Comments at Democratic Dinner

The unedited transcript associated with this video is intended solely for use as a navigational tool to help you find certain parts of the video. This unedited transcript may contain errors, omissions and inaccuracies, and is not intended to be a word-for-word transcription of the speech contained in the video.

Venue: Democratic Dinner, Nashua
Date: 01-28-2000

I appreciate the many friends who are here. I want to thank Kate Hanna for a very elegant and graceful and lovely introduction. Didn't she do a wonderful job? Thank you. Thank you, Kate. It's been fun for Tipper and me to watch your kids grow up and to see the pride in your face as you relish their joy and accomplishments in life, and thank you for all that you have meant to us. Governor Shaheen, thank you for you outstanding leadership of this state, and isn't she doing a fantastic job. And Billy Shaheen, thank you for your friendship to me. And I—I had the great privilege of telling Coretta Scott King on Martin Luther King Day that you had lead the state of New Hampshire to join the rest of the country in celebrating Martin Luther King Day,. and thank you for helping to bring the healing that that—that that represents. It's wonderful to be back at the Club One Hundred dinner. To all of the distinguished guests here, Mrs. Bradley and all the friends that are gathered from around the state and from elsewhere. This is a forum of Democratic ideals that goes back to those first snowy days in New Hampshire when John Kennedy stirred this nation and called it to a new frontier. It is an honor to be a part of this forum again, and to talk with you about the issues that our nation is facing during this year's presidential contest. Kate was with Tipper when she filed my papers for becoming a candidate in Concord. And she wrote Kate you may remember "The fun starts here and New Hampshire rocks." Tipper has a way with words, and I must say that she was prophetic in those—in those words because I believe tonight that New Hampshire can be the rock that moves our nation toward a much brighter future. I want to congratulate Dunfey Canteras award winners. Jim Demurs has been a wonderful friend to Tipper and me and a pillar of New Hampshire's Democratic Party year in and year out over all these years, and I appreciate your great work, Jim. And let me say to Mary Rau, we may not be standing together right now in this primary contest, but I hope that we will stand together in the fall and we will defeat the Republicans in the fall.

It has been more than four decades since the Club One Hundred dinner began, and I guess I have to note that it now costs not $100, but $125 to a ten, but that's the lowest rate of inflation over that period of time that I've heard of. It goes with our party's policies of low inflation and prosperity. And what has not changed in all those years since John Kennedy is the fundamental commitment of our party and the decisive role of New Hampshire in choosing our president. In 1960 John Kennedy called us to the belief that our prosperity brings with it an obligation to do more for all of our people, especially for those who have not had an opportunity to fully participate in the good times enjoyed by others. He believed that a strong economy gave us the foundation for great achievements worthy of a great people. He knew that America could not afford to lower its sights or narrow its vision. Indeed we had to proceed on all the great unfinished business of our society. Tonight on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, we stand once again at the dawn of a new era of progress for America and for working families. And once again we are called upon to choose. I'm grateful for all of you who have chosen to be a part of my campaign. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. For those of you who are as yet undecided, I want to ask for your support. There are not that many hours now between this evening and 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning when the polls open, and between now and the time when you choose to go to the polls. But I'd like you to look carefully at the candidates and the agendas and the issues and the proposed solutions. I've said before and I'll say again, Senator Bradley is a good man. He is a worthy opponent here in New Hampshire. In Iowa he asked "Are you better off now than you were seven years ago?" I believe the answer to that question here in New Hampshire especially is yes, we are. But that is in my opinion not the question. This election is more than a report card because in this election we must find our vision for America's future. The question before us now is how can we do even better. How can we keep our prosperity going and make it work for all of the families in New Hampshire.

The people of New Hampshire remember very well what it was like seven years ago. Let us never forget and let us resolve together that in the fall, whatever the outcome of our contest for the nomination, we will not let the Republicans forget the contrast between the results under their policies and the results under Democratic policies. The contrast is clear and unmistakable. The Republicans offered the nation the public policy version of elixir or to put it more bluntly economic snake oil. They said that we could give a massive tax scheme directed at the wealthy, vastly increase some part of the military budget and at the same time have balanced budgets. Many took out pencils and pads and did the elementary mathematical calculations, didn't take that long, and said wait a minute. That's not going to work. That'll produce deficits, let me see, and they added them up and they said we've never had deficits like that. We can—we can't possibly do that, and they said oh, no, no, you don't understand this elixir is a kind of magic elixir. It'll work in a mysterious but beneficial way and produce balanced budgets without any real choices or economic common sense. And unfortunately the country was persuaded to go down that road and to adopt the Reagan tax scheme and the Reagan budget cuts, which raised child poverty, which knocked a million people—a million children off of the Medicaid roles and denied them healthcare, increased by one and a half million the number of children in poverty. Well, after 12 long years of Reagan/Bush policies, what happened here in New Hampshire was etched into the memory of every man and woman in this state. We had a recession that was worse than any time period since the 1930s. We saw unemployment rise. We saw crime rates go up. We saw people moving out of New Hampshire. We saw the loss of 10,000 jobs every single year. People were beginning to lose hope. Families were under stress. Well, thanks to you Bill Clinton and I were given the opportunity to bring change to our country, and never forget that New Hampshire was a loud, clear voice in favor of that change. New Hampshire, the Democratic state of New Hampshire, twice in a row the Democratic state of New Hampshire helped bring change to the United States. And as soon as we got there we proposed a complete shift in economic policy. I was campaigning earlier today with Bob Rubin the first chair of our National Economic Council. There never had been a National Economic Council before, coordinating all of the cabinet agencies and departments to make sure that our country's policy was sensible, focused, sustained, coordinated and effective. And we put together a sweeping new plan that was then presented to the Congress. Now, in the House of Representatives you know the story. It passed by the margin of a single vote and many of those who had the courage to support that plan lost their seats as a result because there was a time lag between the pain associate with making those tough choices and the benefits that flowed after a period of adjustment and produced the prosperity which I'll talk about in just a moment. And they knew that was going to be facing them, and they had the courage to vote yes anyway. In the Senate, it was the narrowest of margins, a single vote and again, in both the House and in the Senate not one single Republican was willing to abandon the status quo. and even taking a chance on breaking out of the pattern of economic distress that had so burdened our nation. After quadrupling the debt, after making debt service nearly as large as the defense budget, after pushing so many millions into poverty they were not willing, not a single one of them was willing, to adopt a new fresh, different approach. Even thought he American people, including millions of Republican voters not to mention tens of million of independent voters had said it is time to take an economic approach that might prove to be successful.

Well, we lost the House and the Senate two years later, and the reason is that the courage shown by the senators and the member of the House of Representatives who put the country's interests before their own personal political interests was the key to helping this nation. Now, after a period of time the benefits have become increasingly apparent. Now, after seven years, we've turned the biggest deficits into the biggest surpluses. We've turned the longest and worst recession since the 1930s into the longest economic expansion in the history of the United States of America. We've turned high unemployment into 20 million new jobs. Wages that were going down have now been going up. We raised the minimum wage. African-American and Latino unemployment rates are now the lowest that have ever been measured in history, real wages, real incomes have gone up. The crime rates gone down. The environment's cleaner. Everything has been improved, but we still have work to do, so we face a choice. And this election, like all elections, is about the future, but this one, more than most, is about New Hampshire's future. because New Hampshire is vulnerable to the effects of economic policy in our nation in a way that some of the parts of the country may not be. I spoke about John Kennedy earlier. He was elected to the United States Senate in the year 1952. That was the same year that my father was elected to the United States Senate. They were classmates. Some of you have heard me tell the story of that 1952 election in Tennessee. I was four years old and my father ran against a man named Kenneth McKeller who was chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and everywhere I looked I saw signs that said "The thinking feller votes McKeller." Powerful sign. The days before the 30-second TV ads, they were particularly powerful signs. My mother thought up the answer to that sign and I remember joining with my sister and thousands of others going around looking for the signs and leaving them where they were, of course. Everywhere we found one that said "The thinking feller votes McKeller," we put another one right underneath it that said "Think some more and vote for Gore," and it worked. I hope that some of you will do that in this election. Now, in 1954, two years after John Kennedy went into the Senate, he came here to New Hampshire and he made a series of speeches around New England about the economic future of this region. And he pointed out in this prescient series of speeches that New England is far from the crossroads of the heartland of America, does not have natural resources in abundance, no coal to speak of, no precious minerals. It has timber, but the principle resource is its people. The trade routes pass it be going from the East Coast to the West Coast, and so in order to compete the talents of New England's people have to be recognized as the principle bet for New England's future.

Well, if we have policies that recognize that and help New Hampshire, then New Hampshire prospers. In fact back during that period eight years ago New Hampshire was losing 10,000 job a year. Now New Hampshire is gaining 16,000 jobs a year. Now New Hampshire has the highest concentration of high technology jobs of any state in the union. That's a success. And because we stood up for welfare reform, we've been able to move thousands in this state and millions across America from welfare into the workforce with good jobs and better standards of living. and the dignity of work and the security and bright future associated with a job. What do we do now? Well, the heart of my campaign is a commitment to build on our progress, not to risk it or to put it in jeopardy. But rather to continue our prosperity with policies that will keep our interest rates low, keep the jobs being created and making sure that no one is left behind. Now, make no mistake the Republicans have not really learned the same lessons that most other Americans have learned from the history I have recounted. You would think, you would think that after a period in which their policies were proven to be disastrous, running America's economy into the ditch so to speak, after a period in which Democratic policies have proven to be spectacularly successful, you would think they would show some hesitation if not humility before they came before the American people and brazenly recommended that we abandon policies that work and go back to policies that don't work. You would think, but no. They remind me a little bit of the elderly gentleman who had a specific health problem that caused his wife to worry that he should stop driving and yet he insisted on driving anyway. One day he took the keys and got in the car and headed out toward the interstate, and she was very worried. She stayed there. Finally she couldn't stand the suspense anymore and she called him on his car phone and she said, "Honey, please be careful. I just heard a bulletin on the radio that somebody is driving the wrong way on the interstate." He said, "There's not just one, there's hundreds of them out here." I'm telling you, the Republicans just do not get it. They're headed the wrong way, and they're not picking up the signals, so we have to tell them. I believe that I have had the opportunity to gain the experience and the skills to help keep our prosperity going, to continue an economic approach and strategy adapted for the new challenges that we will face in 2001 that will continue our economic prosperity and build upon it.

I've learned that we don't have to choose between healthcare and education. We don't have to choose between childcare and Medicare. We don't have to choose between protecting the environment and building up our economy. We don't have to choose between our prosperity and our ideals. We can balance our budget, pay down our debt and invest in our people if we do these things in the right way. I do not believe that a president can afford to pick on just one or a small number of challenges facing the American people. If you entrust me with the presidency, I give you my solemn pledge that I will fight for you and your family and your loved ones and your community against every challenge that confronts the American people because that's the way we succeed. That's the way we make progress. I've learned from the people of New Hampshire—I've learned from the people of New Hampshire whose energy and initiative and skill have brought this state back. I've greatly enjoyed the open meetings that I've had across New Hampshire, and I know that the people of New Hampshire want to build on our prosperity and not roll it back. I pledge to balance our budget and better every year, pay down the national debt every year, bring into the circle of opportunity all of those who have been left out or left behind. The people of New Hampshire want to expand and universalize healthcare coverage in America. Ted Kennedy has endorsed the approach I've recommended as the best way to move forward toward universal coverage, step by step starting with every child in America and then their parents, up to two and half times the poverty rate. The people of New Hampshire want to strengthen Medicaid, not replace it with a system of subsidies capped at $150 a month or averaged at $150 a month, however you want to say it. The people of New Hampshire want to make sure that we save Medicare and devote funding from the budget surplus starting now to prepare for the retirement of the baby boom generation. Medicare is too important to take chances with its future. The people of New Hampshire believe that it is time to give our senior citizens some financial help in purchasing the prescription drugs that their doctors are prescribing for them. The people of New Hampshire know along with the former President Kennedy that investing in our people means investing in our public schools. Stand with me and we will make the greatest commitment to our public schools since the passage of the GI bill. I want to increase it by over 50 percent. I want to make education our number one priority for investing in the future. Let's treat our teachers like the professionals that they are. Let's have smaller class sizes. Let's have universal preschool for every child in every family all across our country. Let's have after-school care and childcare of high quality that's affordable for our families.

America must not walk away from public education, and make no mistake, every single Republican has proposed supporting vouchers that would in the view of almost all those who have debated this question for years and years. Take the relatively constant and relatively limited amounts of money that the public is willing to allocate for education year by year and take some portion of that amount and siphon it away from what is needed to dramatically improve our public schools and funnel it instead toward private schools. I have always believed that was a mistake. I believe it is a mistake today, and I want to take your message all across this country to tell the Republicans that they will not be able to pass private school vouchers because we want to save and upgrade and revolutionize our public schools. Now, I believe also that protecting the environment is an urgent task, and I want you to know that there are many Americans who are not aware that under the leadership in the state of Texas of the leading Republican candidate, Texas has now become number one in all 50 states in pollution of its water. Number one in pollution of the air. Number one in pollution of the ground. My friends, that is not the kind of approach to our environment that our country wants. We want to protect the environment in a way that creates millions of new jobs and provides leadership on the global challenges that are now rising to the top of our priority list in the world. Finally, I am convinced that we can meet all of these goals and more if we do it the right way. I'll tell you what we cannot do. We cannot afford to squander the budget surplus on the risky tax scheme proposed by Steve Forbes or George W. Bush. Those are giant giveaways for the wealthy. And we cannot afford to spend the entire budget surplus on a single proposal that does not achieve its own stated objective, but would threaten to leave us without the resources needed to meet our other challenges. There are those who say go back to a bidding war over how to spend the surplus before it has even been counted. I say we can't afford to rush back to massive deficits, repeat recessions and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs here in New Hampshire. I say if we do things right, we have only just begun to prosper in America. If we balance the budget every year and pay down the national debt every year, we've only just begun to prosper in America. If we invest the surplus wisely instead of blowing it, we've only just begun to prosper in America. If we move toward universal healthcare the right way, we've only just begun to prosper in America. If we help families afford college, we have only just begun to prosper in America. If we understand that we can protect our environment while creating new jobs, we've only just begun to prosper. If we bring our people together across the barriers of race and ethnicity and discrimination, then we've only begun to make the American dream alive and real in the hearts of all of our people. We don't have time for hate. We don't have time for discrimination. We don't have time for the kind of bigotry that has haunted our land for far too long. You know, today's prosperity, which I've talked about here this evening, did not happen by accident. It happened because you were willing to fight for a set of policies that were extremely controversial when they were enacted. Make no mistake about the passion that will be needed for the fight that lies ahead. Make no underestimate of the forces of resistance that are out there hungry to take back the White House and bend policies to the wishes of their special interest group friends. Make no mistake about how difficult this struggle is going to be for Democrats and those independents and independently-minded Republicans who will join us to do the right thing. I want you to know I am ready to fight for America's prosperity, to fight for a victory for truth for the American policies that are working today to build New Hampshire. I ask for your help on Tuesday. I want to have your votes on Tuesday. I want to fight for you, and I ask you to fight for me. Thank you very much, Democrats of New Hampshire.

© 2000, National Cable Satellite Corporation