Clinton’s Own Agenda On Family His 14-Point Platform To Compete With Conservatives

Synthesizing many of his recent positions into a platform to compete with the reigning conservative manifestos, President Clinton on Friday outlined a 14-point “American Family Values Agenda” ranging from a higher minimum wage to a national crusade against teenage pregnancy.

Clinton made clear that he would not let the Republicans alone define family values. He outlined measures that he said would help families grapple with the economic and social problems they face, proposals for the preservation and expansion of gun-control laws, for instance, and for moderate increases in health insurance coverage.

“Families do not eat and breathe and sleep political slogans,” Clinton said in an address to a conference of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union.

“Most families couldn’t tell you for the life of them whether I’m up or down in the polls this week, and they couldn’t care less. They just know whether they’re up or down in their real life struggle this week. And that’s what we ought to think about.”

In the first direct indication that he plans a campaign against tobacco use by young people, Clinton included a battle against teenage smoking in his list. “If you want to cut health care costs and increase life expectancy, do something to stop all these kids who are beginning to smoke at early ages,” he said. “It’s killing them.”

But Clinton gave no hint how he would settle a debate taking place in his administration over whether to proceed by regulating tobacco as a drug, as the Food and Drug Administration has proposed, or by seeking voluntary concessions from the tobacco industry to discourage smoking by young people.

Clinton was greeted with a standing ovation by the several thousand convention delegates gathered at a Washington hotel who clapped and chanted, “Four more years.”

“I must say I enjoyed the class being a little rowdy this afternoon,” Clinton joked.

The president did not make any direct comparison of his own agenda for family values with the House Republicans’ Contract With America or the Christian Coalition’s 10-point plan called the “Contract With American Families.”

But since last November’s Republican sweep of Congress, Clinton has been searching for some formulation of his own to pose against the Contract With America’s 10 planks and the emphasis placed on cultural issues by the Republican presidential contenders.

In December, Clinton spoke of a “Middle Class Bill of Rights” as he advocated tax cuts and tax deductions for education.

In January he revived his 1992 campaign theme of the “New Covenant” between citizens and government, and later in the spring he referred to the “New Federalism.”

Most recently he has spoken about the need to seek “common ground” on divisive issues.

While agreeing with Republicans that Americans have to take more responsibility for themselves, he said that many of their problems stemmed from economic woes that government should help address.

“We don’t have to have a partisan, divisive fight about family values,” Clinton said. “And we don’t have to argue whether we need improvements in personal conduct or political policies and economic policies. The truth is, we need a whole bunch of both.”

Borrowing the language of the right though not its policy prescriptions, he said, “What we really need is an American family values agenda.” He then rattled off 14 points, the last one a defense of federal spending on education.

Many of the points were calls for protection of existing government programs and administration initiatives against cuts by the Republican Congress.