    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [November 22, 1997]
    [Pages 1640-1644]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Dinner for Senator Patty Murray in Medina, Washington
    November 22, 1997

        Thank you very much, Senator. Thank you, Lori, and thank you for the
    convictions you expressed in your remarks. And I want to thank you and
    Lars for opening your home, and I want to thank your children for the
    wonderful gifts they gave me from their classes.
        Mayor Rice, Mayor-elect Schell, Congressmen Dicks and McDermott and
    Smith; candidates Brian Baird and Greta Cammermyer; and ladies and
    gentlemen. I want to say most of all, thank you for being here for Patty
    Murray. We have representatives of great companies here, Boeing,

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    Microsoft, Starbucks, and others. We have representatives of labor here.
    We have educators here. We have Native Americans here. We've got small-
    business people. We have all different kinds of folks that make up
    Washington State's future and America's future. And I want to thank the
    first lady of Washington for being here. It's my understanding that
    there's a good chance that Gary Locke now has a sterling opportunity to
    become the first American President of China as a result of his--
    [laughter].
        I also want to say Congressman Dicks is an incredibly graceful loser
    tonight. [Laughter] You were great, but those of us who know you know
    that you hated every minute of that--[laughter]--which is one of the
    reasons you are such a good Representative of your people. [Laughter]
        I would like to say just a generic word of thanks to the people of
    Washington for sending Norm Dicks and Jim McDermott and Adam Smith and
    Patty Murray to Washington. And there's a reason I'm here, besides the
    fact that Patty Murray is a Democrat. And I hope the fact that she votes
    with me most of the time will not be a deterrent; the people of
    Washington voted for me twice and I appreciate that very much. But Patty
    Murray will take a tough stand and do what's right over the long run
    even if it's painful in the short run. And in a period of great change
    in how we work and live and relate to the rest of the world, I think
    that's a pretty important quality. Someone who remembers that her
    obligations to her children translate into a larger obligation to the
    children of this State and Nation is someone worthy of your support.
        She was one of the cosponsors of our deficit reduction plan back in
    1993, and we didn't get a single vote from the other party. They said,
    oh, we were going to explode the deficit and bankrupt the economy, and I
    heard all that. And some of the voters bought it in 1994. But now you
    know, because--this year the deficit is $23 billion, down 92 percent
    from where it was before I took office, and that's before we get one
    dollar of savings from the Balanced Budget Act, thanks to Patty Murray.
    And I'll never forget it.
        She fought to pass the crime bill in 1994. And I'll never forget it;
    I thought I was lost in the fun house when people said, ``Well, Mr.
    President, they'll accuse you of being a Republican. Democrats aren't
    supposed to care about crime.'' I said, ``Well, if you've ever been a
    victim, you know it has no partisan tinge.'' And we had a crime bill
    that was basically written by community activists, police chiefs, and
    prosecutors, based on what was working to bring the crime rate down in
    communities around the country that were doing something about it.
        It made pretty good sense to Patty Murray, even though she didn't
    agree with every provision of it. And she stood up and fought for it.
    And we had the bitterest partisan opposition. We did get some Republican
    votes for it, and I'm very grateful to the people who voted for it, but
    the leadership was stomped-down against it. And they went out, and they
    got some profits out of that. They convinced a lot of people in rural
    Washington we were going to take their guns away. And I was able to go
    back to Washington in 1996--to this Washington--and say, ``You beat some
    Congressmen here over that gun issue and if you lost your gun, I want
    you to vote against me, too. But if you didn't, they didn't tell you the
    truth, and you need to send them a message.'' Two hundred and fifty
    thousand people lost the right to buy handguns because they had criminal
    backgrounds or they were stalkers or they had mental health histories,
    and America is a better place because of it. And we don't need these
    assault weapons in the hands of young street gangs in our country, and
    we're putting 100,000 police on the street. The crime rate's come down 5
    years in a row because Patty Murray had the courage to stand up and do
    what was right in 1994. And she deserves the support that--[applause].
        And let me say this is also important, not just when we have
    disagreed in Washington but when we have agreed. We had an overwhelming
    bipartisan majority for the balanced budget plan that I signed this
    year, and I applaud the Republican leadership and all the Republicans
    who voted for it. But in reaching that kind of agreement, it came out
    the way I wanted because we had Democrats in the mix, because Patty
    Murray was fighting to restore education funding.
        Just imagine this now--we passed and I signed--they passed and I
    signed a balanced budget that not only will balance the budget, I
    believe, before 2002 when it was supposed to but has the largest
    increased investment in education in a generation, 35 years, including
    funds to do our part working with the private sector to hook up every
    classroom and library

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    to the Internet by the year 2000, to train the teachers, get the
    software, do the things we need to do, open the doors of college to all
    Americans because of the tax cuts and the scholarships and the work-
    study funds. It's a terrific bill. It includes the biggest increase in
    health care for poor children in working families in 30 years, and I'm
    proud of that. It includes a huge increase in biomedical research, and
    I'm proud of that.
        We contributed a lot to that, the members of our party, because we
    said it's okay to be fiscally conservative; it's imperative in the world
    we're living in. But if we're going to grow the economy over the long
    run, we've got to invest in our people, all of our people. That's what
    Patty Murray fought for, and she deserves your support for that. America
    is a better place because of it.
        Let me just say, in addition to that, I hope all of you who are here
    for her understand that there really is a very direct connection between
    your presence here for Patty Murray or when you support Norm Dicks or
    Jim McDermott or Adam Smith or anybody else you support--there's a very
    direct connection between your presence and your support and what
    happens in America a long way away in Washington and how it comes back
    to you. I thought Lori's remarks were pretty compelling in that regard
    and stated it better than I probably could.
        But we're living in a time now where no one has all the answers
    because of the dramatic scope and pace of change. And every country in
    the world with an advanced society is trying to deal with the following
    question, in a thousand different ways: How do we get the benefits of
    this huge technological and information revolution, the globalization of
    economics and society, people being able to move information and money
    around and even themselves around in the flash of an eye; how do we get
    the benefits of all this and meet the challenges it poses and preserve
    some sort of coherent life for ourselves, our families, our communities,
    and our nations? How do we preserve the common good as we break down the
    old bureaucracies, the old established ways of doing things, and all of
    that?
        And you see it in a thousand different ways. How can you maximize
    economic growth and improve the environment instead of undermining it?
    How do you take advantage of the things you have to do to protect the
    environment or grow the economy and help the people that are dislocated,
    and do it in a prompt and quick way so they can go on and be part of
    tomorrow's economy so that everybody who is willing to work hard and be
    responsible can have their say? How do you bring the benefits of this
    marvelous new economic system to the places that it hasn't reached yet?
    How do you balance the demands of work and family when way more than
    half the women in the work force--I mean women with children under the
    age of one are in the work force and when people I know in upper income,
    in comfortable income groups, who aren't even United States Senators,
    have the same plaintive statement that you heard from Senator Murray
    tonight? I hardly know anybody with school-age kids, without regard to
    their income, that hasn't had at some point a serious sense of conflict
    between their obligations at work and their obligations at home.
        And I might add--I want to compliment Patty on this--we had some
    differences within our caucus over the welfare reform bill. My position
    was, having worked as a Governor with welfare for many years, was it
    didn't make any sense to stay with the system we had because we were
    trapping people in welfare dependency if they didn't have many skills.
    But it didn't make any sense to do what our friends in the other party
    wanted to do and just tell them they had to go to work, because if they
    took low-wage jobs, they'd be hurting their kids if they gave up their
    health care and their nutrition and if they didn't have any training and
    any opportunity to do better.
        So we fought hard for a bill that would say: If you're able-bodied
    and you can go to work, you've got to go to work, and you can have your
    benefits terminated within a certain time if you don't. But we won't
    take medical care away from your children; we won't take nutrition away
    from your children; we will give billions of dollars more in child care,
    because we know you can't afford to pay for that if you get a low-
    skilled job; and we'll give some extra money to the areas where there
    aren't enough private sector jobs.
        And then Patty Murray said, ``Don't forget a lot of these women on
    welfare have been in abusive positions in the home, and you shouldn't
    hold them to the same standards unless they have supports that are
    extraordinary.'' I just was in Wichita, Kansas this week--we were
    talking about it--where I saw a training facility for people on welfare
    with a housing

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    project across the street for welfare recipients who had no cars or had
    suffered abuse in their previous homes. But Patty Murray brought that to
    our attention. She said, ``You've got to do this with a conscience.''
    And we all have to recognize that the most important job of any society
    is the raising of children.
        So I believe that these general problems that--you can see it in
    every advanced society--have to be met with a commitment, number one, to
    seize the future, not run away from it, whether it's in education or
    trade or technology; but number two, with an understanding that in
    America, to preserve the American dream, you have to guarantee
    opportunity for everybody who is responsible enough to work for it. And
    we have to reaffirm the fact that among all of our differences, we're
    still united as one America. That's basically what I'm trying to do.
        We have to redefine our notion of what the Government is supposed to
    do, away from a Government that tries to do everything and a Government
    that says that we're the problem, we're not going to do anything, to
    action that focuses on genuine partnership and giving people the tools
    to make the most of their own lives.
        Now, I think our approach has worked pretty well. I think if, after
    5 years that Patty Murray and I have been teammates in Washington, we
    have the lowest unemployment rate in 24 years, the lowest crime rate in
    24 years, the biggest drop in welfare in history, an improvement in the
    economy, cleaner air, cleaner water, fewer toxic waste dumps, and safer
    food, I think that's a pretty good argument to reelect a Senator who
    supported those policies and that direction for America.
        Let me just close with this thought: In the end how you feel about
    somebody like Patty Murray basically depends upon how you feel about
    your place in America and what you think it will mean to be an American
    in the 21st century. There are a lot of very brilliant people who
    believe that the nation-state is fast becoming a relic of the past, that
    the technological revolution basically means that globalized financial
    and product and service markets and extremely localized governments will
    dominate the 21st century.
        I believe that we don't have a person to waste and that the mission
    of America is to create opportunity for everybody that's responsible
    enough to work for it and then to reassert our fundamental values of
    community in a world where there are maybe not the cold war nuclear
    threats that we faced for 50 years but where, make no mistake about it,
    we have real threats to our security at home and abroad.
        I just came from Denver today, a wonderful American city, where
    they've got radical rightwing groups, skinhead groups, that have been
    involved in the death of a police officer, the shooting of an African on
    the streets there, the shooting of a woman who bent down to help the
    person on the streets there.
        We see what happens in Bosnia or Northern Ireland and the Middle
    East, where people hate each other over race or religion, and say,
    ``That stuff can't happen here.'' It can't if we don't permit it to
    happen here. But if we don't teach our children and practice and live
    that we are part of one community, in spite of whatever differences we
    have, if you agree to obey the law and work hard and go to school if
    you're a kid and go to work if you're an adult and take care of your
    children and pay your taxes and do the right thing, you're part of our
    America. We have to teach people that. Just like kids have to be taught
    hatred.
        You know, I'm not running anymore. Some people are happy about it.
    [Laughter] One child said to me today she wished I could run for a third
    term. I heard a draft right there, you know. [Laughter] No, it wasn't
    Chelsea; believe me, it's not Chelsea. [Laughter] She'll be glad when
    I'm home. She wants her daddy back, I think.
        But what I really believe, having observed this over the last
    several years as we go through these massive changes, that the biggest
    difference in attitude between the two parties--and I'm heartened when
    we can do things like reach this wonderful compromise to overhaul the
    Food and Drug Administration to get drugs and medical devices to the
    market more quickly, or to reach this wonderful compromise in
    overhauling the adoption and foster care laws of the country to move
    children into homes more quickly. And we reach these things after we
    debate. But if you hear our side of the debate, basically it's not true
    that Democrats are not fiscally responsible, committed to bringing the
    crime rate down, committed to running a strong economy, committed to a
    strong foreign policy. That's not true.

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        We just believe that you can't hold a country together unless you
    honestly believe everybody counts; unless you honestly believe we don't
    have a child to waste; unless you honestly believe that the United
    States of America in the 21st century must mean, more than ever, one
    America that celebrates all of our diversity, lets all the
    entrepreneurial things that could possibly happen occur, tries to stay
    on the edge of change, but tries to make sure everybody can have a shot
    at the brass ring, and challenges every citizen to serve in some way
    beyond his or her immediate self-interest because we're all better off
    when the least of us are better off.
        And how you feel about Patty Murray, I think, more than anything
    else, depends upon how you feel about that. I know one thing: She has
    done a wonderful job for you. She has advocated for Washington's
    interests. She has worn me out on specific environmental interests in
    this State. She is always there. But the real thing that's important
    about her is how she feels about her country, the children, and the
    future. And I want you to make sure that everybody in this State knows
    that at election time.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:30 p.m. at a private residence. In his
    remarks, he referred to Lori MacDonald Jonsson and Lars Jonsson, dinner
    hosts; Mayor Norman B. Rice and Mayor-elect Paul Schell of Seattle;
    Brian Baird and Greta Cammermyer, candidates for Washington State's
    Third and Second Congressional Districts, respectively; Mona Lee Locke,
    wife of Gov. Gary Locke of Washington; Denver police officer Bruce
    VanderJagt and African immigrant Oumar Dia, slain in separate incidents
    earlier in the month; and Jeannie VanVelkinburgh, wounded while
    attempting to help Mr. Dia.