    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [May 4, 1998]
    [Pages 688-690]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 688]]

    Remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Dinner in Chicago,
    Illinois
    May 4, 1998

        Thank you very much. Well, first, let me--a lot of things have
    already happened here tonight that I didn't intend to happen. [Laughter]
    And I feel that I should quit while I'm still not too far behind.
    [Laughter] It's not often that a man in his declining years can
    demonstrate a loss of hearing, a loss of memory, and a loss of the
    muscles necessary to play a saxophone all in one fell swoop. [Laughter]
    But even when I was a kid, when I was a teenager and I could play pretty
    well, there was one unbroken rule that all of us who actually played and
    tried to earn a little money--never, never walk into a strange place and
    pick up a strange horn. [Laughter] And if you do, always have your own
    mouthpiece. [Laughter] And if you disregard both rules, you deserve
    whatever happens to you. [Laughter] But I had a good time. And the
    musicians and Shelley covered my sins pretty
    well. You were terrific. Thank you, Bill and
    Shelley, for having us here. [Applause] Thank you.
        I want to thank Bill and Shelley and Jim and all the people who
    worked on this dinner tonight. I thank all of you for coming. I thank
    Dick Durbin for his great service in the
    Senate and for his good humor. I wish I'd written down those cracks;
    they were pretty funny. [Laughter]
        Thank you, Mayor Daley, for everything
    you do. And everything they said about you, I agree with, and then some.
    I'd like to also thank Bill Daley for being
    a truly terrific Secretary of Commerce and doing a great job for us. I'd
    like to also tell you that another Chicagoan whose parents are here
    tonight, Todd Stern, who served for some time as
    basically the White House secretary--he organized all the affairs of my
    life, virtually--has now taken on a huge responsibility to lead our
    administration's effort at complying with the climate change treaty we
    signed onto, to try to figure out how we can make our contribution to
    fight global warming and continue to grow the American economy. We were
    out in California today illustrating just exactly how we intend to do
    that. And so, he has done a great job.
        You know, I love to come to Chicago. I am so indebted to Chicago--
    for my wife, for a great convention, for two elections. I still have the
    picture on my wall in my private office in the White House where Hillary
    and I were together at the hotel here in Chicago on St. Patrick's Day in
    1992. It was on that night when the votes from Illinois and Michigan
    came in, in the primary, that I knew I would be the nominee of my party.
    And I owe Illinois a very great deal in this great city.
        I want to just take a couple of minutes--you know, you're all here;
    you've made your contributions; you're warm; and you want to go home.
    [Laughter] And you had to put up with our music, and I thank you. But
    I'd like to ask you to leave and ask yourselves, why did I go there
    tonight, and if somebody asked me tomorrow morning, what answer will I
    give--somebody I know who had never been to a fundraiser, asked me
    tomorrow morning why did I go there, what answer will I give? It
    certainly can't be that you wanted to hear me play the saxophone.
    [Laughter]
        In 1992, and indeed, in '91, I ran for President because I thought
    our country was moving into a dramatically different era, the way we
    work, the way we live, the way we relate to each other, the way we
    relate to the whole rest of the world would be challenged and would have
    to change.
        And at every great time of challenge in this country's history, we
    have always met the challenge by throwing off the dead hand of the past
    in terms of policies and finding new ways that were consistent with our
    oldest and deepest values. We've always found a way to deepen the
    meaning of our freedom, to widen the circle of opportunity, to come
    together as one country.
        And a lot of people said to me, ``That's not going to be possible in
    a global economy. Our country is just going to be pulled apart by all
    these economic forces moving through the world. And we're not going to
    get closer together, we're going to get more divided because we're
    becoming simply too diverse.'' It's all very well to talk about it, but
    you've got county after county after county with people from more than
    100 different racial and ethnic groups. The school district across the
    river from the White

    [[Page 689]]

    House that I can literally see when I walk to work every morning has
    children in it from 180 different racial, national, and ethnic groups,
    speaking over 100 different languages, in one school district.
        And people have said to me, ``But look at this deficit--you're a
    Democrat, you'll never be able to do anything positive because you've
    got this big deficit.'' And I believe we could do better. And for 5\1/2\
    years, with the help of the two people who just spoke before me, we've
    been working at it steadily.
        So the first thing I'd like you to think about is, we're all very
    fortunate tonight and no one can claim full credit for it, but we live
    in a country that has its lowest unemployment rate in 28 years, its
    lowest inflation in 30 years, its highest consumer confidence in 30
    years, its highest homeownership ever, its lowest welfare rolls in 27
    years, its lowest crime rate in 24 years--as a nation. And we should be
    grateful for that.
        The second thing I'd like to say is, the last thing we should do is
    to stop doing the things that got us to where we are in the last 5\1/2\
    years. The last thing we should do is to be complacent, smug, arrogant,
    or lazy, or, I might add, small-minded. Because all you've got to do is
    follow the news, events around the world, events at home--the world is
    still spinning very fast; times are still changing profoundly. And this
    is a time to take advantage of the good things that are happening in our
    country, of the high level of confidence people feel in our ability to
    deal with our challenges, and get on about the business of moving our
    country into the 21st century.
        The second point I want to make is that we represent a party--Dick
    Durbin, Carol Moseley-Braun, the mayor, the
    Secretary, all of us--that is not trying to
    sit on its laurels and spend a lot of time crowing and claiming credit.
    We're trying to drive an agenda of change that will see us through to a
    new century and a dramatically new era.
        What is the agenda in Washington today? Our agenda is we're going to
    have the first budget surplus in 30 years; let's don't spend it until we
    save Social Security. Our agenda is let's do something to protect our
    kids from the dangers of tobacco; 3,000 kids start to smoke every day,
    even though it's not legal, and 1,000 will die sooner because of it.
        Our agenda is let's adopt a health care bill of rights. Over half
    our people are in HMO's; they can do a lot of good, but they ought to
    know that their choices and their quality is not going to be
    compromised. Let's provide affordable child care for all the working
    families that need it. Let's reform the IRS in a responsible way. Let's
    pass campaign finance reform. In the House of Representatives, our
    Democrats and a handful of very brave Republicans risked the ire of
    their superiors and said we're going to get one more shot at it this
    year.
        And most important of all, let's begin to deal with education on a
    national level, the way Chicago is trying to deal with it here in this
    community. If it were for no other reason--and there are more reasons--
    but the most important reason, I believe, to reelect Carol Moseley-
    Braun for the rest of the country is she
    has come to symbolize the idea that the National Government has a
    responsibility to help communities make our schools the best in the
    world again. She has come to symbolize that.
        She started with the idea that we
    ought to help rebuild a lot of these schools that are breaking down,
    that we ought to build new schools in the places were kids are being
    educated in housetrailers, that we cannot meet my goal of hooking up
    every classroom in the country to the Internet by the year 2000 when
    half the schools can't even take a computer hookup because they're in
    such desperate conditions.
        We also are trying to have smaller classes in the early grades. All
    that is part of the plan that she and I
    and Dick and our allies are trying to push
    in Congress. We also have a part of our budget which would give schools
    more money to open after school. Most juvenile crime occurs after school
    lets out, before the parents get home. And we're doing our best to
    actually get massive help to cities who will agree to do what Chicago
    has done, stop social promotion and give somebody the authority to make
    decisions in our schools.
        A big part of the problem in American schools today in the cities--
    there are good teachers everywhere; there are bright kids everywhere;
    there are dedicated principals everywhere; but somebody has got to be in
    charge. And if you have two or three different bureaucracies with four
    or five different sources of funds and people can keep batting the ball
    back and forth and nobody gets to say, up, down, or sideways,

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    you cannot reform a reluctant bureaucratic system. Our children deserve
    better.
        When the history of these schools is written on what is happening
    now and people look back on it, they will say one of the most important
    things that was done is they changed the way the laws work so someone
    could make a decision and then live with the consequences, good or bad.
    That has to be done. You cannot hope to do it.
        But we're saying in Washington, if you pass our budget and another
    city wants to undertake the efforts that Chicago is making, we'll give
    you some funds, we'll help you, we'll bring in experts, we'll do
    everything we can, but you have to take responsibility for your children
    and your future, and you have to be responsible first.
        So we have an agenda. The third point I want to make is, we're
    thinking about the long-term interest of the country. If you vote for
    Carol Moseley-Braun and she gets 6 more
    years--and I'll have by then, after that election, 2 more years--I'll
    tell you what I want to do. When I finish, I want to know that we've got
    a huge headstart on the long-term problems that will affect our country
    for the next 30 years.
        What are they? We have to reform Social Security and Medicare for
    the 21st century for the baby boom generation. We've got to prove we can
    grow the economy without continuing to deplete the environment. We have
    to prove that we can bring the spark of enterprise and jobs and
    opportunity to these inner-city neighborhoods and isolated rural places
    and to Native Americans living on reservations that have felt none of
    this economic recovery, so we can say everybody's got a fair chance in
    America. We have to prove we can build the best education system in the
    world--not just universities but elementary and secondary schools. And
    we've got to prove we can live together as one America.
        The other thing we have to do that I hope to persuade the American
    people I'm right about--I'm having a mixed record of success according
    to all the polls--is we have to continue to lead the world for peace and
    freedom. We have to continue to expand trade. We have to continue to
    stand up in places like Bosnia and Northern Ireland and Haiti. And the
    Secretary of State is in London today
    working for peace in the Middle East. We have to continue to do these
    things. And if we're going to do it, we have to pay our way. We have to
    pay our U.N. dues; we have to contribute to the International Monetary
    Fund. We can't say to people, we'd like to lead the world, but you pay
    the way. We're having a little fight in Washington, so we're not going
    to fulfill our responsibilities. This is an interdependent world, and
    our success depends upon our ability to be good, responsible partners.
        So I'd like to focus on those things. We need positive forces in
    Congress to do that. The President is not a dictator, and much of what
    needs to be done requires a cooperative relationship between the
    President and Congress. So when you go home tonight, you say, ``I went
    there because I'm grateful for what's happened and I support it; because
    they've got an agenda that they're working on even in this election
    year; because they're interested in the long-run problems of the
    country, and Carol Moseley-Braun is the
    best person to fight for those long-run solutions; and finally, because
    we love our country, and we want to do what's right by it.''
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:05 p.m. at a private residence. In his
    remarks, he referred to William Farley, chairman and chief executive
    officer, Fruit of the Loom, Inc., and his wife, Shelley, dinner hosts;
    Jim Levin, dinner cochair; Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago; and Todd
    Stern, Assistant to the President for Special Projects.