[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
[April 25, 1999]
[Pages 631-635]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in a Discussion Entitled ``The Third Way: Progressive Governance 
for the 21st Century''
April 25, 1999

[Moderator Al From, president of the Democratic 
Leadership Council, opened the discussion.]

    President Clinton. Thank you very much. I'd like to begin just by 
expressing my profound gratitude to Al From and to 
all the people at the Democratic Leadership Council for having the 
passion and the patience to work at this for years and years and years.
    I, too, want to thank Hillary and 
the hearty band within the White House who keep us focused on the big 
ideas and values that got us here in the first place. And I'd like to 
say a special word of thanks to my friend and aide Sidney 
Blumenthal for the work that he's done in 
trying to put this meeting together.
    I would also like to just very briefly say how very much I admire 
the people who are here with me at this table today, how much I have 
learned from them, how much I look forward to working with them at every 
opportunity.
    Wim Kok, from The Netherlands, actually was 
doing all this before we were. He just didn't know that--he didn't have 
anybody like Al From who could put a good label on it. [Laughter] But he 
was doing it, for years and years and years. Tony Blair has made me long for a parliamentary system. [Laughter] 
Gerhard Schroeder had to wait even longer 
than I did--[laughter]--and was also a distinguished Governor. And 
Massimo D'Alema has proved that you--I 
think--I'll make you a prediction here--I think he is already proving 
that even in Italy, where governments tend to be like the flavor of the 
month for ice cream, that the right sort of politics can have a 
sustained long-term impact on some of the most wonderful people in the 
world. So I'm honored to be here with all of them.
    I'd like to thank my friend and ally Congressman Cal Dooley, who is out there; the Secretary of Transportation, 
Rodney Slater; the Secretary of the 
Army, Louis Caldera, who helped me in so many 
ways. And we're going to hear afterward from Lieutenant Governor 
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former 
Governor and Democratic Party Chairman Roy Romer, 
Mayor Wellington Webb of Denver, and 
Commissioner Michael Thurmond. I thank 
them.
    All of you know we've just finished a 3-day NATO conference, 
celebrating the 50th anniversary of NATO, bringing in new members, 
celebrating an astonishing partnership with over 40 countries, including 
the countries of southeastern Europe, all except for Serbia, and the 
countries of central Asia in this amazing new group which, itself, is 
full of Third Way questions.
    At our last luncheon, one of the members made a crack that we had 
five members of the last Politburo of the Soviet Union sitting around 
our table today. And another one said, ``Yes, and a lot of the rest of 
us should have been on the Politburo, but we weren't.'' [Laughter] And 
it was a picture of how much the world has changed.
    What gives rise to this kind of politics? When the old order is 
destroyed or when the realities of daily life or popular dreams can no 
longer be accommodated by a given set of political arrangements or a 
political debate. We see that in southeastern Europe today with the 
crisis in

[[Page 632]]

Kosovo, where the old choice is between state stability and being 
consumed by ethnic hatreds, and what we're arguing for is a new 
integration based on the embrace of difference, not the oppression of 
it.
    I would like to just pose a couple of questions and then let our 
panelists take off. You heard Al From say that basically our lodestars 
have always been in the United States the concept of opportunity, 
responsibility, and community. We've worked on this for years. We tried 
to think of simpler and more complex ways to say what we stand for, but 
we've never done any better than that.
    So I think I will just leave it there. But let me say, what could 
that mean in the present time? What is giving rise to all these people's 
elections? Why is this happening everywhere? It's not some blind 
coincidence. I believe it is because the social arrangements which were 
developed within countries and the international arrangements among 
them, which grew up from the Great Depression through the Second World 
War and then the cold war, are no longer adequate to meet the challenges 
of the day.
    And most of the parties of the right made a living by beating us in 
elections by saying how bad we were. And whatever--we were always for 
more Government, and they were for less of it. And if you thought it 
was, by definition, bad, then less is always better than more.
    So they had quite a run in the 1980's. And then it became readily 
apparent that that didn't really solve any problems and that there were 
serious questions that demanded serious answers. So I will just pose 
three and then let our panelists go in whatever order they would like.
    I seems to me that the great question that any political party that 
purports to represent ordinary citizens must answer is: How do you make 
the most of the economic possibilities of the global information economy 
and still preserve the social contract? What can governments do to help 
make sure that every responsible citizen has a chance to succeed in the 
global economy? And how can we discharge our responsibilities, as the 
leaders of wealthy countries, to put a human face on the global economy 
so that in other countries, as well, no one who's willing to work is 
left behind?
    The second question I'd like to ask is, what is the nature of the 
social contract now, and how is it different from what it used to be? 
What does it mean? Are there entitlements that we should still have? 
Beyond entitlements, what are the empowerment issues of the social 
contract? What is the role of the private sector and the relationship of 
the government to it?
    And finally, what do we mean by the concept of community? Who's in? 
Who's out? And how can we create a concept of both national and 
international community that is a more powerful magnet drawing people 
together than the awful magnets pulling them apart, rooted in racial and 
ethnic and religious difference throughout the world?
    And I will leave with that. It is a cruel irony that in this world 
we're entering, that we have always celebrated in our dreams as a place 
of unbelievable technological explosion, unbelievable scientific 
advance, unbelievable advances in health care, and using computer 
technology to empower people in small African and Latin American 
villages, for example, to learn things--would be dominated by the most 
primitive hatreds in all of human history, those rooted in our basic 
fear of people who are different from us. How can we construct a 
community in which those forces pulling us together are more powerful 
than those tearing us apart?
    There are hundreds of questions we debate all the time, but just 
about every question we debate falls within one of those three 
categories. And so having set it up like that, we have no agenda, and 
I'll just turn it over to our friends.
    Mr. Blair, would you like to go first?

[At this point, Prime Minister Tony Blair of the 
United Kingdom, Prime Minister Wim Kok of The 
Netherlands, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder 
of Germany, and Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema of Italy presented their opening remarks.]

    President Clinton. I should say that the Prime Minister is a good friend of the man who is now the most 
famous Italian in America, Roberto Benigni. 
And after his performance at the Academy Awards, you have both affection 
and respect. [Laughter]
    I would just like to try to comment on a couple of things, to maybe 
make the conversation somewhat more specific and sort of segue into the 
participation of our other American leaders here.
    If you look at this whole Third Way challenge, in America, for the 
Democratic Party, it meant we had to prove we could manage the economy

[[Page 633]]

in an intelligent way and then deal with the whole question of social 
justice. And in our country, those questions basically meant three 
things. One is what to do about the poor and how to have a welfare 
system that empowered people who could take care of themselves but also 
took care of people who could not take care of themselves--first 
question.
    The second question, how to deal with the fact that we had 
phenomenal economic growth but increasing inequality. That inequality 
had been increasing for quite a long time, partly because of Government 
policies, partly because the new economy gives such a wage premium to 
education and skills.
    And the third question, to my mind, in many ways the most important, 
how can this country with all of its phenomenal success and low 
unemployment--the lowest unemployment in 30 years--and now, finally, 
rising wages again, how can we strike the right balance, a better 
balance between work and family--give families the support they need to 
raise their children, take care of their parents, have the time they 
need, have the child care, the health care they need, and still maintain 
the economic dynamism? What is the right balance?
    Now, for Europe, it goes the other way. I wish Prime Minister 
Jospin were here from France. Very 
interesting--France has had economic growth averaging over 3 percent for 
the last 3 or 4 years, but their unemployment rate hasn't gone below 11 
percent, I think--something like that--anyway, still in double digits. 
And we know from our own experience that when unemployment--I mean, when 
growth can be sustained above 2\1/2\ percent in an industrial society, 
normally the unemployment will go down until it bottoms out at around, 
at least around 6 percent, even without going over 3 percent.
    So the European question is, how do you get growth manifested in 
jobs and not give up your social solidarity? In America the question is, 
how do we keep all this growth--we love it--and get a little more 
stability for families and make sure we have done what we should for the 
poorest of our communities and our people and try to make sure that 
Americans who do work and carry the load in this country have a chance 
to have more of the growth in terms of their personal wealth and well-
being. So to some extent, we are crossing.
    Now, I mention that to just give you a couple of specific examples. 
Gerhard Schroeder mentioned the German job training system. We sort of 
copied a lot of elements of that and tried to amend it for America in 
setting up our school-to-work program in 1993, because the Germans do 
the best job of moving people from--who do not go on to university for 4 
years--moving most people into the workplace with modern skills so they 
can claim a higher wage.
    And in our country, we have--John Sweeney, the head of the American labor movement--the labor 
apprenticeship programs. A lot of the labor training programs do a good 
job of that, but as a society, we don't do as good a job of that. So 
we're trying to improve that.
    Another interesting example: How do you deal with the fact that more 
and more people are working at home, more and more people are working in 
flexible work environments? You're going to have more and more part-time 
jobs. How is that consistent with maintaining a kind of social safety 
net? I would argue that The Netherlands have done the best job of that. 
Wim Kok's country has the highest percentage of voluntary part-time 
workers in all of Europe; that is, they choose to do so. And they've 
worked out an agreement, which maybe he would like to talk about, so 
that even the part-time workers earn, on a pro rata basis, their 
vacation--annual vacation rights, and have retirement and health care 
and other things. They have the social protections. And there it makes 
them more willing when necessary to take part-time work. This is a big 
deal.
    When I became President in America, there were 3 million people 
making a living primarily out of their own home, for example. When I was 
reelected, there were 12 million. Now there are 20 million, in only 2 
years. So this economy is going to, if you will, atomize a lot. It's 
going to get a lot more diverse and kaleidoscopic. So we'll have a lot 
of challenges to face in having the proper sense of social safety net.
    And then, as I said, the most important thing is getting it right 
between work and family, since I think we would all admit that the most 
important job of any society is raising children as well as possible, 
something we are even more burdened with in the moment, that conviction.
    So I just throw those ideas out. These are things that are going on 
in other countries,

[[Page 634]]

something that we're battling with here constantly. And I wonder if any 
of you would like to comment on that.

[Prime Minister Kok and Chancellor Schroeder offered 
comments.]

    President Clinton. Let me just say very briefly, I think when we 
meet in Germany in the next few weeks with the G-8, I hope we will 
ratify a number of changes to the global financial system that I believe 
will be adopted by the international financial institutions and other 
bodies that will avoid having another financial crisis like the one we 
saw in Asia that we have all worked so hard to keep from spreading to 
Latin America and elsewhere.
    And it really is a classic Third Way problem, because what happened 
was, in the last 50 years after World War II when the so-called Bretton 
Woods instruments were developed, the IMF, the World Bank, and others 
designed to promote global trade and global investment, with the 
explosion of technology and the explosion of trade, more and more money 
had to move around the world.
    And then as always happens, there came an independent market in 
money, unrelated to the trade and investment. So that now every year, 
every day, there will be about $1.5 trillion in trade per day in goods 
and services, and the amount of money that moves--excuse me, $1.5 
trillion a day in trade in money, which is roughly 15 times the daily 
volume of trade in goods and services. And that's the basic problem. So 
we don't have a framework that has the right incentives to keep that 
from getting out of hand and collapsing economies, protecting people 
from their own foolishness, as well as from the foolishness of 
investors.
    But I think we can make some changes and keep the growth going and 
get rid of the problems, which is obviously the kind of balance we've 
been striving for.
    Anybody else?

[Prime Minister D'Alema and Prime Minister 
Blair offered comments. Mr. From then introduced Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy 
Townsend of Maryland; former Gov. 
Roy Romer of Colorado; Mayor Wellington E. 
Webb of Denver, CO; and Labor 
Commissioner Michael L. Thurmond of 
Georgia, who each made brief remarks.]

    President Clinton. Well, let me say, first of all, I want to thank 
all four of them for speaking here today and for the work they do. And 
they're all friends of mine, and I was sitting here feeling like--sort 
of like a proud father or something. I'm so proud of my friendship of 
many years with Governor Romer; and Mayor 
Webb, who did so much to help me become 
President; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. We're glad your mother is here. Ethel, welcome. There is no Lieutenant Governor in America who 
has had remotely the impact that she has had on the lives of her 
constituents. It's a stunning thing in many ways. And I think Mr. 
Thurmond can speak for himself. 
[Laughter] But I'm really proud of him, as well.
    You see--the reason--let me just say, one of the reasons that I so 
much love the DLC and I was so proud of hearing them talk is that for 
most of us, including those of us at this table, the stories you just 
heard--that's why we got in politics. And then when you become a leader 
of a country and you're arguing about what's in some bill or what is the 
debate before the Parliament or the Congress or--if you're not careful, 
the debate gets very abstract and very frozen and very wooden and very 
meaningless to the people that put you in this position in the first 
place.
    And the further you get away from your constituency--and I think 
sometimes our friends in the press almost contribute to this in a way, 
because they have difficulties, too. You know, they have to write a 
complicated subject, and they've got to get a headline out of it. Or 
they have to figure out how to take an issue that's going on and how to 
put it into 15 seconds on the evening news.
    But what you just heard is the ultimate test of whether ideas and 
our values and our work amount to a hill of beans. It's whether it 
changes the lives of people in concrete, positive ways. And so, I just 
want to thank them and those whom they represent. And I'd like to give 
my fellow panelists here the chance to make any comments or ask 
questions they'd like of those who just spoke.
    Tony, do you want to start?

[Prime Minister Blair and Prime Minister Kok made remarks.]

    President Clinton. I just want to comment on one thing, because a 
lot of you talked about at what level something should be done. We're 
having a huge Third Way debate here in this country that has many 
different manifestations

[[Page 635]]

related to how the Federal Government should give money to local 
governments in various areas. And it's very interesting. By and large, 
the Republicans will say--and they really believe this--that since we 
can't run law enforcement, for example, we should just set aside how 
much money we want to give and give it to local government and say, ``Go 
enforce the law. They'll lower crime.'' And the old motto would have 
been, we would have passed a law which would have had 15 different 
programs, each with a different subcommittee chairman's name on it, and 
said, ``Go spend the money in this way.''
    Now, what I'm trying to do is to say, ``Okay, we shouldn't tell you 
how to do things, but you have told us what works.'' Therefore, we 
should stop giving money for things that don't work and start giving 
money for things that do. So we say, ``If community police works, that's 
what we should do.'' If Kathleen's 
program works on testing parolees, which by the way, I'm trying to get 
enough money out of Congress to do that nationwide, just what she said. 
She's proved it's worked, right? So we don't tell them whether they 
should contract with people to do the drug testing or what they should 
do or exactly how they should do it. But I think we should say, ``Look, 
in Maryland, this works. Therefore, we'll give you the money if you do 
this. But we're not going to just give you the money, and you decide 
whether you want to waste it or not.''
    And that's the debate we're having, you know, because we're not 
trying to micromanage local government, but we are trying to take things 
that work and say, ``Okay, if they work in Denver, or if they work in 
Georgia, if they work someplace else, we need to stop funding things 
that don't work, start funding things that do. But we're not going to 
tell you how to do it. You figure out how, but this is a thing that 
works, and so do it.''
    And it's a big debate. And I urge you all to watch it this year. 
It'll play itself out in three or four different areas. And we may not 
win them all. But I think it's a very important debate to have, because 
it will be about the nature of the Federal responsibility in a lot of 
areas in the years ahead.
    Would anyone else like to talk before we adjourn? Gerhard, do you 
want to say anything else? Massimo?

[Chancellor Schroeder and Prime Minister 
D'Alema made remarks.]

    President Clinton. Thank you. Yes, I'm not sure I would even have 
you here, Massimo, if I were running for 
reelection. [Laughter]
    No, no, I'll tell you a serious story. Hillary and I went to Italy 
over a decade ago, and we were in northern Italy, and I met these 
Italian Communists who were anti-Soviet Union, pro-NATO, and pro-free 
enterprise. And I thought to myself, I've got to be very careful about 
what words mean, anymore. It was amazing. [Laughter]
    Let me introduce three more people who came here and are just as 
tired as our panelists are, and they sat through this whole thing. I'd 
like to thank Cherie Blair, Rita Kok, and Doris Schroeder-
Koepf for being here. Thank you all for coming and being a part of this.
    And let me say, I'm sure you all know that this was a very difficult 
but profoundly important 3-day meeting we had of NATO. And all these 
leaders, I think, must be quite exhausted. We have worked very hard and 
tried to do the right thing on every front. But they cared enough about 
these ideas and the worldwide movement to try to achieve what we have 
worked on and believe in, in common, that they came here to be with us. 
And I think we owe them all a very great debt of gratitude, and we thank 
them.

[Mr. From thanked the participants and closed the 
discussion.]

Note: The discussion entitled ``The Third Way: Progressive Governance 
for the 21st Century,'' began at 5:21 p.m. at the National Press Club 
Building. In his remarks, the President referred to actor-director 
Roberto Benigni; Prime Minister Lionel Jospin of France; John J. 
Sweeney, president, AFL-CIO; Ethel Kennedy, mother of Lt. Gov. Kathleen 
Kennedy Townsend; Cherie Blair, wife of Prime Minister Blair; Rita Kok, 
wife of Prime Minister Kok; and Doris Schroeder-Koepf, wife of 
Chancellor Schroeder. The transcript released by the Office of the Press 
Secretary also included the remarks of the other participants.