[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 43 (Monday, October 30, 1995)]
[Pages 1904-1907]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the National Italian-American Foundation Dinner

October 21, 1995

    Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Frank Guarini, for that 
wonderful introduction. Chairman Frank Stella, Vice Chairman Art 
Gajarsa, Senator Domenici--always does a good job at these dinners. I 
must say I was delighted this was not one of those annual roasts, 
because otherwise I would have been the object of his wonderful humor. 
[Laughter] I am delighted to be here with you and with all the Members 
of Congress tonight. To the Most Reverend Cacciavillan, the Ambassador 
from the Holy See; the Italian Ambassador, Ambassador Biancheri; to the 
Foreign Minister of Italy, Foreign Minister Agnelli, I'm delighted to 
see you here tonight. And I want to say a special word of thanks on 
behalf of the United States to our Ambassador to Italy, Reginald 
Bartholomew, for what a fine job he has done. To all the board members 
and friends of the foundation, some of whom--hundreds, indeed, of whom 
have come here tonight from Italy, I am deeply honored to be with you 
tonight for the fourth time in a row on the occasion of your 20th 
dinner. And I would like to say one thing to the Italians here present, 
beginning with the Foreign Minister.
    Last year I came to this dinner direct from a trip to the Middle 
East and a signing of the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. In the 
last year, in many ways the world has moved closer to peace in Northern 
Ireland and Haiti, another signal event on the road to peace in the 
Middle East. And by the grace of God, we will continue the road to 
peace, beginning on October 31st, when the leaders of all the countries 
involved in the conflict in Bosnia meet in the United States in Ohio. If 
we are able to make a peace and enforce it, I want all my fellow 
Americans to know that it would not have been possible but for the 
strong and firm leadership and involvement of Italy. And I am very 
grateful for what they have done to bring about peace in Bosnia.
    I know a lot of your honorees. Last Monday, I was in Los Angeles 
with Tony Bennett, who was the headliner for a wonderful concert put 
together as a benefit for the Center for Alcohol and Substance Abuse at 
Columbia University. Just a couple of days ago, Joe Montana and his 
lovely wife and their four wonderful children and some of their friends 
came to the White House. And as their children were examining--I think 
that's the appropriate word, examining--everything in the Oval Office I 
thought to myself, now, there are real family values. And since we're--I 
have to say, since this event is held in Washington, DC, and given all 
that's going on here in Washington, I think it's quite appropriate that 
you're honoring on the same night Joe Montana and John Travolta, because 
what's going on here reminds me of a cross between a pro football game 
and ``Pulp Fiction'' half the time. [Laughter]
    Earlier this month, I was with Cardinal Bevilacqua when I had the 
great honor to welcome His Holiness Pope John Paul II to Newark, New 
Jersey. It was our third meeting since I've been President. I don't want 
to commit heresy here and I'm not a Roman

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Catholic, but there are some important parallels between the Holy 
Father's career and mine. [Laughter] He came from Poland to the Vatican; 
I came from Arkansas to the White House. [Laughter] We were both 
outsiders who got jobs that usually go to insiders. [Laughter] And 
sometime in 1993 or early '94 or so, I saw the obvious that he seemed to 
be doing better than I was. [Laughter] And I searched for the reasons 
why, and I realized it was because he had named an Italian chief of 
staff. By blind coincidence, about 30 minutes after that light dawned in 
my brain, Leon Panetta walked in for a meeting, and that's how he got 
the job. [Laughter]
    I want to thank all the Italian-Americans who are active in this 
administration: the Ambassador; Mr. Panetta; Laura D'Andrea Tyson; Pat 
Griffin, the head of our Congressional Liaison; the Director of the FBI, 
Louis Freeh; Bob Balancato, the Executive Director of our Conference on 
Aging. And one person I want to mention especially tonight who doesn't 
get mentioned enough, Marilyn DiGiacobbe, who did such a wonderful job 
of coordinating for us during the Pope's visit and tonight and so many 
other times.
    These people have done a lot to help our administration move our 
country forward and do the things that Frank Guarini was kind enough to 
mention. I want to thank this organization for the support that you have 
given us in our common efforts to move this country forward.
    I love to come to this dinner for a lot of reasons. There are always 
a lot of laughs. There are always a lot of distinguished people here. I 
always learn a lot. But most importantly, I think it's important that 
the President acknowledge that Italian-Americans have given us a model, 
all of us, for valuing our families, caring for our communities, 
celebrating our unique cultures while respecting those of others. 
Italian-Americans have given a great deal to our Nation. And they've 
shown us the importance of preserving and creating opportunity for 
generations to come.
    It's these values that I believe should guide all Americans without 
regard to party or position. I honestly believe the best days of this 
country lie before us. I believe there is no country in the world better 
positioned for the 21st century than we are. As we move from the cold 
war to the global--[applause]. Thank you. I'm glad you believe that. But 
we have to realize we're going through a period of more profound change 
in the way we work and live and relate to the rest of the world than 
perhaps in any time in a hundred years. And we have to be visionary 
about the future while holding fast to the values that got us where we 
are and make life worth living.
    We are moving our economy forward. We've tried to address our most 
serious problems at home. We're trying to change the Government in a way 
that befits the 21st century. You might be interested to know that your 
Federal Government now has 163,000 fewer people working for it than it 
did the day I was inaugurated. I didn't know it until Laura Tyson told 
me last week, but she went back and checked. As a percentage of the 
civilian work force, the Federal Government is the smallest it has been 
since 1933. So the era of big Government is a big myth in that sense. 
We, too, have to become more productive. We, too, know we have to do 
more with less. But we also have to, together, continue to honor our 
basic values and pursue our common interests. We have to give our kids a 
better future. We have to give Americans a chance to make the most of 
their own lives and hold their families together.
    We have to recognize that, as the Governor of Florida said the other 
day, we are, in fact, a community, not a crowd. He said a crowd is a 
group of people that occupy the same piece of land but have no 
obligations to each other, so they just elbow one another until the 
strongest get ahead and the others fall behind. A community is a group 
of people that recognize that they will go forward or fall back 
together, that they have obligations to one another, and that they 
become better and fuller and richer by fulfilling those obligations.
    You might be interested to know, and you might find it difficult to 
believe, but there is moving in America, in this big country that moves 
ever so slowly, a new spirit of community, and family, and personal 
responsibility. In almost every State the crime rate is down. In our 
Nation the welfare rolls are down, the food stamp rolls are down, the 
poverty rate

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is down, and the teen pregnancy rate is down now for 2 years in a row. 
Our country is beginning to move together and move forward.
    What I want to say to you tonight is that I believe these decisions 
we are now making in Washington about the budget are not really about 
the budget. They must be about our basic values and what we imagine 
America should look like in the 21st century. And because we are 
changing so rapidly--frankly, no one can predict anyway what will be 
popular a month or 6 months or a year from now--we all have to try to 
imagine what we want America to look like 10 or 20 or 30 years from now.
    My friend Cardinal Bernardin once said, ``Families give life, and 
giving life means more than procreation. It means education and 
nurturing children to the full status as sons and daughters of God and 
citizens of their country and their world.'' The United Nations calls 
the family the smallest democracy at the heart of society. Where will 
new generations learn about democracy's rights and responsibilities if 
not at home? That is the question that we have to answer: What will the 
home of America be? What will our communities be? What will our families 
be? And I urge you, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, whether 
you live here or all the way across the country, whatever you do for a 
living, as we debate these great issues, imagine what you want America 
to look like for your children and your grandchildren. It's changing so 
fast you can't predict how it's going to look in a month or 6 months, in 
a year.
    That is the context in which I hope this debate over the budget will 
play itself out. We all want a strong economy. We all want a strong 
America. To do it we have to have strong individuals, strong families, 
and strong communities.
    I believe that the budget debate is not about balancing the budget. 
Everybody's for that. I couldn't believe what had happened to the debt 
when I came here. And we've taken the deficit from $290 billion a year 
down to $160 billion in just 3 years. I am proud of that. I think it's 
important and it matters. And every one of you, no matter what your 
party or political philosophy, should want us to finish that job. We 
should not leave this crushing burden of debt on our children. We should 
not take money away that is needed in our private sector to create jobs 
and invest and grow America and make us stronger. Everybody should be 
for it, but how we do it--how we do it is a function of what we imagine 
our common responsibilities to be.
    I believe we have to do it in a way that permits us to invest in 
education and invest in technology and invest in research, so that we 
can grow the economy and grow strong individuals. I believe we have to 
do it in a way that permits us to preserve the fundamental health care 
system that enables us to honor our responsibilities to our parents, to 
the disabled, to poor children. I believe we have to do it in a way that 
enables us to protect our natural environment and to recognize that 
there is a certain elemental sense of fairness that Americans always 
have, a certain compass that always guides us, and if we will hew to 
that and do what is common-sensical and consistent with our basic 
values, we will be fine.
    I have done my best and will continue to do my best to move beyond 
traditional partisan politics at this very untraditional time, to work 
with the United States Congress to achieve a balanced budget in which 
all Americans can win. But I have to say and I want you to know I do not 
believe any major American company on the verge of the 21st century 
would cut its investment in education or research or technology, and I 
don't think we should either. I do not believe any family would 
willingly say that its poorest elderly members should be forced to pay 
for health care they cannot afford or its most vulnerable children 
should be put at risk of losing that health care. And I don't think we 
should either. I do not believe we should hamper our common 
responsibilities to protect the environment of the United States or to 
work with other nations to secure the environment of the planet. I do 
not believe anybody would knowingly do that, and I don't think we should 
either.
    I hope very much that we will see a coming together in this process. 
Everybody knows that the President under our constitution has a veto and 
has to be prepared to use it. Everybody knows what the rules are in Con- 


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gress. They're going to do what they're going to do, and if I have to 
use my veto pen, well, I'll do that. But in the end, what we need to do 
is to come together to build a stronger America, good for our children, 
good for our families, good for our communities.
    You know, the lesson--I will just say this, and I want you to 
reflect on it--the ultimate lesson of what I saw in the faces of the 
thousands and thousands and thousands of African-American men who came 
here last week to march was people in a total spirit of reconciliation 
and personal atonement saying, yes, I do intend to take more 
responsibility for myself, for my family, and for my community. But I 
would like it very much if I do that--[applause]--but the other message 
was I would like it very much if I do that, if you would reach out and 
join hands with me and help us solve our common problems and move our 
country forward together.
    That's why I said at the University of Texas something that I think 
Italian-Americans, especially who came here at a time when immigrants 
from Italy and Ireland were discriminated against, can identify with 
this. We still have too many people in America passing each other like 
ships in the night. I saw the other day an old book I had by Will 
Rogers. He said, for example, he said, ``The Congress is someplace where 
somebody gets up and talks real loud, no one listens, and then everybody 
says they disagree.'' [Laughter] Well, that's not just in Congress, and 
it's not just there. That happens in America, and it happens among 
people of different racial and ethnic groups.
    And so I leave you with this challenge. I think we need, each of us 
as Americans, not only to value our own ethnic solidarity and our shared 
values but to share them with other people. We need to find somebody who 
is different from us and tell them what we really think for a change, 
even if it hurts. And then we need to have the discipline to listen to 
what they say. And we need to work slowly to bridge these gaps in the 
way we view reality that have become so present and prevalent in our 
country.
    I am telling you if you look at the facts, this country is better 
positioned for the 21st century than any country on Earth. Why? Because 
we're the most ethnically diverse, with the most flexible economy, with 
all these resources that God has given us and that our forebears have 
developed. We are well-positioned. We have to learn how to use--to make 
our diversity as an asset instead of letting it tear us apart. We have 
to relish in our diversity.
    You're happy to be Italian here, but you're also proud to be 
Americans. We want everybody in America to feel that way, and we want 
everybody to feel that way about other groups as well. And we know if we 
do that we'll be all right.
    So I say to you, I want you to think about this. Every time a 
decision is called upon to be made in this Nation's Capital or in your 
community, ask yourself what's it going to look like in 20 years; what 
kind of America do I want my grandchildren to grow up in; will we give 
people the right and the ability to make the most of their own lives; 
will we help families become stronger; will we be more of a community 
and less of a crowd? If the answer is yes, that's what we ought to do. 
And if we do it, you will be very proud of the America you leave to your 
children and your grandchildren, worthy of your Italian-American 
heritage.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 9:30 p.m. at the Washington Hilton Hotel. 
In his remarks, he referred to Frank Guarini, president, Frank Stella, 
chairman, and Arthur Gajarsa, vice chairman, National Italian-American 
Foundation; singer Tony Bennett; former NFL football player Joe Montana; 
actor John Travolta; and Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, Archbishop of 
Chicago.