Bill Clinton: “Yes. So there's the economics and the security; there's the national and the international. There's all this…”

“Yes. So there's the economics and the security; there's the national and the international. There's all this interdependence. And I just think that in this world, if you happen to be at the moment it's occurring, that this huge new world of interdependence is occurring--and plus you've got all this interdependence at a citizen level with the Internet exploding and the information explosion. We're going to have all kinds of implications with the scientific explosions going on now. And we just happen to be, at this moment in history, the strongest and the wealthiest country around. It is a unique gift for our people. They've worked hard for it, but it's still a blessing. But it's also a unique responsibility. And, you know, looking back over the last 5 years--I just celebrated my 5th anniversary here--I think that our administration has had good success in changing the role of Government, in changing the debate about Government from--you know, the debate I heard for the 12 years before I got here was, the Government is the problem versus Government is the solution. And we've sort of come up with, no, no, Government is neither. Government is a catalyst; it's got to give people the tools to solve their own problems; it's got to be a good partner; it's got to empower neighborhoods and people. So we've got a smaller, more active Government, and yet we've invested more in education, more in science and technology, more in the environment. And it's working, and we've got good results. We've not been as successful in convincing people in very practical terms about the interdependence of foreign and domestic policy, of economic and security policy. We just haven't been. But I'm hoping we can be more successful. Mr. Lehrer. The way it would come back to you would be this way, Mr. President. If there's a problem, like Asia has an economic problem, we're the folks that send the most money. You had a problem in Bosnia, Somalia, a military problem; we're the ones that send the most troops. That's how it translates in practice.”