Dear Mr. Leader:
As I mentioned when we spoke by phone earlier today, you have served your country in so many ways, and you should be proud of your 35 years in Congress. On behalf of a grateful America, as you retire from the Senate, I thank you for your service.
During the fall campaign, you and I will engage in what I believe is one of the most important jobs in our democracy, as we lead a great national debate about how best to move our country into the future. I look forward to participating with you in that discussion.
Until then, I believe that the coming weeks and months can be a moment of genuine bipartisan achievement in meeting the challenges we all face together. Before you go, I look forward to working with you and Speaker Gingrich, and afterwards with your successor, to move ahead to give our people a balanced budget, welfare reform, an increase in the minimum wage and the Kassebaum-Kennedy health care reform.
As you know so well, it is when we work together that we can truly make progress for our country and for the people who sent us here.
Sincerely,
BILL CLINTON
NOTE: This letter was made available by the Office of the Press Secretary on May 15 but was not issued as a White House press release.
William J. Clinton, Letter to Senator Bob Dole on the Announcement of His Retirement From the Senate Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/222646