After moving to the political center to win re-election, President Clinton today told the Democratic Leadership Council he plans to govern from the "vital center" where the majority of voters stand.
"Our agenda isn't liberal or conservative. It's both and it's different," Clinton said before the organization of moderate Democrats he helped found in 1985. The president even went so far as to claim a "mandate" by interpreting the results from Tuesday's runoff House races in Texas as demand from voters for a centrist agenda.
While claiming credit for reducing the number of welfare recipients over the past four years through a strong economy and state government experimentation, Clinton said the welfare reform bill signed earlier this year was "just the next step, not the end of the road." He said government, though the use of tax credits, should encourage businesses to hire welfare recipients, and that Congress should find more money for especially poor cities to create public jobs for former welfare recipients.
To help parents raise their children, Clinton called on Congress to allow workers to choose "flex time" instead of extra pay for the overtime they work. Several Republicans already have indicated their support for a "flex time" plan. And Clinton asked Congress to complete his plan to hire 100,000 more officers for community policing.
Clinton said he will continue to push for national education standards, but cautioned he still wants local school boards to control their curriculum. He said the national standards and testing for those standards will allow local school districts to judge where they need to improve compared to schools around the country.
On campaign finance reform, Clinton said passing the bill proposed by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., will require "consistent, disciplined and honest effort." Raising and spending money for campaigns takes too much time and effort, the president said, adding political money "takes too much time to raise and raises too many questions." And Clinton said the "new landscape" of American politics -- governing from the center -- has created a political environment for balancing the budget.
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