[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 8 (Monday, February 24, 1997)]
[Pages 207-210]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Democratic Senate Campaign Committee Dinner in New York 
City

February 18, 1997

    Thank you very much. First, let me thank Shelby and Katherine for 
taking us in tonight. I don't want to be adopted, but this makes the 
White House look like public housing. [Laughter] It is wonderful public 
housing. [Laughter] I really do appreciate they're taking us in, and I 
thank all of you for coming.
    And I thank Senator Leahy, Senator Biden, as well as Senators Kerrey 
and Torricelli. I thank you, Congressman Rangel, for being here. And I 
don't think--Senator Moynihan is not here anymore; he was here earlier.

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    I thank the people who are here from New York and New Jersey for the 
enormous victory you gave to Al Gore and to me on election day. It's the 
first time I've had a chance to say formally, thank you, here in this 
part of the world. I am very grateful. I also want to thank Bob Kerrey 
for agreeing to take on this job again and for what he said.
    This has been an eventful time for our country. We just celebrated 
an Inauguration. We just had a very good State of the Union and response 
to it. We are working with Members of Congress in both parties on the 
right kind of balanced budget agreement. I'm working on the Middle East 
again and have some hope there. We just had the American Airlines strike 
deferred. And just a couple of days ago, our Trade Ambassador, Charlene 
Barschefsky, concluded a trade agreement that we believe will create a 
million new high-wage American jobs in the next decade. It is a good 
time for the country, and we are moving in the right direction.
    As I said at the State of the Union and I'd like to say again, what 
we're doing in a larger sense is preparing our country for a new century 
and a new millennium, and our goal ought to be to give more people than 
ever before the chance to live out their own dreams and to live in 
harmony with their brothers and sisters across racial and religious and 
ethnic lines and to make this country once again the greatest hope for 
freedom and peace and prosperity throughout the next century. That's the 
best thing, I think, not only for us but for the rest of the world.
    And in order to do that, we need to understand very clearly why 
we're here today and what happened. The economy is better because we 
changed the economic policy of the country. We don't have trickle-down 
economics anymore; we've got investment economics. We brought the 
deficit down, expanded trade, invested in our people and our technology, 
and we have 11\1/2\ million jobs to show for it. We ought to be glad of 
that and proud of it.
    We went beyond rhetoric and tough talk in crime and welfare reform. 
We had the biggest drop in welfare rolls in history, in 5 years the 
dropping in crime. And people are actually beginning to conceive that 
their streets might be safe again. We put family and community not at 
the center of our talk but at the center of our social policy with 
things like the Family and Medical Leave Act and the V-chip and the 
television ratings and the initiative against teen smoking.
    And these things are making a difference in people's lives. And 
that's what happened in the election. We steadfastly stood against those 
who sought to use race or religion to divide the American people and 
took some pretty unpopular positions clear across the country in 
California on affirmative action and immigration initiatives. But the 
people of California stayed with us because they knew we were trying to 
bring out the best in the American people and we all have to go forward 
together.
    And let me just say, finally, we rejected, I think conclusively, the 
dominant political theory of the last 16 years, which is that Government 
is the problem. It is not the problem. That is not true. Neither is it 
the salvation. But the market will not solve all the problems in the 
world, and the market will not solve all the problems of America. And 
that is one of the things that makes me a Democrat. Senator Kerrey and I 
talked for nearly an hour on the phone several weeks ago about it. And 
we believe the job of Government is to provide the conditions and the 
tools for people to solve their own problems, seize their own 
opportunities, and make the most of their own lives.
    We have reduced the size of the Government more than our 
counterparts in the other party, reduced the size of regulation. We have 
led the way toward a lot of changes, through the Vice President's 
efforts, that needed to be made. But we do not believe that that which 
we do together through our Government is the enemy of America and its 
future. We believe we have to work together to make the most of the 
future. That's why we're here tonight.
    And when we look ahead--I want to say something about what Bob said. 
I appreciate the fact that you came here knowing you might be targeted 
for the exercise of your constitutional right to stand up and support 
the people you believe in. And I thank you for being here. I thank you 
for being here.
    You need to know, as people who invest in this, exactly what 
happened in the last

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election to the best of our ability to know it. I want you to know two 
things. Number one, for reasons I cannot explain or defend, our party 
did not check all the contributions that were given. Therefore, less 
than 2 percent of the total had been returned either because they were 
not lawful or because they raised questions even though they were 
clearly lawful. They were not all illegal, but we just decided we didn't 
even want any questions raised about ours. All it did was get more 
questions raised, but we did it in good faith. And 99.9 percent of all 
the people who contributed to us--one million, I might add, in the last 
cycle--one million for the first time have not had their contributions 
questioned. Indeed, more than 99.9 percent.
    So everything you have had to endure, including some of the calls 
you have received, have come because of what was done by less than one-
tenth of one percent of the total number of contributors we had, 
involving less than 2 percent of the money we raised. But it was wrong 
not to check those contributions. And if your party had been doing its 
job, you wouldn't be hearing about all that today. That is everybody's 
responsibility, from me down, who didn't know about it and should have. 
But it will never happen again. You can rest assured.
    And so we now have to ask ourselves, never mind about this, what is 
the right thing for the country? Here's why I believe we ought to pass 
campaign finance reform. I don't agree, as some people do, that a large 
contribution is automatically suspect and automatically compromises a 
public official. I don't agree with that. But I do agree that if it 
costs too much money for a party to do its business and for candidates 
to do theirs, that you have to raise so much money and it takes so much 
time to raise it, that it undermines the quality and erodes the 
independence of the political system. And I think all of you would agree 
with that.
    And so what I want to ask you to do is to support a bipartisan 
solution to this. The McCain-Feingold bill, I think, is a good bill. It 
restricts the overall spending. It restricts the size of contributions. 
It leaves an even playing field between the parties and between 
challengers and incumbents. And it gives people a discount--candidates--
for the cost of communicating over the airwaves, which is so 
terrifically expensive.
    If we did that, we could all still come here, we could all still 
gather, we could all still give, we could all still do it, but we could 
do it knowing that our fellow citizens who cannot afford to come here 
tonight would think they were more equally represented in the political 
arena. And we could do so knowing that these people that we support when 
they run and work hard--and keep in mind, my campaigns are over now, so 
I'm doing this on behalf of them--that we know that they can spend an 
appropriate amount of time going out and raising funds and listening to 
people and hearing out the concerns of people in their districts, their 
States, and their nations, but that it won't take all their time and it 
won't take all your time. Besides that, it won't cost you as much money. 
[Laughter] But the main thing is, it will be better for our country.
    So if there's one group of people I would like to see in the 
forefront of advocating a reasonable bipartisan campaign finance reform, 
it is the contributors of the Democratic Party, the Democratic 
Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Committee, the Democratic House 
Committee, the people that helped me become President. So I ask you, 
please help me do that and give our own Members the courage they need to 
demand that our friends on the other side join us and do this. We need 
to just put this behind us.
    The system was created in '74. It worked fine for us for a while. 
It's been overtaken by events. You understand it better than anybody 
else. You're on the receiving end of it. Help me pass campaign finance 
reform this year. I need your help, and I want you to do it.
    The other thing I want to tell you is this: We have a chance this 
year to pass a balanced budget, to do some things in welfare reform that 
will really prove that we're not just being tough and talking and 
saying, people who can work, must work, but to actually give people a 
chance to work and to get an education. We have a chance to expand our 
trade networks, particularly in Latin America and Asia, in ways we never 
have before. The First Lady and our daughter are about to go to Africa 
on a sweeping trip there.

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    We have a chance to pass significant improvements in health care for 
children. We have a chance to do a number of things in foreign affairs 
to make the world safer. We have a chance to deal with the entitlements 
problem for the next generation. All of this can be done this year.
    It can only be done if I can maintain an atmosphere of both openness 
to members of the Republican Party who want to work with us and if the 
Democrats know that we are proceeding with conviction to prepare this 
country for the next century consistent with what we pledged to do in 
the election.
    And what I want to ask you to do is to continue to give me your 
support in a constructive way. When we deal with these issues, if you 
have some suggestion, let me know. If you can mobilize support, do it. 
But just remember, every day is a day we're moving closer to a new 
century and a new millennium, and if we do our job, we will open the 
greatest period in American history. If we fail to do our job, our 
children and grandchildren should never forgive us. And if something 
happens that we don't do it in Washington, we ought to make sure it is 
not the responsibility of our Democrats in the Senate or the House or 
the White House.
    Every day we get up and go to work there to try to make this country 
a better place. Ultimately, when you get right down to the bottom line, 
that is what you have supported and what I promise you you will continue 
to support. And I want you always to be proud of it and always to 
believe in it.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 9 p.m. at the residence of Shelby and 
Katherine Bryan.