[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 39 (Monday, October 3, 1994)]
[Pages 1847-1851]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Reception for Senate Candidate Alan Wheat in Kansas City, 
Missouri

September 24, 1994

    Thank you very much, Governor Carnahan, for your leadership on so 
many fronts, on health care and welfare reform and for being a good 
friend and a good leader of this State. To you and Mrs. Carnahan, it's 
good to see you again. I have been here to Missouri and to Kansas City 
so much that the Governor and Mayor Cleaver told me that if I came one 
more time I would get a tax bill. [Laughter] But I have such a good time 
it might be worth it.
    I'm honored to be here with your Mayor and Mrs. Cleaver. I thank him 
for is leadership on the crime bill especially. He made a real 
difference in the work that he and the other mayors did. I'm honored to 
be here with Chairman McCarthy, who will be an able replacement for Alan 
Wheat. And with all your other distinguished supporters of Alan Wheat 
and Yolanda.
    I really wanted to come here tonight, and I hope you will give me a 
few moments to tell you why I think this is an important race to our 
country in terms of what it is I have been trying to do as your 
President.
    Two years ago, I ran for President at a time in my life when I 
didn't really want to do it. I was having a wonderful time as Governor 
of your neighboring State. Things were going very well for me and for my 
wonderful family. Our friends, our work, everything, was just perfect. 
And it didn't look like much of a race. At the time when I entered the 
race the incumbent President was at 70-some percent approval. So I not 
only was disrupting a job that I loved and my family life and my friends 
and the routines and the rhythm of normal life out here in the 
heartland, but it looked like it was a fool's errand.
    I did it for a pretty simple reason. I felt very strongly that our 
country was in trouble, that we were going in the wrong direction, and 
that we were coming apart when we ought to be coming together. I thought 
there was a serious chance that we would not go into the next century in 
a position to preserve the American dream for my daughter and for the 
children of this country.
    I thought the leadership that the other party had provided in the 
White House had followed economic policies that were unfair but, more 
importantly, didn't work and talked about the social problems in this 
country in ways that divided us in order to get them votes and turn the 
Democrats into aliens, making voters feel that we didn't somehow share 
their values. But they didn't much do anything about the social problems 
of the country.
    I thought both parties in Washington were guilty of being a little 
too partisan and used rhetoric, throwing at each other these words that 
we heard in sound bites on the evening news that didn't mean much to 
folks that are just living our here in the country, trying to make a 
living and raise their kids and deal with all the problems they face. 
And I thought we needed to take a new direction.
    I believed strongly that we needed to try to form a new consensus in 
America about what the National Government ought to do; that no one felt 
in this global economy, where more and more of our future is determined 
by our competitive ability, that the Government could be a savior, as 
people once felt. But neither, clearly to me, could we afford to have a 
National Government that just sat on the sidelines and preached at us 
except when they were called into play for the special interests. And we 
were given these two different models of what the National Government 
ought to do and neither one of them made any sense. We really needed 
somebody to go up there and bring common sense, common decency, 
compassion, say, ``Hey, let's identify our problems, identify what the 
National Government has to do and get after it. Let's be a good partner 
with the American people. Let's create opportunity where we can. Let's 
demand responsibility for the American people to do what they have to 
do. And let's recreate this American community, because when we're 
together, nothing can stop us.'' And I ran on that for President.
    I ran against what had happened for 12 years, more division, more 
diversion, more

[[Page 1848]]

distraction. The other crowd talked about the balanced budget amendment 
and quadrupled the debt. They told us how much they hated Government, 
and they hung on for all they were worth. [Laughter] A lot of the ones 
that bad-mouthed Government couldn't bear to live outside Washington, 
DC. They told us how terrible the Government was, and they kept drawing 
their check every month from the Government. [Laughter] They railed 
against taxes as if they were protecting the middle class, but middle 
class taxes went up and taxes went down on the wealthiest Americans. 
Inequality got worse, and we didn't have much of a policy.
    I believed we could do better. So 2 years ago I set out to travel 
this country and try to prove it. Thanks to the leadership that I 
enjoyed here in our campaign in Missouri, and thanks to the fact that I 
had a lot of friends and roots here, and maybe because I was your 
neighbor, you gave me a resounding victory in that election. And I'm 
grateful for that.
    Here's what this is all about right now. And I want you to listen to 
this because this is important. On the night I was elected President, 
with a 10-point margin in Missouri, let me ask you, if I had gotten up 
in my acceptance speech and I had said, ``Folks, thank you for electing 
me. I'm going to keep my pledge to you to get this country moving again 
and to pull this country together again, and within 20 months we will 
have put our economic house in order with the biggest budget cutting in 
history, with the elimination of scores of Government programs; we will 
raise tax rates on only the top 1.2 percent of the people and ask them 
to pay the deficit down, but we'll give a tax break to 10 times that 
many people, 15 million working families who are raising children just 
above the poverty line, because we don't want them to go back into 
welfare, we want them to keep working; we'll make 90 percent of the 
small businesses in this country eligible for a tax cut; we will reduce 
the size of the Federal bureaucracy to its lowest point since John 
Kennedy was President; and we will have 3 years of deficit reduction for 
the first time since Harry Truman was President,'' if I had told you 
that on election night, you would not have believed it. But it has 
happened.
    If I had told you on election night that within 20 months we would 
have done more to expand trade for American products than in any 
comparable time period in 35 years; that NAFTA would lead to a 17-
percent increase in exports to Mexico and help to fuel the boom in the 
auto industry, adding more employees; that we would have a worldwide 
trade agreement, new initiatives in Asia, new initiatives in Latin 
America; that we would have a real effort for the first time in decades 
to rebuild our shipbuilding industry, our aerospace industry; that we 
would be converting defense industries into engines of commercial 
resurgence with a remarkable innovative, high-tech-oriented defense 
conversion program; if I had told you that we were going to do all that, 
that we would target the inner cities and the poor rural areas, not for 
Government handouts but for free enterprise with community development 
banks designed to put almost $5 billion in loans to people who can go 
into business for themselves, and help make the banks make money as 
well; and that all of this together would produce 4.3 million new jobs 
in 20 months, 8 months of manufacturing growth for the first time in a 
decade in a row, that for the first time in 9 years the United States 
would be voted the most productive country in the world, that there 
would be more than 115,000 new jobs in Missouri, tax cuts for 300,000 
Missourians, with tax increases on only 21,000; if I had told you that, 
you would not have believed it. But it happened. It's so.
    On top of all that, we have passed the most comprehensive education 
legislation in any comparable time period since 1965, increased the 
people in Head Start by 200,000. We're going to immunize 2 million kids. 
By 1996, all kids under the age of 2 will have their shots. We're going 
to have a national program to help States have apprenticeships for young 
people who don't go to college but do want to have good jobs. And we 
have reformed the student loan program so that already 20 million young 
Americans, including over 300,000 right here in Missouri, are eligible 
to refinance their college loans with lower

[[Page 1849]]

fees, longer pay-out terms, lower interest rates. That is so. That has 
happened.
    If I had said, after 7 years of gridlock in Washington, we're going 
to pass the family and medical leave bill, giving 900,000 Missouri 
families the security of knowing that they can be successful parents and 
successful children, as well as successful workers because they won't 
lose their job if they have to take a little time off from work; that we 
would pass the Brady bill after 7 years of obstinate refusal, that the 
crime bill we pass would have every single element I pledged in the 
campaign--100,000 more police officers, that's a 20 percent increase of 
on-street police officers, 100,000 more jail cells for serious 
offenders, tougher penalties for violent offenders, prevention funds 
that work, and drug treatment funds, and drug education funds to keep 
these kids out of trouble in the first place, a ban on juvenile 
ownership of handguns and the assault weapons ban, and a ban that 
protects, contrary to what the NRA says, protects 650 hunting weapons by 
any encroachment by the Federal Government whatever, you would not have 
believed it. But that is exactly what has happened in the last 20 
months.
    All the while it has been the Republicans who say they hate 
Government; we've got too much Government. And all the while when they 
had it, Government got bigger and less responsive and less effective. 
But under the Democratic administration, we voted to reduce the size of 
the Federal bureaucracy by 270,000 over 6 years and to put all the money 
into paying for the crime bill to make people safer at the grassroots. 
Under this administration, we made the Emergency Management Agency go 
from the most unpopular to the most popular agency in the Federal 
Government. Ask Governor Carnahan and anybody that dealt with the 
horrible flood in the Federal Government.
    I could keep you here all night doing this. But I want you to know 
the point. The point is, we have taken on tough issues that were 
important to the American people; we have brought real change, and we 
are moving in the right direction. We don't want to turn back now and 
give it back to the other people.
    Of course, there is still work to do. We still have to find a way to 
control health care costs and provide health care security to all 
Americans. We can't go on. In just the last day or so, one of our major 
newspapers carried one more horrible article about how we were spending 
more on health care than any country in the world by light years, and we 
were losing coverage, and small businesses were going broke, and 
families were being left behind. I will never forget the million people 
who wrote to me and to my wife and said, ``Help us. We need health 
care,'' or ``We want to provide it for our employees,'' or ``Somebody's 
got to give us a chance to buy it at affordable rates.'' Yes, we still 
have to do that; yes, we still have to pass welfare reform at the 
national level. But on our own, we've given 17 States, including 
Missouri, waivers to do what they can do at the grassroots level to move 
people from welfare to work. We've made a good beginning.
    Yes, we have to pass campaign finance reform, lobby reform, a whole 
spate of environmental initiatives that are important to the future of 
this country. We still have to pass the world trade agreement in the 
Congress. But look what's happened: The economy is stronger; the deficit 
is lower; the tax system is fairer; trade is greater. We are moving 
forward. We are doing it with an administration that is both diverse and 
excellent in terms of geography, race, gender, background. We are in a 
situation where working families, because of the initiatives we have 
taken, are going to be able to be more secure, more safer, in stronger 
communities.
    That is the real record. Now, what is the problem? I'll tell you 
what the problem is. Number one, nobody knows it. Even you didn't know 
some of this stuff, right? [Laughter] You have no way to find out.
    I saw an article the other day where some fellow had done a focus 
group with some people that voted for Mr. Perot in the last election, 
after my press conference, and they heard me reel off some of this. And 
they said, ``You know, I never thought the President was dishonest, but 
I just don't believe that. That couldn't be true. We'd know it.''
    Well, it is true. And you don't know it because you can't find out 
in the fog that surrounds what we do. But it is true. And you

[[Page 1850]]

must take that truth to the voters because it relates directly to why 
Alan Wheat should be a Senator.
    Now, let's be honest. People have real reasons to still be 
frustrated and feel negatively about the Government. They still have 
problems. Many of these initiatives have passed, but people haven't felt 
them yet. The social problems we have in our country, the drugs, the 
breakdown of the family, the rising violence, they've been developing 
for 30 years. The problems working people are having, never getting a 
raise, even when they work harder, because of the global economy, 
they've been developing for 20 years.
    The wrong-headed policies that Washington pursued were in place for 
12 years, and all that anti-Government rhetoric and that negativism and 
that predisposition to believe the worst about anybody that shows up in 
Washington, DC, that's been developing for 12 years.
    I have only been there 20 months, but we're going in the right 
direction, and we do not want to turn back now.
    While we have been doing--more jobs, lower deficits, more trade, 
more opportunity, more education, more training, tougher crime bill, 
smaller Government--while we have been doing, they have been talking. 
And they are great at talking. And they have peddled fear and division 
and diversion with unconscionable distortion for so long they feel not 
guilt whatever in whatever they say. And they are good at it. They are 
good at it. Sam Rayburn once said, ``Any old jackass can kick down a 
barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.'' [Laughter] It also takes 
longer to build one than it does to kick one down.
    While we've been saying yes to the American people, here's where 
Alan comes in. I wasn't in Washington a week before they started trying 
to turn me into one of them to all of you. I wasn't in Washington a week 
until one of the Republican leaders said to me, ``You will not get one, 
single, solitary vote for your economic plan, no matter what you do to 
it--nothing.'' And so every one of them voted no when we gave the middle 
class a fair shake in that economic plan, cut taxes for 15 million 
working families. They did it because we asked the top 1.2 percent, 
including some of you in this room, to pay a little more. Every one of 
them voted no.
    When we said, ``Let's do something for the middle class for a change 
and reform this student loan program and give middle class families a 
break so they can borrow the money to go to college,'' every one of them 
voted no, every one. When we said, ``You say you're the small business 
party. Let's lower taxes on 90 percent of the small businesses in this 
country by increasing their expensing provision by 70 percent,'' every 
one of them voted no, every one of them. When we said, ``Let's reduce 
the size of the Federal Government,'' which we did first in that bill, 
every one of them voted no.
    Then when we got to this crime bill, last year the crime bill passed 
with 95 votes in the Senate, 42 to 2, the Republicans voted for it. And 
it was a lot like the bill we ultimately passed--had a few more police 
officers, some more money for prisons. But remember that pork speech 
they gave you? You know how it works: They pass a bill; the House passes 
a bill; you put them together; the final bill comes back. Well, from the 
time they voted 42 to 2 for the crime bill until it came back, there was 
not a lot more money on an annual basis for prevention programs in 
there. In fact, in 4 of the years, there was less money than they had 
already voted for. And many of the programs in there for prevention had 
been cosponsored by Republicans. It was a total bipartisan effort last 
year before the election started. But when they got to talking instead 
of doing, and telling everybody how terrible we all were and how, you 
know, nothing was happening, and they saw it was helping them in the 
polls, they changed like that, and they went from 42 to 2 for it to 6 to 
38 against it. And the six brave people who voted for it, including the 
person that Alan is trying to replace, were excoriated by their leaders 
for betraying the Republican Party who said that the party was far more 
important than bringing the crime rate down in America and saving 
people's lives.
    Now, when we started this health care debate, there were 24 
Republican Senators--24--on a bill to provide coverage for health care 
for all Americans and to control costs. I didn't agree with the way they 
wanted to do it, but we had the same objective. They

[[Page 1851]]

said, ``We're for covering everybody, too. We want to control costs. Mr. 
President, we think we've got a better idea.'' I said, ``This is 
wonderful. This is what I wanted to do. We'll have a bipartisan 
consensus. We'll work this through.''
    But then they got a memo from their political boss, not elected by 
anybody, who said, ``You must defeat health care at all costs. You will 
give the Democrats too big a victory for the middle class, and we won't 
be able to keep middle class voters by scaring them about values and 
telling them the Democrats aren't like them. You must defeat it.'' So by 
the time the health care legislation got to the floor, how many 
Republicans in the Senate were still for universal coverage and 
controlled costs? Zero. It went from 24 to zero.
    Now, that is what is going on there. We say yes; they say no. You 
hear conflict; conflict and defeat is what you hear. You don't know what 
has been done, and it's hard to assess responsibility. And I went there, 
folks--you remember--I went there saying both parties had been at fault 
in the past. We needed less partisanship, not more. I wanted to reach 
out my hand in this crime bill. I did reach out to the Republicans in 
the House and the Senate. And we got a few of them who were brave enough 
and good enough and cared enough about you to pass that thing.
    But I am telling you, this is the most intense partisan atmosphere--
and why? Because they think they are about to be rewarded for their 
obstreperous tactics. They believe they can sucker the American people 
into voting for what the American people are really against, which is 
too much partisanship, too much gridlock, too much special interest 
politics. And they believe they can do it because folks can't quite 
figure what's going on, and they can say, ``We've got a Democrat in the 
White House and the Democrats in the House and the Senate have more than 
we do.'' Now, that is what is going on.
    So Alan Wheat is important to Missouri. But he's important to the 
country, not because we will always agree--[applause]--not because we 
will always agree, but because he will show up for work in the morning. 
[Laughter] Too many of them show up for talk; or when their leaders say, 
turn right instead of left, go back instead of forward, they say, yes 
sir, tell me where to stand and when to walk. Now that is a fact. So I 
ask you to think about that.
    The greatest Republican President--some of us think the greatest 
President we ever had, Mr. Lincoln--once said that you can fool all of 
the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of 
the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time. This 
election is going to test that proposition. I think Lincoln was right. 
You can't do it unless people don't know the facts. So I am asking you 
to do more than give money to Alan Wheat. I am asking you to go out and 
tell people the facts. They will peddle fear; we will peddle hope. They 
will say no, and we will say yes.
    Harry Truman said, ``America was not built on fear. It was built on 
courage, imagination, and an unbeatable determination to do the job at 
hand.'' The job at hand is just what it was 2 years ago, to get this 
country into the 21st century with a good future for our children, in a 
world that is more secure, more peaceful, and more democratic, and to do 
it by enabling all of us together to live up to the fullest of our God-
given capacities. That is the job at hand.
    We are doing the job at hand. Go tell the people of Missouri that 
and send Alan Wheat to the Senate.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 6:24 p.m. at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. In his 
remarks, he referred to Gov. Mel Carnahan and his wife, Jean; Mayor 
Emanuel Cleaver II, and his wife, Dianne; and Karen McCarthy, Democratic 
candidate for Congress. A tape was not available for verification of the 
content of these remarks.