Clinton Aims to Restore Public Trust in Government

Senator Characterizes Bush Administration as Callous, Incompetent

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) today condemned the Bush administration as callous and incompetent managers of the public trust as she outlined a broad agenda she said was designed to restore public confidence and turn government into a partner of working families.

"Despite their rhetoric, for the past six years, we've had an administration that doesn't believe in less government or smaller government or better government," she said in remarks prepared for delivery. "They simply have contempt for government. Though they lead it, they look down on it, they disparage it, they belittle it at every turn."

In the first of what aides said would be a series of speeches outlining how she would handle major issues as president, Clinton sought to frame a debate about the role of government, highlighting issues of competence, honesty and transparency rather than whether the federal establishment should be larger or smaller.

Her speech came at a time when public opinion surveys show greater support for federal government action in protecting the social safety net and disillusionment with President Bush's management of both the Iraq war and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Democrats, however, have struggled politically in recent years to assert a strong role for government and have been targeted by their Republican opponents as defenders of a bloated and wasteful federal bureaucracy. Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, successfully rebranded his party on the role of government during his two presidential campaigns, but the issue remains a thorny one for Democrats seeking the White House.

Clinton spoke at the Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire. A text of her prepared remarks was made available to reporters.

The record of the Bush administration provided a large target for the New York senator today. In blasting it, she cited issues such as the federal response to Katrina, corporate influence in writing legislation and recruitment of politically acceptable officials at the early stages of the Iraq reconstruction effort.

"Because this administration doesn't respect our government, they run it poorly and it fails our people," she said in her prepared remarks. "Then they point to government's failures to prove it's not worthy of respect."

The core of Clinton's speech was a list of 10 proposals that she said would lead to smart, effective government.

One of the largest involved the federal budget. She said she would return Washington to a pay-as-you-go principle, noting that she would not support additional spending or bigger tax cuts "unless we can afford it." She also called for greater transparency in how public money is spent and increased efforts to reduce corporate subsidies.

She said she would bar any members of her Cabinet from lobbying her administration once they had left office. She called for additional protections for government whistleblowers. And she advocated reducing the amount of federal government work done by outside contractors, urging the elimination of 500,000 such contractors.

Clinton accused the Bush administration of substituting ideology for facts and evidence on issues ranging from Plan B contraception to global warming and said she would depend to a much larger degree on scientific evidence.

Her final proposal was a restatement of a long-held position in support of election reform to make it easier for Americans to register and vote and to provide additional safeguards to protect the integrity of the ballot box.