded trade, and we had 200 trade agreements, and a
    lot of it was controversial, even within our own party. But it is clear
    from all the economic analysis that 25 percent of the growth that we
    have enjoyed in the United States in the last 4\1/2\ years has come from
    expanded trade, selling more American

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    products and services around the world. It is also clear that we have,
    on matters of principle, always kept a more open market so we don't
    continue to open other people's markets who are just going to take
    advantage of us.
        It was clear to me that if people felt insecure on their streets, in
    their homes and their schools, that we would never feel fully free and
    prosperous even if the economy returned. So we tried to join what was
    already a developing movement toward community policing and other proven
    strategies to fight crime.
        And I determined that ours would be the first administration that
    would ever take on the issue of the irresponsible use of handguns in
    this country. And I come from a State where more than half the people
    have a hunting or a fishing license or both, and I figured if I can't
    take this one and talk to people and talk sense to people, who can? And
    so we did the Brady bill, we did the assault weapons ban. I still want
    trigger locks on these guns that children can get their hands on. I
    think that these are responsible things.
        But we've had a drop in serious crime in every single year, and last
    year we had the biggest drop in violent crime in 35 years. And the
    American people are safer, and they know it. And no one seriously doubts
    the ability of our party to be a responsible partner in keeping our
    streets safer and giving our children a more secure future. And I think
    that's important.
        I had to fight a very difficult battle on welfare. I did not want
    the welfare reform bill to be an excuse to hurt children, and I vetoed
    two bills that I thought were. But it seemed to me that since there was
    already no uniform national benefit, that the States were already in
    effective control over what the size of a welfare check was, but they
    didn't have any real responsibility because the authority was divided
    between the States and the Federal Government. And it seemed to me the
    responsible thing to do was to set up a uniform set of standards about
    how we thought the welfare program ought to work, to put guidelines and
    limits on people who could go to work if there were jobs available and
    required them to do so or to be in education and training programs but
    to take better care of the children with adequate child care and other
    supports and nutrition and medical care.
        And that's what the welfare reform bill was all about. There were a
    lot of things in it I didn't like--cutting benefits to legal
    immigrants--but as you see, we've largely restored all the things that
    we didn't like. And we now have a bill that is contributing to by far
    the largest drop in the welfare rolls this country has ever seen. And we
    now have the smallest percentage of Americans receiving public
    assistance since 1970--smallest percentage since 1970. Now, I thought
    that was important.
        I thought it was important that we prove that we can conduct the
    defense and the foreign policy operations of this country. I no longer
    think that's open to serious doubt. This country is stronger, more
    secure, and is helping to build the world of the 21st century in the
    aftermath of the cold war. And I feel good about that.
        I also wanted to do things to increase people's sense of obligation
    to serve. That's what the AmeriCorps program was about. That's what the
    Presidents' service summit was all about.
        And finally, let me say, in the Democratic Party what I tried to do
    is to bring in people who had previously not been active before. And the
    most important things we've done in our party are the Women's Leadership
    Forum, the Saxophone Club, and your group--your group, because we want
    people in this party to feel that they have a home, they have a role,
    and they have a contribution to make, and that their voices will be
    heard.
        Now, we've had a very good first 7 months of this year. The budget
    is a good budget, and it is a progressive one. The tax cuts are
    confined. Some of us have received some criticism from people who
    believe that I should not have signed the tax bill because it had a
    capital gains tax cut, an increase in the estate tax. But let me just
    remind you that Republicans are still in the majority in the Congress. I
    hope it won't be so after '98, but they are now. But 80 percent of that
    tax bill went to the children's tax credit, to education, and to a whole
    array of urban and poor rural redevelopment initiatives designed to
    bring the areas that are still isolated from our prosperity into the
    mainstream--80 percent.
        Secondly, there are strict caps on how much money can be spent in
    the first 5 years and in the second 5 years of this tax program. And
    even with the little we added on to the size of the tax package, it's
    still about one-eighth--one-eighth--the size of the tax bill adopted in
    1981, which led to these permanent deficits. We did not go off in some
    sort of tax-cutting

    [[Page 1075]]

    binge designed to erode the future stability of this country. And we now
    estimate with conservative estimates that this budget will produce a
    surplus by 2002 at the latest and a surplus for several years
    thereafter.
        So we are doing the right things, and we've had a good fall. We've
    also invited the first new members to join NATO. We've established
    alliance with Russia and Ukraine. We have worked very hard to get the
    country, for the very first time, to embrace national education
    standards. And I hope all of you will help us get every State in the
    country to do that.
        We had the Summit of Service that I mentioned, and I launched a very
    important initiative on race relations which will last for at least a
    year, as we examine for the first time in a noncrisis way not only what
    the unfinished business is in America between the white majority and
    African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans but an equally, perhaps even
    more important question over the long run, which is what are we going to
    be like as a nation in 30 years when, unless something happens, there
    will be no majority race in America, and we will become the world's
    first truly great multiracial, multiethnic democracy. And unlike--there
    are many ethnic groups, for example, in a nation like Russia, but most
    of them live in discreet parts of the country. In our country, we're
    going to have 150--actually, more than 150 different racial and ethnic
    groups largely sharing the future together.
        So it's been an exciting time. In the fall, we have a lot of other
    agendas coming up. And let me just mention some of the things that I
    hope to get done in the remainder of this year. I think it's important
    that we continue our work to expand trade. This year we have already
    concluded an agreement on information technology and telecommunications
    services that will amount to a $5 billion tax reduction on American
    products in these areas sold around the world, that will open up 90
    percent of the world markets to American products in an area where we
    lead the world and we are creating very good jobs. We need more of this.
        I know there's going to be a great controversy over this trade
    debate, but let me put it to you this way: We have 4 percent of the
    world's population. We have 20 percent of the world's wealth. The rest
    of the world's economy, even though it's on a lower base, is growing at
    3 times the rate of the American economy--even under the astute
    management of our administration--[laughter]--because if you start from
    a lower base, you grow faster.
        Now, if you want your children to live in a country that may have
    even less than 4 percent of the world's population and still around 20
    percent of the world's wealth because of how hard we work and our skills
    and our ability, there are only two things we can do. The first is to go
    into our cities and our isolated rural areas and make markets and
    taxpayers and successful employers and employees and business people out
    of the people that haven't been reached in our own country, number one.
    And the second is to sell to the other 96 percent of the people in the
    world. This is not rocket science. We don't have an option. And the
    things that we sell by and large are higher value-added products that
    create good jobs in America.
        Are there issues of trade fairness? Of course there are. We have
    relatively more open markets than other countries. We have done it for
    years as a matter of responsibility to try to help poor countries lift
    themselves up; also keeps us on our toes more and makes us more
    competitive, and that's one reason we're in the shape we're in today.
        Should we fight for a fair deal for our workers? Of course we
    should. Should we fight to improve the global environment as we increase
    trade? Of course we should. But we can't walk away from this.
        I'm going to Latin America in the fall. About a year after I took
    office, we had this great Summit of the Americas. And all the countries
    in the Americas said, ``We want to have a free trade area that America
    and that Canada are a part of. We want our future to be with you.''
    There will soon be a billion people in Latin America, second fastest
    growing area of the world. When I go down there, I want them to believe
    America is still leading the way toward greater prosperity. The rest of
    the world economy is on a fast track. The only question is whether we're
    going to be leading it or dragging up the rear. And I hope we can
    prevail upon the Congress to work through this in a way that is as
    satisfactory as possible to the people who have legitimate concerns
    about the disruptions that the global economy can cause.
        The second thing we're going to try to do is pass the McCain-
    Feingold campaign finance reform bill. Now, the good news from my point

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    of view--it's not such good news for you; we can still have the
    Democratic Business Council with its price of entry under McCain-
    Feingold. [Laughter] But it will eliminate most of the serious questions
    people have about the campaign finance system at present, and it will
    put more pressure on both the Democrats and the Republicans to go out
    and get more people to contribute, to make more people feel like they're
    a part of the system, and that will be a very good thing. It will
    require us to involve more and more and more people.
        But let me finally say--this is very important--if it's going to
    work, we have to lower the cost of campaigns. And the only way you can
    lower the cost of modern campaigns is to provide free air time or
    drastically reduced air time, which is why I have also worked so hard on
    that.
        We're going to try to pass the juvenile justice bill, modeled on
    what has happened in a number of cities, but especially in Boston
    where--this may surprise you if you don't live in Boston--it has been
    almost 2 full years since a single child has lost his or her life to a
    handgun--almost 2 full years. And again, it's not rocket science. They
    have good community policing. They have good neighborhood block watch
    groups. The neighbors and the police work together. The police and the
    probation officers work together. They make house calls in Boston, just
    like doctors used to. The kids in trouble, they go to the child's home
    and they sit on the couch in the living room and they talk to the
    parents. And unbelievably enough, they have a 70 percent compliance rate
    with probation orders. There's no city in the country that's even close
    to that. Why? Old-fashioned, human contact in an organized, disciplined
    way, doing what is smart as well as being tough. We want to do that
    everywhere.
        We want to begin the work of dealing with entitlement reform. And
    people say, ``Well, there's not an emergency now. Social Security is all
    right until 2029. You just put another decade on the Medicare Trust
    Fund.'' That's true. But when the baby boomers retire, there will be
    just about two people working for one person in his or her retirement
    years. A lot of us will work longer, by choice. But the ratio will be
    awesome.
        By making modest changes now, we can avoid imposing severe changes
    that will have to be made by our children. And for those of us that are
    part of that baby boom generation, which is basically everybody between
    the ages of 34 and 50, it seems to me that we owe it to our children and
    to the strength and long-term health of our economy and our society to
    deal with the long-term entitlement issues now, when by making modest
    changes we can avoid more severe changes later.
        We're going to have to deal with the issue of climate change in a
    responsible way. No one seriously questions anymore that the climate is
    warming and that it is going to have some adverse consequences. The
    question is, how do you do that and grow the economy. Is there a way to
    do it? Of course there is. If we would change our habits tomorrow, just
    some of our habits, we could with no extra charge, no cost at all on
    society, get rid of 20 percent of the greenhouse gases with presently
    available technology--tomorrow. So what we have to do is to try to find
    a way to organize ourselves, increase our awareness, and do this in a
    way that doesn't cripple the economy. I think we can do that.
        Finally, the First Lady and I are going to have a conference on
    child care in late October. It is still the number one concern of many,
    many, many working people who believe that they cannot afford or find or
    have access to quality, affordable child care.
        Now, those are the things we're going to be doing. In addition to
    that, Eli Segal, who's here tonight, heads my national organization
    where we are mobilizing employers who will agree to hire people from
    welfare to work. Next week we're going to St. Louis to announce several
    hundred businesses that have joined us in that endeavor.
        We've still got a long way to go. We only have about 22 percent of
    the schoolchildren in the country committed, whose leaders have
    committed to take the national test, fourth-grade reading test, the
    eighth-grade math test, by 1999. We're going to keep working on that.
        But the point I want to make is, every single one of these things is
    something that I hope you are proud of, that is part of a dynamic
    mainstream political movement in America, that your contributions and
    your support have made possible. And this is a better country because of
    it. It's a better country because we're not out there trying to split
    everybody all up and divide people every day and keep people full

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    of hot air instead of trying to get people together and keep working
    forward and moving forward. And that's what I'm trying to build for the
    future and what I want you to be a part of.
        Let me just say this in closing. Every day I try to imagine what I
    hope the country will be like 30 years from now. And if that guides a
    President and you work back from there, you'll be amazed how much easier
    that makes the decisionmaking process. And when I think of the young
    people that are here tonight, all these fine young people that are
    working for the Democratic Party and did all the work to make this
    possible tonight--what will determine what kind of America they live in?
        Number one, will we succeed in being a truly multiracial,
    multiethnic democracy, where we not only respect but celebrate our
    diversity and still say the most important thing is we're one America?
    Number two, will we stop making excuses for ourselves and finally
    embrace the idea that all children can learn, and we're going to see
    that they learn at internationally accepted levels of excellence? Number
    three, will we reach into the areas that have not been touched by our
    prosperity and figure out a way to hook them into the future? Number
    four, will we figure out a way to grow the economy while enhancing the
    environment? And finally, will we continue to do what it takes to lead
    the world when it comes to peace and freedom and prosperity?
        If we do those things, the best days of this country are still
    ahead. And when we are all much older we can look back on this moment
    and say, because we were here then and because we did what we did, we
    did prepare our country for the 21st century. We saved progressive
    Government for its higher purposes, and we revitalized America's
    progressive party to make it go on.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:35 p.m. in the Colonial Room at the
    Mayflower Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Roy Romer of
    Colorado, general chair, and Alan D. Solomont, national finance chair,
    Democratic National Committee; C. Thomas Hendrickson, chair, Democratic
    Business Council; and Eli J. Segal, president and chief executive
    officer, Welfare to Work Partnership.