    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 17 (Monday, May 3, 1999)]
    [Pages 756-759]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner in Chevy Chase,
    Maryland

    April 27, 1999

        Thank you very much. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been
    an atypical and thoroughly enjoyable fundraiser. [Laughter]
        First of all, when I was introduced, Father, to you, I thought to
    myself, how did the conversation go, when Tommy Boggs asked you to come
    and pray over all these politicians, lobbyists, and fundraisers? And I
    think it must have gone something like this: He asked you, and you said,
    ``Well, if I can pray over you, Tom, I can pray over anybody.''
    [Laughter]
        Let me say--we were having a conversation here at the table, and I
    was telling Pat Kluge, Tom, how much I liked your whole family and how
    much I admired your late sister Barbara and treasured the brief
    occasions I had to be with her, how I will always cherish the fact that
    I was with your remarkable father on the last weekend of his life, in
    San Antonio, Texas, when I was a very young man--and I was completely
    enamored of him--and how your unbelievable mother took me under her wing
    and didn't shed me when a lot of other people were, in 1992. [Laughter]
    And now she represents me to the Pope--[laughter]--and is maybe the only
    person on the Earth--[laughter]--who could convince the Pope that I am
    worth dealing with. [Laughter] So, anyway--so I love the Boggs family.
    [Laughter]
        And I understand that one of the things that Lindy's going to do
    before she leaves the Vatican is to nominate you for sainthood, Barbara.
    [Laughter]
        But let me say to all of you, I appreciate, Tom, what you said in
    the introduction. But I would like to say that I hope all the people who
    came here, who are not rank-and-file Democrats, would just consider a
    few things.
        We had a remarkable NATO summit here, over the weekend. The largest
    number of world leaders who had ever been gathered in Washington, heads
    of government and heads of state, at one time, not only to deal with the
    immediate crisis of Kosovo but to envision the world of the 21st century
    that we want to make. A world in which Europe, for the first time in
    history, is undivided, democratic, and free, and at peace. A world in
    which people are working together and cherishing both their diversity
    and their interdependence. A world which offers our children the promise
    of greater peace and prosperity than any age in human history.
        And at the end of that summit, Al From and the Democrat Leadership
    Council sponsored a forum, in which Governor Romer spoke about his
    experiences as Governor, and the new labor commissioner in Georgia--the

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    first, along with the attorney general, the first two African-Americans
    ever elected to statewide office in Georgia--talked about the work he
    had done to move people from the welfare rolls to the work rolls.
        The Mayor of Denver, an African-American in a city where African-
    Americans are decidedly in the minority, talked about the work he had
    done to get the unemployment rate in the city of Denver down to 3.9
    percent and what they'd done to try to knit the community together and
    build support for the schools.
        And the Lieutenant-Governor of Maryland, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend,
    talked about, among other things, the work they were doing to try to
    keep more people out of prison but to make people with drug-related
    offenses be drug tested twice a week as a condition of being out of
    prison, and how much it had reduced the growth of imprisonment, reduced
    the crime rate, and reduced the recidivism rate.
        And it was a remarkable thing. But what really is interesting about
    it is, the discussion was not partisan in any conventional sense. And I
    brought to the discussion the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the
    Chancellor of Germany, the Prime Minister of Italy, and the Prime
    Minister of The Netherlands, all of whom represent the same sort of
    movement that came to our country when Al Gore and I were elected in
    1992.
        I say that to make this point: Every major country has to confront
    the challenges of creating as much opportunity as we can in the global
    economy and at the same time preserving the cohesion that any decent
    nation and any decent community has. How do you get the benefits of all
    this exploding technology and entrepreneurialism and global economics
    and retain and strengthen the benefits that come from supporting
    families and communities, raising children well?
        And I believed in 1992, when I ran for President, and I believe it
    more strongly today, that we had to break the citizens of this country
    from the grip of an outdated political debate, that it would be
    possible, if you followed the right policies, to balance the budget and
    increase your investment in education and health care. It would be
    possible to preserve the environment and improve it and grow the economy
    at a more rapid rate. It would be possible to move the world toward
    peace and still use force in a disciplined way to stand up for peace and
    to stand against the resurgence of ethnic and racial and religious
    hatred in the world.
        And insofar as we have had any success, I am thankful that I could
    be the instrument of that in the White House for the 18 million new jobs
    and the lowest unemployment in 29 years and the first surplus since
    1960, now, to the biggest peacetime surpluses ever. I'm grateful for
    that.
        I'm grateful that we have over 90 percent of our children immunized
    against serious childhood diseases for the first time in the history of
    the country. I'm grateful for the tax credits and other advances, which
    have opened the doors of college virtually to every person in America.
        I'm grateful that the air and water is cleaner and that we've set
    aside more land in perpetuity than any administration in history except
    those run by the two Roosevelts. I'm grateful for all that.
        But it all started with a set of ideas, that we had to find a way to
    guarantee opportunity for every responsible citizen, to reinforce
    responsibility, and to build a genuine sense of community, so that we
    all felt not only that we had obligations to one another that crossed
    all the lines that divide us but that we would all actually be better
    off if our neighbors were better off.
        And we are trying to carry that into the world, into working for
    peace, from the Middle East, in Northern Ireland, to the Balkans; trying
    to help our friends in Asia get over their financial crisis, and keep it
    from spreading to Latin America; in trying to make sure that the
    economic growth that has still escaped some of the inner cities and poor
    rural areas and Native American reservations in our country, can at long
    last be extended to them; in trying to guarantee that every child in
    this country has an excellent, world-class education; in trying to deal
    with the challenges of aging by reforming Social Security and Medicare
    for the 21st century and at the same time continuing to pay down our
    debt, so that we can liberate our children from excessive dependence on
    high borrowing at high interest rates and excessive reliance on

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    all the turbulence that may yet still engulf the global economy.
        All of that started with a set of ideas, with a group of people who
    were prepared to think in a different way and to have values without
    having ideology, to have ideas that were tested not only by whether they
    were consistent with those values but by whether they in fact worked or
    not.
        Today we had a truly astonishing meeting in the White House with 40
    Members of Congress that included three Republicans--three brave
    Republicans--to talk about something I had planned to do for some time,
    before the terrible tragedy in Colorado, about what we had to do to
    strengthen our protection, that guns won't fall into the hands of
    children.
        And I said then, and I will say again, I believe very strongly that
    there are things in our culture that have to be challenged and that
    there is too much ready violence in the culture. And between Hillary and
    Al and Tipper Gore, we have worked on this hard, now, for 6 years. We've
    got the TV rating system, and the V-chip that will soon be in all new
    televisions.
        We've made a lot of headway even on the Internet, in giving parents
    the tools to screen out certain websites on the Internet. The technology
    is there. I have to say parenthetically, with the head of the National
    Education Association here, our biggest challenge is going to be trying
    to teach the parents of this country to be half as good on computers as
    their kids are. But if we can do that, the technology is there. We've
    worked on these things. There are cultural issues, all right. And we
    need to do more there.
        But it is also true that there is another culture in America, made
    up of people who are overwhelmingly God-fearing citizens who pay their
    taxes and obey the law and show up when they're needed and who love to
    hunt, and they use their guns for sporting purposes and have been, I
    think, welded into a political force designed to stop us from dealing
    with the objective things we can do about guns to make our society
    safer.
        They've been convinced that every little thing we do, no matter how
    small or modest, is the camel's nose in the tent, and somebody's going
    to come get their hunting rifle. And as a result, our society has
    plainly failed to do what any great and sensible country would do.
        And today I said I was going to go back and try to get the waiting
    period of the Brady bill back, even though we have the insta-check, that
    we were going to try to apply the Brady law and its prohibition on
    handgun ownership to juveniles who have been convicted of violent
    offenses, that we were going to try to plug some loopholes in the law
    that relates to assault weapons and gun shows, where there is no
    background check, and a lot of other things.
        But I want to make a general point. I come from a culture, as do
    some of these--Tommy Boggs was, I thought I was going to see him a few
    weeks ago, and he was down at Beryl Anthony's hunting lodge instead of
    with me. So we come out of this culture. I was 12 years old the first
    time I ever shot a .22 at a can on top of a fencepost in the country.
        But I promised myself, when I got elected President, that because of
    my background, I was in a position to try to take on the positions that
    the NRA had taken and at least have a halfway decent chance of
    explaining it to the American people. And I'm proud that we've done
    that. We've got the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban. And I hope
    we get some more things like that.
        But the point I want to make to you is that took a decision, and I
    had to have a party that backed me up. And I lost some House Members.
    One of the reasons we're sitting here, worrying about whether we can
    pick up six more House Members is, more than six lost their seats in
    1994 because they stood up and voted for the Brady bill, and they stood
    up and voted for the assault weapons ban. And there are children alive
    in America today because of it. And we were right about that.
        So you don't have to be all attached to party labels to believe that
    ideas matter in politics and conventional wisdoms have to be challenged
    if the country is going to go forward and become what it ought to be.
        And so, I just want all of you to know here that for those of you
    who have been with us all along, I am grateful. For those of you

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    who are here for the first time, I am very grateful.
        I'm not running for anything. I'm here because I believe in what
    we've done, and I know there's a lot more to do, not only in the 2 years
    I have remaining on my term but in the years ahead. And this country
    needs to be led from a dynamic, vital center, rooted in a concern for
    these basic ideas, not the politics of left and right but how to get
    opportunity to every responsible citizen and how to build a genuine
    sense of community in which we care for other people because it is
    morally right to do, but we also are smart enough to understand that
    we'll all do better if other Americans do better. That unleashes a flood
    of good ideas. And if you can only get half of them done, the country is
    in a much better place.
        So when I look back on the last 6 years, when I look to the next 2
    years, when I look ahead to the next 10 years, I believe the philosophy
    we have brought to America is the right one. And I believe our country
    would be better served if we had more people who believed in it and
    worked for it every day. That's why I'm here supporting Joe and Beth and
    Loretta and Roy and Andy and all of our fine team because I believe that
    with all my heart.
        And if you believe that this is a better country in the last 6
    years, I appreciate it if you think that I had something to do with it.
    But I was the instrument of the ideas that, when implemented, made
    America a better place. And we need more people who can carry those
    ideas and have the ability to implement them.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:22 p.m. at a private residence. In his
    remarks, he referred to Father William L. George, assistant to the
    president of Georgetown University for Federal relations; dinner hosts
    Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., and his wife, Barbara; Patricia Kluge,
    president, Kluge Investments; Corinne Claiborne (Lindy) Boggs, U.S.
    Ambassador to the Holy See; Commissioner of Labor Michael L. Thurmond
    and State Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia; Al From,
    president, Democratic Leadership Council; Mayor Wellington E. Webb of
    Denver, CO; Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom; Chancellor
    Gerhard Schroeder of Germany; Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema of Italy;
    Prime Minister Wim Kok of The Netherlands; Bob Chase, president,
    National Education Association; and Joseph J. Andrew, national chair,
    Beth Dozoretz, national finance chair, Representative Loretta Sanchez,
    general cochair, former Governor Roy Romer of Colorado, general chair,
    and Andy Tobias, treasurer, Democratic National Committee.