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DLC Retreat (McLarty) 4/30/94
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Draft Remarks
Chief of Staff Mac:k McLarty
Democratic Leadership Coundl Retreat
New Orleans, Louisiana
Saturday, April 30, 1994
It is great to be back in this wonderful town with so many old friends. I am glad to
see that for all the fame and glory the DLC bas enjoyed for electing a President and
transforming our party, you haven't forgotten the central reason this organization was
founded, which was to give us all an excuse to spend more time in New Orleans.
I want to thank John Breaux for inviting everybody back to Jazz Fest. He's been a
good friend to the Administration and the President, and he knows how to throw one
heckuva party.
And I want to congratulate Dave McCurdy,- who is off to a great start as DLC
chairman. I will never forget how hard Dave and AI From and the whole DLC fought to
help the President pass NAFI'A, which I believe that will go down in history as a pivotal
moment for our Administration. Recently, I spent some time on the stump with Dave in
Oklahoma, and I'm beginning to wonder when he's going to make me stop calling him
"Dave" and start practicing how to say "Senator McCurdy. •
It is an honor to have the last word at what by all accounts has been an outstanding
retreat. Many of you may recall that four years ago, in this very town, the closing speaker
at the 1990 DLC Conference was a fellow from Arkansas by the name of Bill Clinton, who
had just taken over from Sam Nunn as DLC Chairman. At the time, the Republicans were
still going strong after a decade in office; George Bush's popularity ratings were above 70%.
Our party's prospects were so bleat that Democrats spent most of their time worrying who
they could trick into running in 1992.
Bill Clinton saw things a little differently. He stood up here and told the crowd that
the Republicans were the least of our problems - our real problem was that millions of
Americans went about their business every day and we didn't even cross their minds. "They
don't know what we stand for, they don't know who we are, and they don't know what we
are trying to do, • he said. "In the end, • he went on, "any political resurgence for the
Democrats depends on the intellectual resurgence of our party. . • If we stand for something
that makes sense and if people can identify with it, this party is going to do just fine. •
And he was right. The 1992 election was such a watershed not only because of the
last Administration's poor record on the economy, but because our party offered Americans
the most compelling new agenda since the New Deal - at the very time the Republicans
seemed to run out of ideas on how to govern. Bill Clinton and Al Gore were able to beat the
1
�' .
electoral odds in '92 because people could tell they were a different kind of Democrat and
had something new to say.
No group deserves more credit for leading the intellectual resurgence of the
Democratic Party than the DLC. Under the leadership of Bill Clinton, Sam Nunn, John
Breaux, Dave McCurdy and so many others, the DLC and PPI have been an oasis of new
thinking and new ideas. When you look back at the New Orleans Declaration, the DLC
platform from 1990, you can see the early roadmap of the Clinton Administration: It is full
of ideas like National Service, the Police Corps, Goals 2000, School-to-Work, which have
since become law or are about to.
Perhaps the ultimate tribute to what the DLC has done is that everything Bill Clinton
said about Democrats' troubles back in 1990 is now even more true of the Republican Party
in 1994. All too often, it seems like they don't know who they are, they're not sure what
they stand for, and they can't decide what they're trying to do. The Republicans who are
smart enough to admit that are consciously trying to copy our success and plot an intellectual
resurgence of their own.
Over the last 15 months, Bill Clinton has shown what it means to be a New
Democrat, and proved how formidable New Democratic ideas can be. He ran for President
on a New Democratic platform, and New Democrats are in key positions throughout the
Administration. Seven members of the President's Cabinet were DLC members. So were
several of us who are senior officials at the White House and around the government. But
much more important, the themes and ideas that are driving this administration started out as
DLC ideas.
Look at the President's agenda this spring:
*In March, the President signed Goals 2000, a landmark education reform law to
reinvent our schools. Goals 2000 will dramatically reform our schools by establishing high
academic standards and providing support to states and communities to help them reach those
standards. That's a grassroots, DLC idea, and it's going to spark a revolution in learning
across the country.
* This week, our National Service program announced the first grants to make good
on another dream the DLC and this President have shared for almost a decade - to help
young Americans go on to college, and· ask them to give something back to their country in
return. The first awards went to 90 projects around the country that will take part in
National Service's Summer of Safety, which Will put 7,000 young people into service helping
police departments, public housing projects, and senior citizen centers reduce crime.
National Service has the potential to change a whole generation of Americans, and it
wouldn't have happened if Dave McCurdy, Sam Nunn, Will Marshall, and so many others
hadn't been pounding the pavement for it for so many years. It's a DLC idea, and it may
well be remembered longer than anything else we do.
2
�• Next week, the President will sign a school-to-work law that will finally give young
people who don't go on to college a chance to get ahead. That's a DLC idea, and it's going
to make a real difference for a group whose incomes have dropped by 25% in the last 15
years.
• Next month, if all goes well, Congress will send the President a blockbuster crime
bill that will put 100,000 more police on the street in community policing, start boot camps
for young offenders and build more prisons to keep violent criminals off the street, and say
to violent repeat offenders: Violent criminals will be punished, and those who commit a
third violent crime will be put away, and put away for good. And all of it will be paid for
through cuts in the federal bureaucracy. That crime bill is a DLC idea, and it's going to
make it a lot harder for anyone to use crime as a wedge issue ever again. Republicans and
Democrats don't argue over whether to defend our people against threats from abroad. We
should never have another partisan battle over whether to defend our people against violence
here at home.
• And finally, next month the President will introduce one of the signature proposals
of his Presidency, with a plan to end welfare as we know it. Our plan will put the basic
value~ of work, responsibility, and family back at the heart of our social policy, and make
welfare a second chance, not a way of life. We're going to work with our friends like Dave
McCurdy and John Breaux and Joe Lieberman to fight for welfare reform in this Congress.
President Clinton said it to you in Cleveland; he said it again in Memphis; and he's said it
both times he has addressed Congress on the State of the Union: Governments don't raise
children- parents do. That's a DLC idea, and he's going to keep saying it until every
parent gets the message.
Through it all, this President has been fighting for a centrist, New Democrat agenda
that will make the DLC proud, and more important, give us a chance to prove that the ideas
of opportunity, responsibility, and community we have championed for so long can change
this country just as they have changed our party.
Nowhere has the DLC philosophy been proven so right so quickly as on the economy.
Bill Clinton was elected to tum the economy around, and he won in large measure because
he offered an economic vision that is fundamentally different from what Americans had heard
from either party over the last two decades. He said in the campaign what we have always
said in the DLC, that we had to move beyond the brain-dead politics of both parties, because
we could no longer afford tax-and-spend economics on the one hand or supply-side
economics on the other.
One of the things Bill Clinton learned as governor 9f Arkansas was that none of the
other things he wanted to accomplish - on education reform or welfare or anything else would amount to a hill of beans in the absence of sustained economic growth. And he
believed then as now that while government can do a lot of good if it's managed right, the
engine of economic growth has to be the private sector.
3
�Our first major economic objective has been to bring down the deficit. The economic
plan we passed last year reduced the deficit by $500 billion, cut spending by $255 billion,
allocated every new tax dollar to deficit reduction, and cut over 300 government programs,
including $80 billion in entitlement savings over the budget which was in place when the
President took office. It was the largest deficit reduction plan in history.
This year's budget, which the President has submitted to Congress, cuts 379 programs
out of a total of 626 in the federal budget - and eliminates 115 government programs
altogether. As the Wall Stteet Journal pointed out recently, next year discretionary spending
will fall in absolute terms for the first time since 1969. The deficit as a percentage of
national income is now as low as it was in 1979. And as a percentage of GDP, the deficit is
now projected to be lower than any of our G-7 trading partners.
We're not just cutting the deficit. We're cutting the size of government. Thanks to
the Vice President's effort to reinvent government, we are on course to reduce the federal
bureaucracy by 252,000 positions. By 1998, the federal government will be smaller than it
has been since President Kennedy, the deficit will be $200 billion a year less than when Bill
Clinton took office, and a deficit which has been going up and up over the last decade will
go down three years in a row -- for the first time since Harry Truman was in the White
House.
And all this deficit reduction did exactly what DLC Democrats always said it would:
it led to lower interest rates which have helped fuel a powerful economic recovery that has
created 2.5 million jobs in the President's first 15 months- $63 billion worth of jobs
created.
The President's economic plan did something else that has always been important to
the DLC: it forced a shift in government's priorities away from old programs that don't
work and toward new Democratic ideas that will. I imagine that I'm not the only one in this
room who found himself in a higher tax bracket this year. But I want you to know that
according to H&R Block, for every one of us who might be paying a little more - and I
believe it is fair that we do - there are 16 working families who will receive a tax cut
because of the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the most significant pro-work,
pro-family reform to come out of Washington in decades. Tens of thousands of families will
escape poverty, welfare, and dependence as a result.
Our second major economic objective has been to push for open and expanding trade
throughout the world. President Clinton has stood firm against the temptations of
protectionism and retrenchment, because deep down he believes that expanding trade is the
only way that rich countries like ours get richer. As the President said in his speech to the
G-7 nations at the Jobs Summit in Detroit last month, •Trade is not a zero-sum game. If the
world economy declines, we all lose, and when it grows, we all win. •
4
�That is why I fought so hard for NAFTA, and I know that is why so many of you
were right there working alongside us. At key points in its history, every nation faces
moments when it must overcome its fears and choose the promise of the future over the false
security of the past. NAFTA will be remembered as one of those defining moments - not so
much because of the economic significance of the treaty itself, but because of the steadfast
determination our President and other leaders showed in the midst of such uncertain times to
will this country forward.
We've made other great strides as well. We negotiated an historic breakthrough on
GA1T. We've lifted export controls on $37 billion of high technology equipment now that
the Cold War is over. I worked closely with Ron Brown to help persuade the Saudis to buy
American-made Boeing and McDonnell Douglas planes, which will provide a major boost for
our aircraft industry.
We will continue to fight for more open markets abroad. It isn't easy, and it will not
be a straight line. But I sincerely hope and believe that we could be on the verge of a
remarkable new era in which trade barriers will be coming down and living standards will be
going up throughout the world.
But ultimately, as the DLC has always said, America's ability to compete in the
world will depend on the actions we take here at home.
Will we keep our financial house in order?
Will we challenge our children more in school, with higher standards, more choice,
and a stronger link between school and work?
Will we move from an unemployment system that helps people only after they're out
of work to a reemployment system that helps people get the skills they need to succeed in the
job they've got?
Will we get rid of a crazy welfare system that tells people not to work, and replace it
with policies that reward work and responsibility and family?
Will we put more police on the street, get tough on career criminals, and steer youth
away from violence so that our people feel safe enough to shop and go to work and send
their kids to school?
And will we finally agree to do what it takes to bring down the high cost of health
care which is an impeding factor in our ability to compete. in the· world economy?
That is why the third central element of the Clinton economic plan is so important.
As Rob Shapiro says, a cut-and-invest strategy is essential to our economic well-being. That
5
�may mean that we have to go against the grain of some established interests in Washington,
but I think we've got to stand together as New Democrats and do it.
We'll never be able to get and keep high-wage, high-skill jobs in the world economy
unless we make room to invest in our people and to make it possible for every business to
invest in their workers and their company's future.
We are working very hard to shift government's priorities away from consumption
and toward long-term investment. The President's latest budget eliminates a number of
outdated programs, and uses the money instead to invest in areas like technology, defense
conversion, education reform, and community policing.
Moreover, the President is pushing the envelope to get quick Congressional action on
a host of important initiatives. Last year was the most productive Congressional session
since Eisenhower. We passed the economic plan, NAFrA, the Brady Bill, Family Leave,
Motor Voter. This year we've passed school-to-work, Goals 2000, the buyout bill, and
we're on the bring of a crime bill that will end more than five years of gridlock, put 100,000
more police on the street, and reduce the federal bureaucracy by 252,000 positions in the
bargain.
And slowly but surely, we are grinding toward a health reform bill that will make
good on the President's promise to bring down costs and guarantee private health insurance
for all. If we can succeed in reducing business's health costs over the long term, we will
free up billions of dollars in capital for new investment.
In the meantime, our economic policies have helped to spur the fastest pace of
business investment since 1972. Over the past year, real business spending on equipment
went up 18.4%, and is now running at the highest pace in history, and still going.
Core inflation last year was the lowest since price controls were in place in the early
'70s. Consumer confidence is the strongest it has been in five years. Car and truck sales
jumped last month, almost enough to make me long for my days as an active Ford dealer.
And while interest rates have climbed back a bit, they are still a full point lower today in a
period of strong growth than they were at the bottom of the recession - and mortgage rates
are lower than at any time between 1973 and 1992.
I don't trot out these figures to let New Democrats take all the credit for this
wonderful economic recovery. This recovery belongs to the workers and entrepreneurs of
America, not the political leaders.
But I think that together we did one thing that has had a lot to do with why the
economy rebounded more quickly and more resoundingly than most people expected. Last
year, for the first time I can remember, political leaders and business leaders and the
American people stood together and made the difficult choices we had been putting off so
6
�long. And last year, we became the first Administration to prove that it il possible to cut
and invest at the same time. Those tough decisions have done much to lower interest rates,
fuel this recovery, and stir hope that there will be more good times to come.
Our mission as New Democrats is just beginning. It is still imperative that we do
more to strengthen and expand the American middle class. We need to restore faith in
government, and repair the other broken institutions - community, school, and family - at
the core of American life. We need to make this country work again for ordinary people,
and renew the promise of opportunity that used to come with hard work.
Shortly after we took office, when President Clinton was about to deliver his first
address to Congress, our son Mark pulled me aside and gave me some strong advice about
the course we should take in our Administration. He was only 14 ('1) at the time, but already
he sounded just like AI From. •you've got to try something different than what we've been
doing for so long, • he said. •This just isn't working. •
Well, we m doing something different, and so far it il working. We face many
challenges ahead. But I hope that we'll have the courage to follow Mark's advice and stick
to the bold course we've set for ourselves. Because if we do, I think we'll give him and
other young Americans the prospect of as future as bright as Bill Clinton and I had growing
up in a place called Hope.
7
�r,. (
't..
Chief of Staff Mack McLarty
Democratic Leadership Council Retreat
New Orleans, Louisiana
April 30, 1994
I
1
-
fl\c,J .. ,
c; ~I.M
�It is great to be back in this wonderful town with
so many old friends. I am glad to see that despite all
the fame and glory the DLC has enjoyed for electing a
President and transforming our party, you haven't
forgotten the central reason this organization was
founded, which· was to give us all an excuse to spend
more time in New Orleans.
2
�I want to thank John Breaux for inviting everybody
back to Jazz Fest. He's been a good friend to the
Administration and the President, and he knows how to
throw one heckuva party.
3
�And I want to congratulate Dave McCurdy, who is
off to a great start as DLC chairman. Neither I nor the
President will ever forget how hard Dave and AI From
and the whole DLC fought to help the President pass
NAFTA, which I believe will go down in history as a
pivotal moment for our Administration.
4
�It is an honor to have the last word at what by all
accounts has been an outstanding retreat. Many of you
may recall that four years ago, in this very town, the
closing speaker at the 1990 DLC Conference was a
fellow from Arkansas by the name of Bill Clinton. At
the time, the Republicans were still going strong after a
decade in office; George Bush's popularity ratings were
above 70%.
Our party's prospects were so bleak that
Democrats spent most of their time worrying who they
could trick into running in 1992.
5
�Bill Clinton saw things a little differently. He
stood up here and told the crowd that the Republicans
were the least of our problems -- our real problem was
that millions of Americans went about their business
every day and we didn't even cross their minds.
6
�"They don't know what we stand for, they don't·
know who we are, and they don't know what we are
trying to do," he said. "In the ep.d," he went on, "any
political resurgence for the Democrats depends on the
intellectual resurgence of our party. . . If we stand for
something that makes sense and if people can identify
with it, this party is going to do just fine."
7
�And he was right. The 1992 election was such a
watershed not only because of the last Administration's
poor record on the economy, but because our party
offered Americans the most compelling new agenda
since the New Deal -- at the very time the Republicans
seemed to run out of ideas. Bill Clinton and AI Gore
were able to beat the electoral odds in '92 because
people could tell they were different kinds of
Democrats who had something new to say.
8
�No group deserves more credit for leading the
intellectual resurgence of the Democratic Party than the
DLC. Under the leadership of Bill Clinton, Sam Nunn,
John Breaux, Dave McCurdy and so many others, the
DLC and PPI have been an oasis of new thinking and
new ideas, ideas like National Service, the Police
Corps, Goals 2000, School-to-Work, all of which have
since become law or are about to.
9
�Perhaps the ultimate tribute to what the DLC has
done is that everything Bill Clinton said about
Democrats' troubles back in 1990 is now even more
true of the Republicans. It seems like they don't know
who they are, they're not sure what they stand for, and
they can't decide what they're trying to do.
10
�There are quite a few reasons for the Republicans
problems. But one in particular stands out: After
decades in which Democrats gave up the leadership role
to Republicans on some crucial issues to most
Americans, the Clinton administration is vigorously
seizing that role back; completely undercutting the
Republican base. On budget cutting and deficit control.
On economic growth. On crime. On welfare reform.
And the list goes on and on.
11
�Now, it's no secret that sotne of you have not seen
eye-to-eye with us on 100 percent of our efforts. But I
think you know as well as I do that our President and
our administration are keeping faith with the New
Democrat ideals of opportunity, responsibility and
community that will turn this country around. And
those themes and the ideas that are driving this
administration started out right here with the DLC.
12
�Let's start with the President's agenda this spring:
* In March, after a particularly impressive effort
by Secretary of Education Dick Riley, the President
signed Goals 2000, a landmark education reform law to
reinvent our schools. Goals 2000 will dramatically
reform our schools, establishing high academic
standards and providing support to communities so that
they themselves can reach those standards. That's a
grassroots, DLC idea, and it's going to spark a
revolution in learning.
13
�* This week, our National Service program
announced the first grants to make good on another
dream the DLC and this President have shared for
almost a decade -- to inspire a new spirit of civic
obligation across this country. The program will help
young Americans go on to college, but it's going to ask
them to give something back to their country.
14
�The first awards went to 90 projects that will take
part in National Service's Summer of Safety, which will
put 7,000 young people into service helping police
departments, public housing projects, and senior citizen
centers reduce crime.
15
�National Service has the potential to change a
whole generation of Americans, and it wouldn't have
happened if Dave McCurdy, Sam Nunn, Will Marshall,
and so many others hadn't worked so hard for so many
years. It's a DLC idea, and it may well be
remembered longer than anything else we do.
16
�* Next week, the President will sign a school-towork law that will finally give young people who don't
go on to college a chance to get ahead.
* Next month, if all goes well, Congress will send
the President a blockbuster crime bill that will put
100,000 more police on the street in community
policing, start boot camps for young offenders and
build more prisons to keep violent criminals off the
street.
17
�And it will say to violent repeat offenders: Violent
criminals will be punished, and those who commit a
third violent crime will be put away, and put away for
good. All of this will be paid for through cuts in the
federal bureaucracy. This DLC-inspired crime bill will
make it a lot harder for anyone to use crime as a wedge
issue ever again. Republicans and Democrats don't
argue over. whether to defend our people against threats
from abroad. We should never have another partisan
battle over whether to defend our people here at home.
18
�* And finally,
next month the President will
introduce one of the signature proposals of his
Presidency, with a plan to end welfare as we know it.
Our plan will put the basic
va~ues
of work,
responsibility, and family back at the heart of our social
policy, and make welfare a second chance, not a way of
life. President Clinton said it to you in Cleveland; he
said it again in Memphis; and he's said it both times he
has addressed Congress on the State of the Union:
Governments don't raise children --parents do.
19
�That's a DLC idea, and he's going to keep saying
it until every parent in America gets the message.
Bill Clinton won in large measure because he
offered an economic vision that is fundamentally
different from what Americans had heard from either
party over the last two decades. He said in the
campaign what we have always said in the DLC, that
we could no longer afford tax-and-spend economics on
the one hand or supply-side economics on the other.
20
�One of the things Bill Clinton learned as governor
of Arkansas was that none of the other things ·he wanted
to accomplish -- on education reform or welfare or
anything else -- would amount to a hill of beans without
sustained economic growth. And he believed then as
now that while government can do a lot of good if it's
managed right, the private sector has to be the engine
of economic growth.
21
�Our first major economic objective has been to
bring down the deficit. The economic plan we passed
last year reduced the deficit by $500 billion, cut
spending by $255 billion, allocated every new tax dollar
to deficit reduction, and cut over 300 government
programs, including $80 billion in entitlement savings
over the budget which was in place when the President
took office. It was the largest deficit reduction plan in
history.
22
�This year's budget, which the President has
submitted to Congress, cuts 379 programs out of a total
of 626 in the federal budget -- and eliminates 115
government programs altogether. As the Wall Street
Journal pointed out recently, next year discretionary
spending will fall in absolute terms for the first time
since 1969. The deficit as a percentage of national
income is now as low as it was in 1979. And as a
percentage of GDP, the deficit is now projected to be
lower than any of our G-7 trading partners.
23
�We're not just cutting the deficit. We're cutting
the size of government. Thanks to the Vice President's
effort to reinvent government, we are on course to
reduce the federal bureaucracy by 252,000 positions.
By 1998, the federal government will be smaller than it
has been since President Kennedy.
24
�All of this deficit reduction did exactly what DLC
Democrats always said it would: it led to lower interest
rates which have helped fuel a powerful economic
recovery that has created 2.5 million jobs in the
President's first 15 months -- $63 billion worth of jobs
created.
25
�The President's economic plan did something else
that has always been important to the DLC: it forced a
shift in government's priorities away from old programs
that don't work and toward new Democratic ideas that
will. I imagine that I'm not the only one in this room
who found himself in a higher tax bracket this year.
26
�But I want you to know that according to H&R
Block, for every one of us who might be paying a little
more-- and I believe it is fair that we do --there are 16
working families who will receive a tax cut because of
the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the
most. significant pro-work, pro-family reform to come
out of Washington in decades. Tens of thousands of
families will escape poverty, welfare, and dependence
as a result.
27
�Our second major economic objective has been to
push for open and expanding trade throughout the
world. President Clinton
h~s
stood firm against the
temptations of protectionism and retrenchment, because
deep down he believes that expanding trade is the only
way that rich countries like ours get richer.
28
�That is why we fought so hard for NAFTA, and I
know that is why so many of you were right there
working alongside us. At key points in its history,
every nation faces moments when it must overcome its
fears and choose the promise of the future over the
false security of the past. NAFTA will be remembered
as one of those defining moments because of the
steadfast determination our President and other leaders
showed in the midst of such uncertain times to will this
country forward.
29
�We've made other great strides. We negotiated an
historic breakthrough on GATT. We've lifted export
controls on $37 billion of high technology equipment
now that the Cold War is over. I worked closely with
Ron Brown to help persuade the Saudis to buy
American-made Boeing and McDonnell Douglas planes,
a major boost for our aircraft industry.
30
�We will continue to fight for more open markets
abroad. It isn't easy, and it will not be a straight line.
But I sincerely hope and believe that we could be on
the verge of a remarkable new era in which trade
barriers will be coming down and living standards will
be going up throughout the world.
31
�With President Nixon's funeral this week, we've all
had reason to think about how much the world has
changed in recent years. It's hard to believe that it was
barely a generation ago that he stood opposite Nilqta
Khrushchev at the "kitchen debate" and argued over
which system -- capitalism or communism -- our
grandchildren would live under. Today, throughout the
world, including in most of the·former communist
world, we know who won that argument and we know
why.
32
�That is one of the reasons why we have this
historic opportunity to expand the world's economy,
and this President intends to seize that moment.
33
�But we also know that opportunities like ours create
new challenges around the world, and we are
determined to stand strong and resolute in the face of
those challenges. In l3osnia, in North Korea, in the
Middle East and in the former Soviet Union, we are
moving steadfastly and vigorously to assert American
leadership.
34
�We are fully engaged, and we know that keeping
America's defense and its role in the world strong is the
only way to make sure that the world maintains a
lasting structure of peace.
And if anyone doubts that America's influence does
not have the impact we intend for it to have, they need
look no further than this week's developments in South
Africa.
35
�In the last year, we have supported unprecedented
voter education and election monitoring programs. We
are providing an expanded assistance package to help
South Africa navigate a new course. All of that is
helping to buttress the extraordinary courage of the
South Africans themselves, who have now taken the
most momentous step toward democracy in their
history, a step that we should all applaud.
36
�All that we are doing here and abroad are only the
start toward the goal of revitalizing our country. As
Rob Shapiro says, a cut-and-invest strategy is essential
to our economic well-being. That may mean that we
have to go against the grain of some established
interests in Washington, but I think we've got to stand
together as New Democrats and do it.
37
�We'll never be able to get and keep high-wage,
high-skill jobs in the world economy unless we make
room to invest in our people and for every business to
invest in their workers and their company's future.
And we are working very hard to shift government's
priorities away from consumption· and toward long-term
investment. Our goal is to eliminate outdated programs
and use the money to invest in what will work for our
people, in areas like technology, defense conversion,
education reform, and community policing.
38
�That is why, slowly but surely, we are grinding
toward a health reform bill that will make good on the
President's promise to bring down costs and guarantee
private health insurance for all. If we can succeed in
reducing business's health costs over the long term, we
will free up billions of dollars in capital for new
investment.
39
�As that process goes on, people of good will will
have differences. But we have to remember that one of
this President's greatest strengths is that he is willing to
put ideas to the test and let an open process refine them
for the sake of the whole country. When we do that,
the final product is stronger still. That was our
experience with last year's budget process, and, in the
end, it will be our experience with reforming health
care.
40
�We have seen the fruits of that kind of thinking
with regard to our most important mission, renewing
the American economy.
Our economic policies have helped to spur the
fastest pace of business investment since 1972. Core
inflation last year was the lowest since price controls
were in place in the early '70s.
41
�Consumer confidence is the strongest it has been in
five years. Car and truck sales jumped last month,
almost enough to make me long for my days as an
active Ford dealer. And while interest rates have
climbed back a bit, they are still a full point lower
today in a period of strong growth than they were at the
bottom of the recession -- and mortgage rates are lower
than at any time between 1973 and 1992.
42
�I don't trot out these figures to let New Democrats
take all the credit for this wonderful economic
recovery. This recovery belongs to the workers and
entrepreneurs of America, not to political leaders.
43
�But I think that together we did one thing that made
a huge differences. Last year, ·for the first time I can
remember, political leaders and business leaders and the
American people stood together and made the difficult
choices we had been putting off so long. And last year,
we became the first Administration to prove that it is
possible to cut and invest at the same time. Those
tough decisions have done much to lower interest rates,
fuel this recovery, and stir hope that there will be more
good times to come.
44
�It is still imperative that we do more to strengthen
and expand the American middle class. We need to
restore faith in government, and repair the other broken
institutions -- community, school, and family -- at the
core of American life. We need to make this country
work again for ordinary people, and renew the promise
of opportunity that used to come with hard work.
45
�Shortly after we took office, just a hour or so
before President Clinton delivered his first address to
Congress, our son Mark pulled me aside and gave me
some strong advice. He was only 20 at the time, but
already he sounded just like AI From. "You've got to
try something different than what we've been doing for
so long," he said. "This just isn't working."
46
�' Well, we am doing something different, and so far
it is working. We face many challenges ahead. But I
hope that we'll have the courage to follow Mark's
advice and stick to the bold course we've set for
ourselves. Because if we do, I think we'll give him
and other young Americans the prospect of as future as
bright as Bill Clinton and I had growing up in a place
called Hope.
47
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Don Baer
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of Communications
Don Baer
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1994-1997
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36008" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431981" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2006-0458-F
Description
An account of the resource
Donald Baer was Assistant to the President and Director of Communications in the White House Communications Office. The records in this collection contain copies of speeches, speech drafts, talking points, letters, notes, memoranda, background material, correspondence, reports, excerpts from manuscripts and books, news articles, presidential schedules, telephone message forms, and telephone call lists.
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
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William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Extent
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537 folders in 34 boxes
Text
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Original Format
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Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
DLC [Democratic Leadership Council] Retreat (McLarty) 4/30/94
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of Communications
Don Baer
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2006-0458-F
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Box 29
<a href="http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/2006/2006-0458-F.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431981" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
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William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Format
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Adobe Acrobat Document
Medium
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Reproduction-Reference
Date Created
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1/12/2015
Source
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42-t-7431981-20060458F-029-007-2014
7431981