Remarks on the economic plan in Hyde Park, New York - Bill Clinton's speech, February 19, 1993 - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, March 1, 1993

Thank you very much, my good friend, James Roosevelt, who has likewise been an inspiration to me over the years, and who knows and cares a great deal about a subject that we must all come to grips with this year, the crisis in health care; to Senator Pat Moynihan, one of the most productive people in public life in the 20th century in America.

And Mrs. Cuomo, I'm delighted to see you here, and we wish Governor Cuomo good health. He might have thought to himself on deciding whether to do the responsible thing and take to his sick bed today that he's probably heard this speech before, and he's probably given it before. |Laughter~ I can't tell you how grateful I am to your Governor for his support and his wise counseling. We had a delightful time in the White House, Hillary and I and Governor and Mrs. Cuomo, not very long ago. It's something I will treasure for a long time.

I'm glad to see Lieutenant Governor Lundine and attorney general Abrams and Members of the Congress, and members of both parties from the New York Assembly and State senate, and people here who are here because you are Americans. You're Republicans, Democrats, independents. I am glad to see you all here in this monument to America's possibility.

I wanted to come here for a thousand reasons; some of which are obvious. During the New York primary, which was successful in its conclusion but rather rough in its prelude on me--|laughter~--I was absolutely enthralled by a book about President Roosevelt called "The First Class Temperament" written by a man named Jeffrey Ward. And I read a lot about Hyde Park. And the thing that moved me most was the way President Roosevelt came to grips with the fact of his polio and learned to live with it and learned to triumph over it and learned to use it to make himself stronger inside and not to be defeated by it. And ever since, I have been transformed from someone who had a mild interest in coming here to someone who had a burning passion to see this place. And I am honored to be here today.

I want to say one more word, if I might, about Senator Moynihan because we've worked together over the years on a lot of things. I helped him to rewrite the welfare laws of our Nation in the late eighties and what he said was the most significant social welfare reform in 30 years, if only we could implement it. And one of the reasons I ran for President is to try to change the welfare system as we know it. I have watched him over more than two decades personally warn us about the decline of America's families, the development of a new and possibly permanent underclass in America, the importance of restoring the value of work to our social programs, a decade ago warning about the breakup of what was then the Soviet Union when most people thought that he was speaking a foreign language. And I can tell you that with leadership like his we can solve the problems this country faces today.

I think of that because--|applause~--yes, you can give him a hand. That's good. We were about 45 or 50 minutes away from here when we landed in the airplane, and all along the way there were people, school children, hundreds of them, lining the way with their signs; and the young people at Marist College having even printed signs; many people were young; some were older. A lot of them were terribly young. Most of them were I'd say between 20 and 50, anyway. |Laughter~ That's young to me, you know. I find myself redefining that word every year. And there are all kinds of incredible things: "Get the U.S. fit," one sign said. "I want to give something to my country," another said. One I might have to give a trip to the doctor. It said, "I want to pay more taxes." I couldn't believe that. |Laughter~ One sign said, "Shake 'em up, Bill." One sign said, "Give Bill a chance." One said, "Turn my country around." Another said, "I've got a B.A. and no job; I'm ready to change." Another said, "Just do something."

Then, of course, there were a few that weren't so favorable, but that's all right. That's what this country's all about, too. But I couldn't believe the number of people who were there. And I say that because as much as anything else, I think our country now is infused with a new sense of possibility.

One of the things that really used to depress me as I crossed America last year was the look I saw in so many people's eyes of skepticism, almost a painful unwillingness to believe that we can make things better, that we could change, that we could come to grips with the challenges of our time and overcome them and move forward.

One of the things that I think--perhaps the most important thing that was achieved in the last election year was we had a huge increase in turnout, an even bigger increase among younger people, and now every day the White House switchboard and the mailroom are fuller than they have been in decades and decades because people believe that it matters again.

This country has been kept going through two centuries now because of the peculiar mix of the energy of its people at the grassroots level and the vision of its leaders. But if you have one without the other, the country can't go forward. There have been times in the past when leaders have foreseen the future and known what needed to be done, but there was no connection with the people and so nothing could happen. There have been many times, I'm convinced, when the people have been ahead of their leaders. But if they had no visionary leaders, nobody to put all that energy together with the levers of public authority, nothing happened. We all hope, I think, from whatever perspective we come, that we now have a moment in our history where we have the energy of the people and a direction we can take.