Bill Clinton: “I'd like to make some brief remarks and then ask Senator Daschle and Congressman Gephardt to speak. And then we'll be…”

“I'd like to make some brief remarks and then ask Senator Daschle and Congressman Gephardt to speak. And then we'll be glad to answer a few questions. On this last day before Congress goes home, I wanted to invite the Democratic leadership down to the White House to thank them for their hard work and eventual successes on behalf of the working families of this country. The Congress is going to send me two measures that this caucus has worked hard on for a long time, the minimum wage bill, which also has some important help for small businesses, incentives to invest more in the business and to make it easier to take out retirement plans, and of course, the Kennedy-Kassebaum health bill, which will help millions of Americans have access to health care. And I'd like to say a special word of thanks to Senator Kennedy who has worked on both these issues for years and years and who was absolutely superb in the debates in the Senate and he would not let these issues die when--[applause]. These issues have been very key to our party, our caucus, and to me and my administration for a long time now. And I'm very, very happy about it. We're in a lot better shape than we were a year ago. We have basically, thanks to the American people standing up and standing with us, we have been able to do some positive things here, which are very, very important. In addition to that, we're going to have two major environmental legislative victories, the safe drinking water act and one on pesticides, which I think are very, very important. And I'm very pleased that we've been able to move away from some of the extremism of the last 2 years into a position where we can get some things done for the American people. So I think the American people have a lot to be proud of. I think the progressive, mainstream achievements of this caucus are some things that they can go home and be proud of in August. I have to say that this has been, on balance, a very good week for the American people. I must say I'm deeply disappointed that the antiterrorism package which had been agreed to by our caucus and our leadership and the leadership of the Republican Party apparently is not going to pass because the same folks who opposed the crime bill in '94 and the Brady bill are not going to permit it to pass in the House. And I am disappointed about that. I'm disappointed that we can't pass anything on the taggants yet, the explosives, because that's a big problem in domestic terrorist incidents. But I think we have to keep working on it because this problem will not go away. But in terms of these economic issues that are going to create more opportunity for the American people, I think it's a very, very happy day. And I'd like to ask Senator Daschle and Mr. Gephardt to say few words, and then we'll answer your questions. [At this point, Senator Thomas A. Daschle made brief remarks, followed by Representative Richard A. Gephardt, who concluded by stating that the legislation passed by Congress was a victory for the American people.]”