[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[November 17, 1997]
[Pages 1598-1602]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Dinner in
St. Louis
November 17, 1997

    Thank you very much. Thank you, Jay. Thank you for running. Thank 
you for being a good attorney general. Thanks for inviting me to dinner. 
[Laughter] Maybe I will come back next Monday. [Laughter] I'd also like 
to thank the owners of this magnificent theater for allowing us to be 
here tonight and for doing such a wonderful job in restoring it.
    I think that when we come here and you see all this beauty and--sort 
of--your eyes normally just sort of go up, don't they?--and you feel 
elevated, that's the way you ought to feel about your country. That's 
the way you ought to feel about your political system. That's the way 
you ought to feel about your choices as citizens to support people in 
campaigns.
    So the first thing I want to do is just to thank you for being here 
tonight and for being proud to have the freedom to come here, to 
contribute to this man's campaign and to what he's trying to do for our 
country, to take a stand, and to be a part. I hope that when you think 
about it over the next year, you will be constant in trying to help him 
get elected and that you will go beyond financial support to talking to 
your friends and neighbors and doing whatever you can to help prevail. 
And I hope you will always try to remember how you felt when you walked 
into this theater tonight. If you can create that kind of spirit among 
the people of Missouri, I think you'll win the election. And I think you 
can do it.
    Let me say that, as all of you know just from reading the press, 
this is a rather challenging time for our country, and I don't have 
anything else to add about what I'm trying to deal with in Iraq than 
what I've already said. But it has made me a little more reflective even 
than normal, and I'd like to try to put this race for the Senate in some 
sort of larger context for you so you can see how I see it and why I 
came here.
    When I ran for President, when I decided to run for President about 
6 years ago and I was the Governor of your neighboring State to the 
south, I was really concerned about the country, not because I was 
worried about Americans or I didn't think that we could deal with any 
problem but because we were going through this period of sweeping change 
with no unifying vision about how we were going to go into the 21st 
century together, and because we had been

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dealing with the impacts of the global economy and increasing technology 
and changes in the way we work and live for 20 years. Even by the time I 
ran for President, it had been nearly 20 years since it had become 
apparent to everyone that there were big changes going on. The average 
wages of Americans had been stagnant for 20 years. Unemployment was 
going up, and we were beginning to see tensions, racial tensions, 
rekindled in America. The economic anxieties, I'm convinced, were the 
primary driving force in the movements that I faced, that we all faced 
as Americans to try to restrict opportunity to minorities and to 
immigrants. And it seemed to me that Washington was making it worse by 
having the same old debates over and over and over again.
    What I wanted to do was to take the values that I was raised with, 
which I think are the values of the Democratic Party and I hope are the 
values of America, and tie them to new ideas and new policies for new 
times, so that we could not just reclaim the White House but reclaim the 
future for our children; so that we could challenge every American to be 
responsible and give opportunity to every responsible American; so that 
we could bring this country together, across all the lines that divide 
us, into one community; and so that we could continue to lead the world 
for peace and freedom and prosperity.
    Now, when I went to Washington, thanks to the votes of the people in 
Missouri and a number of other places, I encountered an atmosphere very 
different than any I had ever seen as a Governor. I had always had 
opposition, and we had fought hard, and I welcomed my opposition to the 
debate. We fought hard over issues. I had never been to a place where 
they said no before they heard what you were for, a place so dominated 
by partisanship and old categories and old thoughts and old behavior 
that I could see that breaking the paralysis was not going to be easy.
    But I ask you to consider the decisions that we have made in the 
last 5 years and the consequences of those decisions and the decisions 
that still have to be made, and think about how it's going to affect you 
and your children and your grandchildren, and then you can decide how 
hard you want to work on this Senate race.
    The first thing we had to do was to scrap trickle-down economics. It 
was a failure. It quadrupled the debt of the country in 12 years. The 
country was drifting apart. And we put in a new economic policy that I 
called invest-and-grow. I said, give me a shot; I believe I can reduce 
the deficit and still have more money to invest in education and 
technology and our future. And we got our shot by one vote in both 
Houses. It was the Vice President's incentive; as Al Gore never tires of 
saying, whenever he votes, I win--[laughter]--by the narrowest of 
margins. Why? Not because the Democrats didn't support me--I received 
more support from my party than my three previous Democratic 
predecessors--because every single member of the other party voted 
against my economic program and railed to high heaven and talked about 
how it was going to bring a recession, how it was going to be a total 
failure, told all the American people we were putting these huge tax 
burdens on them, when they knew that 98.5 percent of the American people 
were not going to have an increase in their income tax. They knew that 
we were cutting taxes for more people than we were raising taxes for--
mostly hard-working people. Now a family of four with an income of under 
$30,000 is paying $1,000 less income tax than they would have paid under 
the system that existed before our economic plan passed.
    They knew all that, but they hoped that the people couldn't figure 
it out by 1994's election and that they wouldn't feel a better economic 
climate. And they were right about that, and they won a lot of seats in 
Congress over it.
    But now it's 5 years later, and we're in a position to make a 
judgment. Every single one of them, including Mr. Nixon's opponent, 
voted no on our '93 economic plan. What did it do? Well, before one 
dollar kicks in from this balanced budget amendment, we've reduced the 
deficit by 92 percent, produced 13\1/2\ million jobs--a record for this 
period of time--and we now have the lowest unemployment rate in 24 
years. So you have a clear choice there, and you should bring that 
choice to bear on this race.
    On the area of crime, Jay Nixon, as attorney general, supported our 
efforts to put 100,000 police on the street, to have gun-free school 
zones, to ban assault weapons. Now, consider what happened: In 1994, I 
brought the crime bill up. I was an attorney general; I have been 
working on criminal justice matters for 20 years now. That crime bill 
was not written by me or by bureaucrats in Washington; it was written

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by police officers and prosecutors and community workers who work with 
young people in trouble all across this country. And all I did was 
reflect what was already working in many communities to bring the crime 
rate down.
    So I said, ``You know, violent crime has tripled, but we only have 
10 percent more police officers. Let's put 100,000 police on the 
street.'' Our friends on the other side said, ``Oh, if you do that, it 
won't make a lick of difference; it's just a waste of Federal money.'' I 
suggested that it was time to pass the Brady bill and not let people who 
had criminal histories buy handguns. They said, ``Oh, it's 
unenforceable, and it won't do any good.'' I said, ``You know, I come 
from a big hunting State, but I just don't think the NRA is right on 
these assault weapons. I never saw a single deer killed with an assault 
weapon.'' [Laughter] And they said when we passed that, we were going to 
go out and take everybody's guns away.
    We had this bitter fight over this crime bill--pure politics. The 
whole law enforcement community in the country was on our side. But they 
were good politicians, and they did everything they could do in the 
Senate to beat it, everything they could do. A bitter, bitter, bitter 
filibuster--the awfullest things said you ever heard. And we broke the 
filibuster, finally, because there were five brave Republicans who stood 
up and said, ``Enough is enough; we're going to go out and vote with the 
Democrats and try to give our kids a better, safer life.''
    And so we put 100,000 police on the street. That's what we're doing. 
We're 3 years ahead--we're 3 years into it; we're two-thirds of the way 
done; we're ahead of schedule and under budget. And we banned the 
assault weapons, and we kept over a quarter of a million people with 
criminal histories or mental health histories or people who were 
stalkers from buying handguns, who shouldn't have done it. And the crime 
rate is the lowest it's been in 24 years.
    Now, he took one position; his opponent took another position. You 
have evidence; you know. Make a judgment, and tell the people who live 
in Missouri to make a judgment. But don't pretend that there are no 
consequences to this vote. There are consequences. And we could have 
used another vote or two in 1994 when we were trying to save the lives 
of the children in this country. This is a safer, better country today 
because we won that fight and they lost it. And I'd like to have some 
more help when we deal with the issues that are still ahead of us.
    Juvenile crime hasn't dropped as much as crime among adults. Most 
juveniles commit crime between 3 and 7 in the afternoon. We have to do 
some creative things to keep those kids out of trouble in the first 
place, and we don't need any more speeches on the floor of the Congress 
about how it's a waste of money to try to keep kids out of trouble in 
the first place. I'd rather keep a kid out of trouble than send another 
kid to jail, if we can do that. And I think we ought to do it. So we 
were right, and they were wrong.
    In 1994, they picked up a lot of seats in the Congress. They went 
out there and told people in rural areas and all over America, ``You 
know, President Clinton and the Democrats are coming to get your guns.'' 
I told the group earlier, I said I went back to New Hampshire, where I 
won in '92--unusual for a Democrat--and I went to this crowd of people, 
and every one of them had a hunting license, and they were looking at me 
kind of funny. [Laughter] And I said, ``You know, in 1994 you people 
beat a Congressman up here because he voted to ban assault weapons. And 
they told you that you were going to lose your gun. And now it's 1996, 
and if you lost your gun I want you to vote against me, too. But if you 
didn't lose your gun, they didn't tell you the truth, and you need to 
get even.'' [Laughter] My vote in New Hampshire in 1996 was 12 percent 
higher than it was in 1992. [Laughter] And they got even.
    I say that not for personal reasons but because there are 
consequences to this. There are a lot of voters out there that think, 
oh, it's all politics; it doesn't make any difference. That's bull. It 
does make a difference, and it makes a huge difference. If we had lost 
that economic fight in 1993, the deficit would not have gone down by 
over 90 percent and the economy wouldn't have produced 13\1/2\ million 
jobs and interest rates wouldn't have gone down. If we had lost that 
crime bill in 1994, we would not have as much success with crime as 
we've had today, the lowest crime rate in 24 years.
    Or look at an area where we've worked together on. We got a big 
bipartisan majority for welfare reform finally, and I'm grateful for 
that and I appreciate the fact that the members of the other party 
worked with us on it. I tried every time I could to get a bipartisan 
resolution. But I had to veto two bills first because they

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said, ``If you want to require people on welfare to work, we also want 
you to take away from their children the guarantee that you want to 
leave them with, of nutrition and health care. And we don't want to give 
you a lot more money for child care, even though these women are going 
to get minimum-wage jobs and they can't afford child care. And we're not 
going to give you very much money to help people in big cities, where 
there aren't any private sector jobs, find jobs.'' So I vetoed the bill 
twice. Finally, we got it. But it would have been a tragedy if we hadn't 
passed the right kind of welfare reform.
    We've now seen the welfare rolls drop by 3.8 million in America, the 
biggest drop in American history. But I think our side was right on 
that. The Democratic position was, yes, require able-bodied people to 
work, but do not require them to abandon their children. The most 
important job anybody ever has is being a good parent. And if everybody 
did a better job of that, we wouldn't have half the problems we've got 
in this country. You can't ask people to go to work and forget about 
their responsibilities at home. The trick is to allow people to fulfill 
both those responsibilities. And the parties had different positions on 
that.
    There are huge differences in our attitude toward the environment. 
Look, we have gotten rid of more regulations than the two previous 
Republican Presidents have. We have given more authority to the States 
and local governments. We've even privatized more Government operations. 
I do not like Federal bureaucracies. The Federal Government is 300,000 
people smaller than it was the day I took the oath of office. It's the 
size it was when John Kennedy was President.
    But the air is cleaner; the water is purer; the food is safer; there 
are fewer toxic waste dumps. And I think we have established the fact 
that on the environment, our philosophy is right and theirs is wrong. 
Their philosophy is, we hope somebody will clean up the environment, but 
nothing should be allowed to get in the way of short-term economic gain. 
My philosophy is, we owe it to our children and our grandchildren to 
keep the environment and improve it. And we have proved that you can 
grow the economy faster with new technologies if you're committed to 
cleaning up the environment. It's a clear choice, and let's not pretend 
that there is no choice there. There is a choice there.
    So I've enjoyed these fights enormously. [Laughter] I like to 
debate; I like to argue. But I am impatient with those who think it 
doesn't make a difference. It makes a difference. And when I think about 
how far this country has come in the last 5 years and what we still have 
to do to build our bridge to the 21st century, when I think about the 
honest differences--I don't want to get into condemnation here, I'm 
talking about the honest differences in the parties--I know that a 
person like Jay Nixon could make a positive contribution to the people 
of Missouri and the people of this country. And I know that it would 
help in the fights we've still got ahead of us.
    We finally--finally--succeeded, against intense opposition, in 
convincing a bipartisan majority of the Congress to embrace the 
elemental notions that it's high time in America we had some national 
standards of academic excellence and we quit putting kids out of school 
that can't read, write, and count; and instead, we give the schools of 
our country the trained teachers, the technology, the support they need, 
but there has to be, first, high expectations, high standards, and high 
measurements to see if they're being met. Every child in this country is 
capable of learning, but I'll guarantee you, a child in difficult 
circumstances with low expectations won't. And it's to the poorest 
children that we have the highest obligation to give a world-class 
education.
    Now, I'm not trying to have the Federal Government take over 
education. Their argument was that the Federal Government should keep 
its mouth shut about education, maybe write a check. My argument is, we 
put more money into education in this last budget than any Presidency 
and any administration in 35 years, but it's not a question of money. 
It's money plus standards. It's a big issue. And I could give you--if we 
had all night, I could talk to you all night about the differences 
between our parties. It makes a difference. A Senator's vote makes a 
difference.
    Last year they held all these judges hostage, in an election year, 
hoping against hope I'd get beat and they wouldn't have to appoint them 
at all. This year, I had a 4-year term; they still only confirmed 35 
judges--slow walk and everything. It's like pulling teeth.

[[Page 1602]]

    One of the finest people you ever met, this man, Bill Lee, that I've 
nominated to head the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, a 
Chinese immigrant raised in Harlem, devoted his entire life to the civil 
rights of people of all colors in this country. The Senate Judiciary 
Committee says they don't really think they should confirm him, even 
though he has sworn to uphold the letter of the law, even though he is 
unquestionably qualified--intellectually, in terms of experience and 
moral character--because he agrees with me that we shouldn't just throw 
out all affirmative action.
    This is an unusual position they're taking: The President must 
appoint someone to the Civil Rights Division who is not committed to 
civil rights in the way the President is. Now, if the Democrats had felt 
that way, you wouldn't have half the people on the Supreme Court that 
are on there today. If the Democratic majority in the Senate had done a 
Republican President that way, you wouldn't have that.
    There are differences in terms of what we do and how we do it. 
That's why I'm here tonight. I'm telling you, the next 50 years can be 
the best years this country ever had. If I told you 5 years ago, come 
back in 5 years and we'll have the lowest unemployment rate in 24 years, 
the lowest crime rate in 24 years, the biggest drop in welfare in 
history, and the environment will be improving even though the economy 
is growing, you would have said, ``I'll take that bet.'' And you'd be 
darn proud of it. And if I said, ``Oh, and by the way, we'll have passed 
the family and medical leave law, we'll give families tax cuts for their 
children and for their children's education, and if they'll adopt other 
children that need a home, we'll cut their taxes,'' you would like that. 
All that has happened because of choices that have been made. And I 
believe the direction that our party has taken has led the way toward 
building an American future where we can go forward together.
    That's the last thing I'll say. Just look around the theater on your 
way out. How do you want to feel about America? How do want to feel 
about American politics? Do you want to make it lift your eyes and you 
feel big and you want to take a deep breath? Or do you want it to be a 
mean-spirited, divisive, demeaning, diminishing experience? I have tried 
to give this country a unifying vision. I have tried to heal the 
divisions of the country. I have tried to minimize the sharpness of the 
partisan debate. But I am prouder tonight to be a Democrat than I was 5 
years ago. And I am prouder tonight because I know things I could never 
have known before I became President about the importance of every 
single solitary vote in the United States Senate.
    He is a good man, and if you will work for a year, you'll make him a 
Senator.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 9 p.m. on the stage at the Fox Theater. In 
his remarks, he referred to Leon and Mary Strauss, owners of the 
theater; and Mr. Nixon's opponent, incumbent Senator Christopher S. 
Bond.