pd07de98 Statement on the Resignation of Steve Grossman as National Chairman of...

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financial or technical assistance to Pakistan by any international 
financial institution in support of the assistance program that Pakistan 
is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund.
    You are hereby authorized and directed to report this determination 
to the Congress and to arrange for its publication in the Federal 
Register.
                                            William J. Clinton


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[Page 2403-2404]
 
Monday, December 7, 1998
 
Volume 34--Number 49
Pages 2387-2429
 
Week Ending Friday, December 4, 1998
 
Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner

December 1, 1998

    Thank you very much. I'm delighted to see all of you. I think this 
is the first--virtually the first speech I've given since the election. 
I'm delighted to be here. I thank you for coming, I thank you for your 
support.
    Thank you, Jeff and Andy and Charles and all the other cosponsors of 
tonight. I want to thank Governor Romer and Steve and Len Barrack and 
all the other people here from the DNC and the people who are here from 
the White House staff.
    A great deal of what needs to be said has probably already been 
said, but I would like to just make a couple of remarks if I might. 
First of all, all of you who have been part of this administration, both 
formally and informally through your support, have helped us to make 
some real differences in the lives of Americans. I said today, at the 
World AIDS Day, that while there are alarming trends in the growth of 
AIDS around the world, we can take a lot of comfort in the fact that the 
rate of new infections is declining in America, that the death rate went 
down in America, and that is because in no small part I think the 
efforts that you made which made it possible for us in the last 5\1/2\ 
to 6 years to have an increase in research of 65 percent and prevention 
of 34 percent and drug assistance up 640 percent--it's a big deal to me 
because I don't think we want medicine out there that ordinary people 
can't have access to--and the Ryan White act funding of 240 percent.
    You mentioned the minority initiative which is very important. 
Today, on World AIDS Day, we announced that we would put $200 million in 
the next fiscal year into the NIH to develop an AIDS vaccine; another 
$160 million into NIH for other AIDS-related research; that we would 
invest several million dollars in trying to deal with the problems of 
AIDS orphans around the world; and that we would have $200 million, 
which the Vice President announced today, in housing assistance for 
people with HIV and AIDS. So we are moving in the right direction.
    I'd like to ask you also to continue your support for the larger 
agenda of inclusion of this administration. The real mandate of this 
election was for the American people to pull together and to go forward. 
We have a generation of baby boomers about to retire, and we've got to 
figure out how to save the Social Security system in a way that does not 
bankrupt our children and our grandchildren.
    We have an enormously successful economy, but deeply disturbing 
trends that you may have seen on the front page of, I believe it was, 
the New York Times in the last couple of days, indications that we are 
now falling behind other countries in the rate of our children who are 
graduating from high school and the rate of our young people who are 
actually finishing college as opposed to those who are going.
    We have a big education agenda. Some of it was enacted in the last 
session of the Congress; some of it was not. We have a huge health care 
agenda out there, including the Patients' Bill of Rights, which is very 
important for everybody who is covered by a managed care plan. And I 
feel especially driven on this issue because I have supported the 
expansion of managed care. I thought it was absolutely imperative to 
manage the health care expenditures of this country better when I became 
President. But I don't think it's wrong for people--right for people to 
be denied access to a specialist or otherwise to have enormous 
disadvantages simply because of the health care plan they happen to find 
themselves in.
    We have enormous numbers of people between the ages of 55 and 65--
most of you are younger than that, but if you're not you--if you're not 
that age, you'll be there before you know it. It doesn't take long to 
live a life, I've discovered. We have enormous numbers of people who 
can't get any health

[[Page 2404]]

insurance. We proposed, at no cost to the taxpayers, to let them buy 
into the health plan of the Federal Government--I think a very important 
initiative.
    And so there's a whole broad agenda out there that helped to bring 
the American people together and to rally support to what we were trying 
to do in the last election. And Roy said he thought the inclusion 
message was important; I believe that. And I believe that what we have 
to continue to do is to demonstrate that we have more things in common 
than we have dividing us.
    In the end, the American people are almost always called upon to 
make the same decision: Are you for progress or partisanship; are you 
for people or politics; are you for unity or division? And I think--I 
said this before; I hate to say it, and I wish it weren't true. But I 
think that--because I wish we never had to have these sober reminders--
but sometimes when terrible tragedies strike us, they bring us to our 
senses in a way that would never otherwise be the case. And I think the 
horrible death of Matthew Shepard helped to sober the country up and 
think about what it is that is really essential, not just about our 
citizenship in this country but about our humanity.
    So I ask you to continue to work with us, to continue to help push 
us forward, and to continue to help move this country forward, to 
continue to involve more people in the life of the administration and 
ultimately in the future of America.
    I feel very grateful to be here serving, and I feel very grateful to 
have had the support of those of you around this table. And I look very 
much forward to 2 more years of significant progress.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 7:10 p.m. in the Colonial Room at the 
Mayflower Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to dinner cohosts Jeff 
Soref, vice chair, Democratic National Committee Gay and Lesbian 
American Caucus; Andy Tobias, author; Charles Nolan, fashion designer; 
Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado, general chair, Steve Grossman, national 
chair, and Len Barrack, national finance chair, Democratic National 
Committee; and hate crime victim Matthew Shepard.


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[Page 2404-2405]
 
Monday, December 7, 1998
 
Volume 34--Number 49
Pages 2387-2429
 
Week Ending Friday, December 4, 1998
 
Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner

December 1, 1998

    Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, let me, first of all, say 
when Steve Grossman was standing up here bragging on everyone else, I 
thought to myself: When he took over our party, when we were $18 million 
in debt, it didn't seem like a very sound decision on his part. Not a 
sound political decision, not a sound business decision--because he had 
to stop doing other things--probably not a good thing for his family. 
And we wouldn't be here if he hadn't put in all those long hours and 
long days and long weeks and long months. He never got tired.
    People talk about how I don't; I do get tired. I plead guilty. I get 
tired. Steve Grossman never got tired. [Laughter] And I think we ought 
to tell him that we know that, and we thank him so much. [Applause] 
Thank you.
    Let me say tonight is a special night for all of us because we're 
joined by three of our new Senators, and I'm very proud of all of them. 
Hillary and I have known Evan and Susan Bayh for a long time. They're 
both my golfing partners; they used to be my jogging partners back when 
I was young like they still are. And we served as Governors together. 
We've done a lot of things together for years. And I was absolutely 
thrilled to see the great success that they enjoy.
    I met John Edwards in North Carolina when he and Elizabeth were down 
there. We went to a very hot rally one night, and I went away--and 
Erskine Bowles went down with me; it was the day we had the--we 
celebrated America's Heritage Rivers, and we did the New River in North 
Carolina. And then we went to this big event where John was the featured 
speaker. And we walked out, and Erskine and I had to go back to 
Washington. I said, ``Erskine, I'll swear I believe that guy can be 
elected.'' This is months beforehand. [Laughter] And sure enough, he 
was, thanks to a magnificent effort in North Carolina.
    And all of you know that Hillary and I virtually moved to New York 
State in the Schumer campaign. And I saw Chuck and Iris and their 
daughters up close on many occasions,

[[Page 2405]]

campaigning. I thought I knew New York real well, but Chuck Schumer 
taught me a few things and showed me a few people and a few places and a 
few neighborhoods that I had not known before then.
    And I really believe that these people embody not just the future of 
our party, but the future of our country. And I am honored to serve with 
them, and I am very much looking forward to it.
    Let me be very brief. All of you are here, this is sort of a yearend 
celebration, the last of a long series of efforts. I want to tell you 
also that it may be true, as Steve said and as many of our friends in 
the Republican Party have said since the election in which they outspent 
us by more than $100 million--it may be true that money is trumped by 
message. And it must be true at some level because they did outspend us 
by more than $100 million.
    But I also think it's important to remember that the message has to 
get out. And if you hadn't been willing to come to so many of these 
events, hear me give the same speech over and over again, and be there 
for us in the bad times as well as the good, it wouldn't have been the 
same on election day. I have done this now for quite a long time, and I 
will never do it again on my own behalf, so I can tell you from a 
lifetime of experience that it is quite possible to win an election in 
which you are outspent but only if you have enough to be heard. And so 
you gave our people a chance to be heard. And you gave our people a 
chance, as Steve never tires of saying, to be organized, to show up, to 
be counted. And I want you to know I am very grateful.
    The last thing I want to say is we now have a heavier responsibility 
going into next year and the next year than we would otherwise have had 
because of the gains that were made, because of the elections that were 
won against all the odds, because the American people said so loudly, so 
clearly, so unmistakable: ``We like the way we're changing. We like the 
path we're on. We want to keep on. We want to keep moving economically. 
We want to keep moving toward greater social harmony. We want to keep 
tackling our problems and solving them and getting them out of the way 
and going on. We want to keep reaching out to the rest of the world in a 
positive way.''
    Because they said that, because they did say, ``We choose progress 
over partisanship and people over politics and unity over division,'' we 
have a higher responsibility. Elections are not simply the choices of 
people to sit in slots until the next election, they are a mandate for 
certain kinds of action or inaction, certain kinds of direction or 
changes of direction.
    And so I say to you, we have a responsibility to lead and to try in 
good faith to work with the Republicans to save Social Security for the 
21st century; to give every child in this country an excellent, world-
class education; to deal with the challenges of the health care system, 
including the Patients' Bill of Rights--to do whatever it takes to 
maintain our leadership for peace and freedom around the world, and to 
stabilize the global financial system so that we can continue to have 
long-term prosperity and opportunity here at home and for our friends 
and neighbors in other countries.
    And down deep, beneath it all, we have a responsibility to keep 
working to reconcile the American people to one another, to really stand 
up for the best kind of unity, to stand against the politics of 
division, to prove that we have more in common than what divides us.
    That is what I believe the voters asked us to do a month ago, and 
that is what I intend to spend 2 years doing. And I am profoundly 
grateful that these three magnificent public servants are going to be in 
the United States Senate to carry their load and then some.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 10:01 p.m. in the East Room at the 
Mayflower Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Steve Grossman, national 
chair, Democratic National Committee; Senator-elect Evan Bayh and his 
wife, Susan; Senator-elect John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth; and 
Senator-elect Chuck Schumer and his wife, Iris.

[[Page 2406]]


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[Page 2406]
 
Monday, December 7, 1998
 
Volume 34--Number 49
Pages 2387-2429
 
Week Ending Friday, December 4, 1998
 
Remarks Following a Meeting With Congressional Leaders

December 2, 1998

    Thank you very much, Senator. Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I 
want to congratulate the new members of the leadership in the Democratic 
Senate caucus and thank the returning Members for their service.
    I would like to acknowledge the presence and the leadership of one 
Senator who had to leave, Senator Patty Murray from Washington State, 
recently re-elected. Patty Murray had to go home to a memorial service 
for General John Stanford, the superintendent of the Seattle schools. 
And on behalf of the First Lady and the Vice President and myself, I 
would like to say at the outset that we admire John Stanford. He was a 
patriot. He was a great educator. His loss is a loss to the children of 
Seattle and to the people of the United States, and our prayers are with 
his family. And we thank Senator Murray for going home to that service.
    Now, let me say that we just had a good meeting, but it was a good 
meeting not about what happened last month, but about what happened--
what will happen in the months ahead and the mandate that we have 
received to move forward on the American people's agenda.
    This is a remarkable moment for our country. We have the strongest 
economy in a generation. It gives us the opportunity and the obligation 
to move forward on the deepest concerns of the American people and the 
great challenges of our time, to move forward in education, to move 
forward in health care, to move forward on Social Security, to move 
forward in stabilizing the global economy so we can continue to grow the 
American economy.
    The American people have made it clear that they expect us to focus 
on modern schools and world-class educations for their children, on a 
sound Social Security system for the 21st century, on strong patient 
protections in the area of managed care.
    Senator Daschle, his colleagues, and we in the administration are 
determined to make passage of a comprehensive Patients' Bill of Rights a 
top priority in the next Congress. It is a decision that the Congress 
should be able to make in short order. We must give the American people 
the peace of mind that comes from knowing that when they fall ill, they 
will be treated as people, not dollar signs on a ledger.
    I have taken many steps to do everything I could to strengthen 
patient protections. Just last week--or this week, our administration 
instructed hospitals all across America that waiting for approval from 

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