Remarks at a Democratic Business Council Luncheon

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 27, 1999

September 24, 1999

Thank you. You think that story John told was true? [Laughter] I just - you better keep that Republican's name secret, or they'll subpoena him before a committee, before you know it. [Laughter]

I want to thank all of you at the DBC. I want to thank my long-time friend John Merrigan, and Mitchell Delk, and my good friend Jan Jones, and all the others who have been involved with the DBC. I want to thank our finance people, starting with Beth Dozoretz and Frank Katz, and going through all of the people who have worked on this event.

I want to thank all of you who give so consistently to our party, to give us a chance to get our message out. Thank you, Joe Andrew; thank you, Lou Weisbach, Lottie Shackelford, Janice Griffin. Thanks, Secretary Slater, for being here and for being there for me for nearly 20 years, now. And I want to say a special word of thanks to Roy Romer for his wonderful service to our party. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Our former chair, Don Fowler, is here. We've got a lot of other good folks here. But I wanted to say to all of you that I think it's quite important how you think and how you talk about were we are, where we've been, and where we're going. So if you will forgive me, I will get down to business. I'm sorry I'm a little late, but I had to spend an extra amount of time at the DNC, because they had a big crowd there, and I wanted to make sure they were thinking right about the moment. And I feel the same way about you.

In 1991, I asked the American people to give me a chance to be President. And I said, "If you'll vote for me, I'll do my best to change our party, to change our national leadership, to change the direction of our country. I think we need new ideas for the new economy and all of the new challenges in our society and the world at large. But they have to be rooted in old values of opportunity for all, responsibility from all, and a community of all Americans."

And I asked the American people to give me a chance. And I made an argument for them about what I would do. Then, when the Vice President joined the ticket, we reissued our economic plan and asked the American people to give us a chance to put people first. And I would like to ask you to think about that.

John said we brought the economy back and brought the Democratic Party back to the center. I think we did bring it back to the center, but I prefer to think of it as pushing the Democratic Party forward into the future, by getting out of making what seemed to me to be completely false choices. If you hang around Washington long enough, you learn that putting people and issues into categories - I'm sympathetic with people in Washington because they have to deal with so many people and so many issues - if you put everybody and every thing in a little box, it saves you the trouble of having to think. But it's a very poor way to run a country and to make decisions about the future of the country.

So we said, "Hey, give us a chance. We believe that the Democratic Party can be probusiness and prolabor. We believe we can be for family values and be against discrimination against women or gays or anybody else. We believe we can be for one America and still celebrate our diversity. We believe you can grow the economy while you improve the environment, not degrade it. We believe that we'll have a better work place if we also help workers to succeed at home in their parental responsibilities. We believe these things. We believe we can prevent crime and be tough on criminals who should be punished."

And so, we made this argument. And the results speak for themselves. But I want to make just a couple of points. Number one, we've got to take a little longer walk down memory lane, because the economy's been so good now that people can't remember when it wasn't. I saw a poll the other day where people think the economy was good when President Bush was here. I think they think it was good when Herbert Hoover was here. [Laughter] It's been good a long time.

But it's important to point out that in 1980, when the Reagan revolution occurred, the premise of the Reagan revolution - there were two premises. One is, Government is your enemy and the cause of all of our problems, and you should dislike it and make it as small as possible unless it's building defense or pouring concrete. That was the first one. The second was, the way to have a strong economy forever and a balanced budget forever is to increase spending and cut revenues. Let me repeat that. You don't have to laugh, but I want to make sure you heard it. [Laughter] The way to balance the budget and have a strong economy is to increase spending and cut revenues. That was their whole deal, and we proceeded to try it for 12 years. And it got him elected and then reelected and then got President Bush to become only the second Vice President in American history to become directly elected after the President.

But did it work for a while? As I told the DNC today, my former senior Senator, Dale Bumpers, in talking to the Reagan years used to say, "Of course it worked. If you let me write $2 billion of hot checks, I'll show you a good time, too." [Laughter] So it worked.