[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book II)]
[December 2, 1998]
[Pages 2115-2118]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 2115]]


Remarks at a Democratic Leadership Council Dinner
December 2, 1998

    Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I have to ask a couple of 
questions. The first question I want to ask is whether you can actually 
hear us. Can you hear? Some say yes; some say no. So-so. How's that? One 
of these mikes is working, but is that better? Okay. Still so-so. I'll 
do the best I can.
    You know, this magnificent gallery may not be the best place for a 
speech, but most of you have heard my speech anyway. But it is a 
wonderful place, full of the rich history of Washington, full of the 
great culture of our country. It has special memories for me, because I 
once stood on a platform in this very same spot, a little over 3 years 
ago, with King Hussein, Shimon Peres, Yasser Arafat, and the late Prime 
Minister Rabin--the last time I ever saw him. So I have always very 
strong feelings, when I come to this place, about the importance of the 
public mission of citizens.
    I was thinking on the way over here of the day, 7 years ago, when I 
spoke to the DLC in Cleveland, when our party was suffering, our Nation 
was struggling. The DLC was a very small group with very large ideas. 
And I said that we had to offer the American people a new choice rooted 
in old values, that offers opportunity, demands responsibility, gives 
citizens more say, provides them with responsive government, because we 
recognize that in fact we are a community. We are all in this together. 
We will go up or down together.
    These words--opportunity, responsibility, community--came to 
identify and embody a new approach to government and politics, tying our 
oldest, most enduring values to the information age. We said we wouldn't 
seek to stop the currents of economic change, but we would not, as 
Americans and as Democrats, tell our people they had to sink or swim on 
their own. We said that the way to advance the spirit of FDR was not to 
preserve his programs in amber but to remember that he said, ``New 
conditions impose new requirements.'' We said we were New Democrats, and 
we called our approach the Third Way.
    I think it's fair to say that our ideas were not universally 
welcomed or even wholly understood by some of our own fellow partisans, 
by the Republicans, or by the press. But we believed America could work 
again and America could lead again, and we won the Presidency in 1992.
    Then we made some tough and sometimes controversial decisions on the 
economy, on foreign policy, on crime, the environment, welfare, health 
care, but we got America moving again. And with our commitment to build 
a bridge to the 21st century, the American people gave our party the 
White House again in 1996, for the first time since 1936.
    And in 1997 and 1998 we continued to push these new ideas, and I 
believe we have regained the trust of the American people in their 
Government. Last month, standing strong and united on a platform of 
fiscal responsibility, strengthening Social Security, renewing our 
public schools, protecting people in the new health care marketplace, 
dealing with the challenges of the global financial crisis, our party 
won an historic election victory.
    I'm sure all of you know that it was the first time the President's 
party has gained seats in the House in the sixth year of the Presidency 
since 1822. Now, since I'm not a candidate anymore, I can say that the 
last time that happened, in 1822, the other party disappeared. 
[Laughter]
    I don't believe that will happen this time, partly because those in 
the other party who had the greatest success in this election year were 
those who campaigned with language and often even policies strikingly 
similar to our own. When Republican Governors stand in front of banners 
that say ``opportunity'' and ``responsibility,'' when they talk of 
community, it may not be the sincerest form of flattery, but it's 
flattery nonetheless. And even more, it's a sign that America is moving 
in the right direction, that the common sense and the uncommon dreams of 
the American people are being heard.
    All of you know, I'm sure, that these same ideas are reviving 
center-left political parties throughout the industrialized world as 
people everywhere struggle to put a human face on the global economy, 
from Great Britain and Germany to Greece and The Netherlands.
    Far from Europe, in Brazil, bold actions by like-minded President 
Cardoso have tamed that

[[Page 2116]]

country's notorious inflation, pointed the way for a new model for 
emerging democracies. And it all started with the DLC, a political 
movement begun by people, many of whom were in rooms like this when we 
all began. Today, less than 15 years after we started, the ideas pushed 
by the DLC are literally sweeping the world, and you should be very, 
very proud.
    I also think it is very important to point out that we have done 
more than fashion a politically appealing agenda that is well marketed. 
We have actually worked hard to find the right way to have a leading 
industrial nation thrive in the 21st century. We have worked hard to 
marry politics and policy, to build a new American consensus.
    Now, having said that, here's the main point I want to make tonight: 
This is not a time for self-congratulation. I applaud the work being 
done by the DLC, bringing in people today to talk about tomorrow's 
ideas, working on finding and training people to run for public office 
who share those ideas. We have got America working again, but many of 
the difficult tasks of transforming our country for a new century and a 
new millennium still lie ahead. And we have to understand that there 
will be obstacles in the path. There are genuine problems out there in 
the global economy. We are beginning to feel them here, in energy, in 
aerospace, in steel, in agriculture. We have to face these challenges.
    There are also many Americans who have not yet felt the benefit of 
the ideas we are pushing. There are many neighborhoods which still 
haven't seen the revitalization of enterprise that we're so proud of. 
There are many schools that still aren't working for their children. 
There are many challenges we have not met. Therefore, we have to move 
forward with a little humility, as well as with a great deal of 
determination.
    I'd like to talk about how we got here and ask you to remember three 
things as you go forward. First, our ideas have met the most important 
test: They actually work in the real world. If we want our ideas for 
tomorrow and the next day to work, they have to meet that test as well.
    There was a bestseller when I ran for President called ``America: 
What Went Wrong?'' In my first Inaugural Address, I said there is 
nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what is right with 
America. Today, the question is: America, what went right? What went 
right was new ideas: welfare reform; community policing; doubling the 
earned-income tax credit; creating AmeriCorps, which now has its 
100,000th member, and--they're doing a wonderful job around the 
country--and an economic plan that focused on reducing the deficit, 
expanding investment, and expanding trade.
    By almost every measure, American families are better off. We have 
also met our responsibilities to promote peace, prosperity, and security 
around the world. And perhaps best of all, our country is regaining its 
legendary faith in itself. We actually believe that we can make tomorrow 
better than today for all Americans willing to work hard and be good 
citizens.
    The second thing I think we ought to remember is that our ideas work 
because they're true to our values and our common sense. For too long, 
politics treated issues like education or crime or health care or 
welfare--you name it, any issue--as a battle over ideology, not a 
problem to be solved but a political matter to be exploited. The idea 
was to divide and conquer the electorate, to split blacks from whites, 
to split Hispanics and other immigrants from Americans who were born 
here, even though their parents or their grandparents or their great-
grandparents weren't, to split the North from the South, the middle 
class from the working class.
    If the American people said anything at all in the last election 
with a loud, resounding roar, it was, ``No, thank you; we do not want to 
be split anymore. We choose progress over partisanship.'' The American 
people, out of the wreckage of Oklahoma City, out of the horror of the 
African-American citizen being brutally murdered in east Texas, out of 
the awful death of young Matthew Sheppard, out of the shooting of the 
doctor in New York, out of the arguments around the kitchen table, 
somehow they always get it right if they've got enough time. And they 
said, ``In the world we're living in, our diversity is a blessing. It is 
a richness. It is our key to the future. We will not be divided. We are 
going forward together. There cannot be opportunity and responsibility 
unless there is community.''
    And we must never forget that lesson. It is our key, our heart and 
soul as a party.
    And as we look ahead, we have to confront these difficult issues. I 
want to remind you that we did not say ever that all the choices would 
be easy but that, if we had to make hard

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choices, they ought to be the real choices. It is a false choice to say 
that we have to choose between work and help for the needy. It is a 
false choice to say people ought to have to choose between doing right 
by their children and being effective at their jobs. It is a false 
choice to say we have to choose between punishing people who commit 
violent crimes and trying to prevent kids from committing those crimes 
in the first place. It is a false choice to say you have to choose 
between cleaning up the environment and growing the economy. And it is a 
false choice to say you have to choose between being proud of your race, 
your religion, or any other special characteristic you have, and being 
most proud of being an American and a child of God. Those are false 
choices. We have enough hard, real choices to make, and we should make 
them.
    The third thing I want to remind you of is that we made a decision 
that was profoundly important, that the way Government works matters, 
that we could not maintain the confidence of the American people and we 
could not have ideas that delivered unless the Government was 
functioning in a sensible, modern, and prudent way. Things that used to 
be boring, things you could never get people to stand still at a standup 
reception like that and listen to, became the Vice President's 
reinventing Government program. And we have worked at it very, very 
hard.
    We didn't take a chainsaw to the Government, but we did slim it 
down, and we did change the programs. And we now have the smallest 
Federal Government since the first time John Glenn went into space. And 
it works better. The last time John Glenn went into space, a couple of 
weeks ago, just for example, in the last 6 years, NASA, with a smaller 
staff and a smaller budget, had gone from two space launches a year to 
six space launches a year. That matters to people.
    It matters whether this thing works or not. And I know it will never 
get the headlines, and I know that it will not be in the reports of my 
speech tomorrow in the press, but it matters.
    If you like the fact that the crime rate went down, remember there 
had to be a system for getting the 100,000 police out there. If you 
believe it's a good thing to have welfare reform, but people who are 
moved from welfare to work should have child care and health care for 
their children, there had to be a system to do that. If you like the 
fact that we could cut the size of the deficit and increase our 
investment in education and transportation and many other areas, 
remember we had to reduce the size of Government by over 300,000 people 
to do that.
    So I ask you, don't forget about the nuts and bolts. They matter. It 
really does matter whether people get up every day and go to work and 
worry more about what they're doing than what is said about what they're 
doing in the daily columns. It is very, very important that we remain 
serious about this.
    The fourth thing that I want to say is that we have succeeded, in no 
small measure, because we understood that America's interests at home 
could no longer be divided from America's interests around the world; 
that America's values at home could no longer be protected unless we 
stood up for those values around the world. This is a very small globe.
    It is a good thing that we work for peace in the Middle East, in 
Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Northern Ireland. It is a good thing that we worry 
about nuclear weapons on the Indian subcontinent. It is a good thing 
that we worry about whether people half a world away will have their 
children's legs blown off by landmines, or may be subject to chemical or 
biological weapons. It is a good thing that we worry about whether 
pollution is destroying the environment of people in Latin America, in 
Asia, in some other place, because it will all come home here.
    We live in a world where our responsibilities to others are 
important and integral to our ability to do right by ourselves and our 
future. Those things we must remember.
    And as we look ahead, let me say that I am very, very excited about 
the next 2 years. I'm looking forward to this State of the Union; I'm 
looking forward to working with this Congress. As we always do, we will 
do our best to work with members of both parties. We hope that the 
people in the other party will come forward and work with us, because we 
have a big agenda.
    In the 20th century, we built a safety net to give dignity to our 
parents. In the 21st century, we have to prove that we can strengthen 
the Social Security system so we can take care of the baby boomers 
without bankrupting their children. We can do that.
    In the 20th century, we built the first-ever mass middle class in 
the world, in no small measure through strong public schools. In the

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21st century, with a much more diverse population, we have got to prove 
we can revolutionize those schools so they can prepare our children for 
the information age.
    In the 20th century, we found a way to tackle the cycles of boom and 
bust, to prevent another Great Depression from occurring. In the 21st 
century, we have to prove we can do that with the global financial 
crisis so that we can be secure at home. I will say again what I said 
before: What you see here, when farm prices go down in the high plains 
because of the Asian financial crisis, when Boeing has to lay people off 
because people can't buy the airplanes they've ordered, when the steel 
industry is overwhelmed by imports from countries who can sell for 
nothing because their currencies have depleted--when you see these 
crises, they are simply symptoms of the larger reality that will govern 
our children and our grandchildren's lives.
    We must be prepared to undertake the duty of leading the world 
toward a new resolution so that we can continue to grow the global 
economy without having another global collapse because we did not do our 
duty in our time, as our forebears did 50 years ago.
    Now, there are a lot of other things to do, but you get the point. I 
am so grateful that I was given the chance to serve as President; that I 
was given a chance to implement so many of the ideas that many of us 
began, in the mid-eighties, to articulate. But it is just a beginning. 
It took a good while just to get America up and working again.
    But when you reel off all the statistics--the lowest unemployment in 
28 years, the smallest percentage of people on welfare in 29 years, the 
first balanced budget and surplus in 29 years, the fastest-rising wages 
in over two decades, the lowest crime rate in 25 years, the highest 
homeownership in history--I say to you, all that means is that America 
is working again, and that's a great tribute to the American people as 
well as to the ideas that we have helped to make real. But we have not 
completed the process of transforming this country for the 21st century, 
for the information age, and all of you know it.
    So I say again, I ask you to leave here with renewed determination, 
with renewed energy, and with no little humility for the task ahead. 
When we met in Cleveland in 1991, no one there dreamed that we could 
have accomplished, either politically or substantively, for our country 
what has happened in the intervening years. No one but Al From; he knew 
it all along. [Laughter] No one else.
    And you can be proud of that. This is the work worthy of a lifetime. 
I'm proud that I was fortunate enough to meet Al and Will Marshall and 
all the DLC people; I'm proud that I was able to work with people like 
Joe Lieberman and John Breaux. And I have to mention one other of our 
early DLC members who had a very good day today, former Secretary of 
Agriculture Mike Espy. I know we all wish him well, and we're happy for 
him.
    But I leave you with this thought. The real test of our ideas is 
whether they outlive this Presidency; whether they are bigger than any 
candidate, any speech, any campaign, any debate. The real test is 
whether we can find a way to carry them on and on and on, and whether we 
can find a way to avoid self-satisfaction and self-congratulations, and 
always be searching for the new answers to the new challenges.
    If we remember the basic things that got us here, if we remember how 
we were when we started, if we keep the fire for the future of not only 
our party but our children, our country, and our world, then 8 years 
from now, 80 years from now, the DLC will be here, doing its job in 
America's greatest days.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 8:30 p.m. at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. 
In his remarks, he referred to King Hussein I of Jordan; former Prime 
Ministers Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin of Israel; Chairman Yasser 
Arafat of the Palestinian Authority; President Fernando Henrique Cardoso 
of Brazil; Al From, president, Democratic Leadership Council; and 
William Marshall, president, Progressive Policy Institute.