    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [April 23, 1998]
    [Pages 608-610]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for Supporters of the Omnibus Budget
    Reconciliation Act of 1993
    April 23, 1998

        Thank you. Many of you have said to me tonight that this was like a
    reunion. I hope you have loved being here and enjoyed seeing each other,
    but you couldn't be nearly as happy to be here as Hillary and Al and I
    are to have you here.
        And I just want to say--there are a couple of other people I would
    like to mention. There are so many people in the administration who were
    crucial to this, but I want to add my thanks to Mack McLarty and acknowledge Gene Sperling. I want to thank Larry Summers, our Deputy Treasury Secretary; and in absentia, I'd like
    to thank Laura Tyson, Bob Rubin, Leon Panetta, and our
    friend Lloyd Bentsen, who's been a little
    under the weather, and I hope we will never forget him.
        I never will forget when he came down to Arkansas before I got sworn
    in, and in that sort of dour, Texas, patrician way of his, and said,
    ``Now, if we don't reduce the deficit by at least $500 billion, interest
    rates will not go down and the market will not go up.'' [Laughter] And
    then they proceeded to tell me how hard it would be to do that, based on
    accepted scoring techniques. And then we proceeded to do what we all
    did.
        And I want to thank you because it was so easy, there was no arm
    twisting involved. [Laughter] Not a deal made, it was all a high-flown
    sort of thing. [Laughter] I'm so indebted to all of you. I would like to
    thank especially Bob Kerrey for never
    releasing the contents of our last telephone conversation. [Laughter]
    And I don't know if he's here tonight, but I invited him. I'd like to
    say a special work of thanks, too, to Roger Altman, who ran our war room, which helped us to keep that non-
    pressure up. [Laughter] But it was a wonderful experience.
        I, too, would like to personally thank George Mitchell, who has done a magnificent job in the Irish peace
    process. And I want to thank

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    Speaker Foley, too, who is doing a great job
    in Japan. And I want to join what has already been said about Senator
    Moynihan and Chairman
    Rostenkowski. In different ways, they were
    both absolutely indispensable.
        You should take a lot of pride at this golden moment in America's
    history, with the economy up and our social problems down and the
    deficit going to zero. All of you know that it's one of those rare
    moments, as the Vice President said, where you can literally say that
    this has happened because of the energy and spirit of the American
    people, but also because we passed an economic plan that liberated that
    energy and spirit.
        In every home where wages are rising and people now have jobs, in
    every town which was down and is now up, there are millions of people
    who are in your debt. And I did mostly just want you all to be in this
    room so I could say on their behalf, thank you, and God bless you for
    what you did.
        I want you to think a little bit about what this plan represented.
    One of the reasons I ran for President was it seemed to me that everyone
    knew that something bad was wrong, but no one was prepared to do what it
    took to change it; and that we had to replace drift and deadlock with a
    real sense of momentum and purpose.
        In the process of passing this plan, you set a new direction for our
    country, forged a new identity for our party, and helped to revitalize
    and redefine the whole idea of progressive government for a new century
    and a new economy.
        You know, we knew we had to bring deficits down, and they were
    enormous. But we also knew that we could do it, and we had to do it, and
    still invest in our future, in education, in health care, in tax cuts
    for small businesses and for 15 million of the hardest-pressed working
    people. Because you doubled that earned-income tax credit in that
    economic plan, which was a painful thing--it required us to do a lot of
    other things that were exceedingly difficult--you need to know, tonight
    when you go to bed, I want you to think about this--there are 2.2
    million children who are not in poverty because you did that. And you
    should be very proud of that.
        When you replaced trickle-down economics with invest-and-grow
    economics and let this economy spring to life, you took a situation
    where we had a deficit with $290 billion and brought it down before the
    bipartisan balanced budget plan, which I also supported and believed in.
    But before that plan saved one red cent, the deficit had already been
    brought down by more than 90 percent, 93 percent, to be exact. The
    deficit used to have 11 zeros; now it will have no zeros. In fact, we're
    going to be in surplus.
        In '92 the unemployment rate was 7.5 percent; now it's the lowest in
    25 years. In '92 new jobs were scarce; now there are 15 million more.
    Business investment has increased, more than any--at a rate higher than
    any time since the Kennedy administration. From '81 to '92 real wages
    fell; last year the average paycheck of the American worker rose 2.9
    percent, the fastest growth in more than 20 years.
        Soon we will mark the longest peacetime expansion in our history.
    Merrill Lynch says there has never been a better economy. Goldman Sachs
    says it's the best economy America has ever had. And just as important,
    maybe, over the long run, when you took this vote and weathered the
    consequences, you began to restore the faith of the American people in
    their Government.
        Americans are always given to a healthy distrust of government, and
    that's good. A lot of our Constitution is structured to prevent the
    abuse of power, and well it should be. But for too long, this skepticism
    risked running into a sort of corrosive cynicism. A lot of people had
    become convinced by the time I ran for President that the Government
    couldn't organize a two-car parade--[laughter]--and that everything we
    did that looked bold led to unintended consequences, most of which were
    bad.
        Well, the '93 economic plan worked, and it worked for the reasons we
    said it would work. So in a way, with that law, you actually enacted a
    law of intended consequences in American public life, and therefore, you
    helped to lift the public's appreciation for what we could do through
    representative government.
        The vote you cast was probably among the most difficult ever cast by
    Members of the Congress of the United States in the history of our
    Republic. You had withering partisan criticism. I can only ask you to
    remember the people you helped, the families you strengthened, the
    opportunity you created.
        Let me just give you three examples. Karen Shephard represented a district in the only State where I ran
    third in 1992. [Laughter] But because she took the vote she did, those
    people,

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    notwithstanding the fact that sometimes they stray in their political
    judgment--[laughter]--have an unemployment rate of 3.1 percent. Karan
    English, because of the courage you showed in 1993, Arizona has the
    fastest job growth in its history. And Marjorie Mezvinsky, because you
    laid down your seat, your county has the fastest job growth of any
    county in the entire State of Pennsylvania. Unemployment has dropped by
    25 percent. And it gave me a great deal of pleasure to have you sit with
    the First Lady at the State of the Union Address this year when I
    announced that. Because of the vote all of you cast, we would in fact,
    balance the budget years ahead of schedule.
        In ``Profiles in Courage,'' President Kennedy wrote these words:
    ``Democracy means much more than popular government and majority rule,
    much more than a system of political techniques to flatter or deceive
    powerful blocs of voters. A democracy that has no moment of individual
    conscience in a sea of popular rule is not worthy to bear that name.''
        Karen, Karan, and Marjorie, to all the rest of you, every one of you
    has a story. And I only wish I could tell them all tonight. The 103d
    Congress was chock-full of profiles in courage. And when you add them
    all up, by the narrowest of margins, repeatedly, they led to the first
    balanced budget in 30 years, and American economic renaissance, and a
    resurgent conviction on the part of our people that together we can
    solve our problems and seize our opportunities, and do great things;
    that our old-fashioned Government that Mr. Washington and his friends
    helped to start still works in this newfangled age if it has the right
    people willing to do the right things at the right time.
        It is altogether a monument to your determination, your conscience,
    and overall, your love of your country. So on behalf of your country,
    again I say, thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:54 p.m. in the State Dining Room at the
    White House. In his remarks, he referred to Counselor to the President
    and Special Envoy for the Americas Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty; former
    Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Laura D'Andrea Tyson;
    former Director of the Office of Management and Budget Leon E. Panetta;
    former Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen; former Deputy Secretary
    of the Treasury Roger Altman; former Senator George J. Mitchell,
    independent chairman of the multiparty talks in Northern Ireland; former
    Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas S. Foley; and former
    chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Dan Rostenkowski.