    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [February 17, 1996]
    [Pages 290-295]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Community in Manchester, New Hampshire
    February 17, 1996

        The President. Thank you so much. Didn't Jason Sabatino do a great
    job? And thank you, Donna Soucy. And to New Hampshire College Board
    Chair Bob Morine, and all the people

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    here from New Hampshire College, I'm glad to be here with the Penmen. I
    congratulate you on the success of your basketball and your soccer
    teams. And I now know that enthusiasm is one key to that success. It's
    wonderful to be here with you.
        Let me also ask you to join with me in giving a warm round of
    applause to the Salem High School band. We thank them for playing. This
    is the second time they played for me in 2 weeks; I feel like we're on a
    road tour together. [Laughter]
        I want to tell you how wonderful it is to be here. I have been in
    Rochester and Keene today. I have been in Concord and Nashua and Bedford
    and Salem on the last trip I was here. And this is my second trip to
    Manchester just in the last couple of weeks. It has been a wonderful
    experience for me. I can also tell you that when the First Lady was here
    a couple of weeks ago, she had a wonderful time. And I thank all of you
    who have been so supportive of her. And I thank all those who have come
    out to see the Vice President and who supported his efforts and our
    administration to protect the environment and promote technology.
        This is a remarkable experience, the New Hampshire primary season.
    You might ask, well, what are you doing here? [Laughter] I'm here for
    two reasons. One is, when I was elected President, I told the people of
    New Hampshire that I would not forget, that I would not stop coming
    back, that I would be here again and again, and I have been. And I
    wanted to be here to say, secondly, I do have an opponent Tuesday in the
    election. It's cynicism and apathy. It's the division of our people that
    comes up too often at election time. And those are the real opponents
    that you have. So I came here to ask you for the last time to go to the
    polls Tuesday and vote for Bill Clinton for President of the United
    States in the primary.
        Now, let me say--you were cheering so loud, let me finish--I want to
    say--I said, for the last time in a primary. [Laughter]
        I want to talk to you tonight--this is a rally. We're all going to
    have a good time. I want you to cheer and enjoy yourselves, but I want
    to be just a little serious tonight as well, because the people of New
    Hampshire have a unique opportunity every year that a lot of our--every
    4 years--that some of our citizens never have. The country is vast and
    heavily populated. And when people are running for President in most
    places they have to go from tarmac to tarmac. They don't have the
    opportunity to visit the towns, to have the meetings, to see people face
    to face in the way that all people seeking public office ought to.
        I also want to thank the people of New Hampshire, not only for the
    incredible boost they gave me at a difficult time 4 years ago but for
    the educational opportunity I received, being able to go to those
    communities, being able to run a grassroots campaign, having town
    meeting after town meeting after town meeting, just listening to people
    tell me their life stories, tell me their hopes, tell me their dreams,
    tell me their concerns. I have learned a lot.
        Audience member. [Inaudible]--for '92. We're still waiting for--
    [inaudible].
        The President. I might say to you--I believe in free speech. That's
    right. Wouldn't you like----
        Audience member. [Inaudible]
        The President. Let me point out something, if I may. Let me point
    out something. Let me point out something.
        Audience member. [Inaudible]
        The President. Thank you.
        Abridging my right of free speech is not the best way to get a
    positive response from me or anyone else. What is the truth? What is the
    truth? What is the truth? What is the truth?
        Audience member. [Inaudible]--doctors--AIDS----
        The President. Let me ask you this. Would you consider at a time of
    declining public spending a 30 percent increase in research action?
    Would you consider, at a time when hundreds of programs are going by the
    boards and I'm fighting my heart out to save student aid programs and
    other opportunity programs that affect all Americans, would you consider
    a huge increase in treatment funds for people with AIDS, action, not
    words? Would you consider the most serious effort in 40 years to give
    health care coverage to all Americans, including people with AIDS,
    action, not words?
        Let's look at the facts. Would you consider a yearlong effort to
    save the Medicaid program, which allows people who are HIV-positive to
    work, to be constructive citizens, against what the Congress has tried
    to do, action, not words? Would you consider the appointment of the
    first AIDS director ever and having the first AIDS conference ever,
    action, not words? I think you would.

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        So you might ask, why is this demonstration going on at our rally
    instead of their rally? Now, this is New Hampshire. You heard them; you
    heard me. Now, let's go back to the agenda of the evening.
        You know, when I came here 4 years ago, and I looked into the faces
    of all the people who were here, the unemployment rate was over seven
    points----
        Audience member. Poll that now--[inaudible].
        The President. I've got an idea. Why don't you pretend he's not here
    and listen to me, and then you'll defeat him.
        I told you then that our country had to have an agenda for the
    future, if all of you were going to be able to participate in the
    American dream, if we were going to come together and not be divided, if
    we were going to maintain the leadership of this country. I said if you
    voted for me I would not promise you miracles, but I would promise you
    progress, that we would move.
        In the last 4 years, the unemployment rate in this State has been
    cut by more than half. This country has almost 8 million new jobs. The
    deficit is half what it was. Trade is at an all-time high. We are
    selling more of our products overseas than people are selling to us
    again. Americans are competing in this world.
        We are coming together. The crime rate is down. The poverty rate is
    down. The welfare rolls are down. The teen pregnancy rate is down. We
    are coming together as a country, and we are the strongest force for
    peace and freedom in the world, from the Middle East to Bosnia to Haiti.
        But this is also a perplexing time. No time is free of difficulty.
    Do you ever ask yourself, those of you who are in college particularly,
    how could it be that New Hampshire has an unemployment rate under 4
    percent, the country has almost 8 million new jobs, and yet, millions of
    people still feel uncertain in their lives. They're worried about being
    laid off in one of these big corporate downsizings, or they're worried
    about continuing to work harder and harder and never getting a raise.
    They're worried whether they can afford a college education for their
    children or if they'll lose their health insurance if someone in their
    family gets sick.
        How can this happen? It is very important that you understand why.
    It is happening because your country is undergoing the biggest period of
    change in 100 years. Not since we moved from the rural areas to living
    primarily in cities and towns, not since we stopped making our living
    largely on the farm and mostly in the factory have the American people
    seen such change in the way they work and live. Now we are moving into
    an economy dominated by technology and information, and the longer we go
    into the future, the less it will matter where you live because you'll
    be able to access everybody else through the information superhighway.
        We are living in a world dominated by world markets for goods, for
    services, and for money. And what that means is that there are
    incredible new opportunities in this world for Americans, more than at
    any time in the history of the country, for those who are prepared to
    take advantage of them. But if those who aren't prepared to take
    advantage of them, or those who have the misfortune of being downsized,
    it is not a rosy picture.
        What we have to do today is not to reverse the policies of the last
    3 years; we are moving in the right direction. What we have to do is to
    bear down until every American has the opportunity to succeed. And we
    have to do it together.
        If you ask me what one lesson I have learned as President in the
    last 3 years, it is this: Whenever we are together as a people, we never
    lose. And when we permit ourselves to be divided, we defeat ourselves.
    We must solve these problems and meet these challenges together.
        Now, it is in that context that I want you to see your
    responsibilities as citizens. In the State of the Union Address, I said,
    again, I want to balance the budget, but we have to do it together in a
    way that is consistent with our values and consistent with our
    interests. That means that I want to balance the budget. After all, the
    debt was quadrupled in the 12 years before I moved to Washington. We
    have cut it in half in 3 years.
        But I want us to do it together. That means that, yes, we can
    balance the budget, but we don't want to do it in a way that violates
    our obligations to our parents or to our children or to the future. What
    does that mean? Don't wreck the Medicare program. Don't weaken the
    Medicaid program. The people that are here to demonstrate tonight, the
    people they represent, they need Medicaid. They deserve it. They deserve
    the right to work and to be here as long as possible.

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        And balance the budget, yes. But what is the purpose of balancing
    the budget? To give our young people a stronger future. Therefore, don't
    balance the budget by cutting back on the student aid program or by
    cutting Head Start or by abolishing the national service program. That
    is not the way to balance the budget.
        What is the purpose of balancing the budget? To make us more secure
    in the future. Therefore, do not balance the budget by cutting
    environmental protection by 30 percent and undermining the future of
    this country.
        We can do this. We have identified more than enough savings to
    balance the budget and to provide a modest tax cut. We must not
    sacrifice our values or our future to do it. We must not.
        But I want to say this to you. When you think of your decision in
    this election, of course, I want your support. But I don't want you to
    support me just because of my affection for New Hampshire, even though
    it's enormous. I don't want you to support me just because of the record
    we have established, although clearly we are moving this country in the
    right direction. I want you to be with me because I will be with you as
    we go together into the future to meet our challenges.
        You know, we have seven great challenges. We have to strengthen our
    families. We have to educate all Americans. We have to provide economic
    security to every family in this country willing to work for it. We have
    got to preserve the environment and grow the economy. We have got to
    abolish forever from our thinking this destructive idea that we can only
    expand economically if we undermine our environment. The truth is, we
    can only grow over the long run economically if we find ways to preserve
    our environment and put people to work doing it.
        We have got to continue the fight against crime and violence. Even
    though the crime rate is down, it is too high. Everybody knows it. If
    you saw what we did in Manchester when I was here a few days ago, with
    the local police, in a neighborhood that is now a freer neighborhood
    where people can walk the streets at night and children can play safely
    in the schoolyard--that's what we have to do everywhere. We should not
    turn our backs on it until we have finished the job.
        And I ask for your continued support in meeting the challenge of
    leading the world toward peace and freedom. I know Americans wonder
    sometimes whether it is really necessary for the United States to do
    some of the things that we have done when I have been in office. And I
    know some of them have not been popular. But the people of Haiti just
    had the first peaceful transfer of power in almost 200 years of history.
    The people of the Middle East have undergone the awful agony of having
    the Prime Minister of Israel assassinated. But they are moving
    determinedly toward peace and freedom and partnership with us.
        We see it all across the world. And tonight, while we are here in
    this wonderful, warm gym, our men and women in uniform in Bosnia are in
    the cold Bosnian winter standing up for humanity around the world.
        Finally, we have to meet the challenge of making our democracy work.
    You have to have a Government that works better and costs less. You have
    to have a Government that earns your trust, and you have to be worthy of
    your legacy as citizens. We need the line item veto. We need campaign
    finance reform, and we need it now.
        But of all these challenges, I want to say here at this college,
    with its rich heritage, we must, we must, open the doors of learning to
    every American for a lifetime. And let me just say, I come to you with a
    record and an agenda. We have had a clear strategy, high standards, high
    expectations, high technology, and high levels of opportunity and
    grassroots reform. That has been the strategy of this administration. We
    have expanded Head Start. We have given schools money and flexibility
    they never had before to try to meet high national standards. We have
    dramatically expanded college loans and scholarships, and we must do
    more. But it is not enough.
        And if you continue this administration, here is what I want to do.
    I want, first, to make sure that every school, every classroom, every
    library in this entire country is hooked up to the Internet, to the
    international--information superhighway by the year 2000.
        Second, I want to open the doors of college education to every
    single person in this country who wants to go. I want to maintain the
    loan programs. I want to expand the Pell grants. I want to keep national
    service. And I want to expand work study to a million students in this
    country working their way through college. And if we are going to have a
    tax cut, let's have

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    the best tax cut of all, a tax deduction for the cost of college
    tuition.
        Finally, let me say, at New Hampshire College, called the Penmen,
    something you know. You understand the economy. You know that more and
    more jobs are being created by small businesses. But you know more and
    more people my age are being laid off by big ones, being asked to start
    over again when they're trying to send their own children to college.
    You know more and more people are struggling in jobs where they never
    get a raise and they would have to have new training to get that raise.
        So I say to you that college cannot just be for the young and
    training cannot just be for the young. One of the things that I have
    proposed to do is to take all these Government training programs and
    collapse them into a big pool of money and give every unemployed and
    underemployed person in this country a simple voucher they can take to
    the nearest college to get whatever training and education they want.
        We built the opportunities we enjoy today through the GI bill after
    World War II for the returning soldiers. Today we need a ``GI bill'' for
    all those American workers who are working harder and harder just to
    hang on. They need to be lifted up. They need to be able to go forward.
    We need to support them as well.
        Let me say the most important thing I have to say to you tonight is:
    Whatever we do, we have to do it together. The era of big Government is
    over. I told you that 4 years ago, that I was not a Democrat who
    believed in preserving the status quo and every bureaucratic program
    that ever existed. And I can report to you tonight that under our
    administration we now have the smallest Federal Government in 30 years.
    To find more money for the programs that need our investment--the health
    care programs, the medical research programs, the education programs,
    the technology programs--we have eliminated hundreds of other programs.
    We have closed thousands of offices. There is no big Government.
        But just because we don't have a big Government anymore doesn't mean
    we need a weak Government and that we can go back to the time when
    people were told to fend for themselves. That is wrong. It will not
    work.
        When business people in New Hampshire 4 years ago asked me to make
    more credit available to them so they could borrow money again to keep
    their businesses going and create jobs, and we did it, we didn't do it
    with a weak Government. When I went just a few days ago out to
    Washington and Oregon and Idaho to deal with the terrible floods that
    are gripping those people, they don't want a weak emergency management
    agency. You don't want a weak Government. You don't want a weak student
    loan program. You don't want a weak Pell grant program. You don't want a
    weak national service program.
        We don't have to have bureaucratic inefficiency to have strength and
    partnership. That is what we have to have. But let me say to you, a
    partnership is a two-way street. Yes, your Government has let you down,
    and I've tried to change that. I've made it smaller and more efficient.
    I've done everything I could to do that. We have addressed the problems
    that were before us with everything from the family leave law to the
    Brady law to the college loan law, all the initiatives we have taken.
        But we also know that we have to make you trust the Government more.
    So we passed a tough lobby reform law, a law to apply to Congress the
    laws they impose on the private sector, a law that stops lobbyists from
    having tax deductions for the cost of lobbying, for a change. We are
    moving in the right direction.
        Yes, we need to do more. Yes, we need the line item veto. I hope
    Congress will give it to me soon. We need it. They promised it, and I
    want it. And yes, we need campaign finance reform, and we need it now to
    put you back in the driver's seat.
        But if you think about all those other challenges--if we're going to
    strengthen our families and give childhood back to all children; if
    we're really going to have a world-class system of education that offers
    opportunity to everybody; if we're really going to provide economic
    security for every family willing to work for it; if we're really going
    to make our streets safer and our environment cleaner; and if we're
    going to continue to lead the world toward peace and freedom--in the end
    this is a democracy--you are the most important players. You have to do
    your part. That's why I'm asking you to vote on Tuesday, and even more
    of why I'm asking you to fight the cynicism and the negativism and the
    division and the turnoff that so many citizens express.
        I'm going to tell you something. We had an interesting little
    exchange here, but I honor

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    these people that came here to demonstrate. At least they care about
    something. At least they show up. At least they make their opinion
    known. At least they're fighting for something. They're standing up just
    like you are. Just like you are.
        And I want to tell you, make no mistake about it, there's one thing
    I can do that none of you can do. I can go abroad to represent all of
    us. And when I do, it is a feeling I can't even put into words for you,
    because I'm no longer Bill Clinton, and I'm not even really the
    President. You just become the United States. And you realize what a
    very great country this is, what we stand for and what we can do.
        No one has been more willing to be critical of Government that
    doesn't work than I have. But for people to go around and say, ``It
    doesn't matter what I do; it doesn't matter how I vote; it won't make
    any difference''--it does make a difference. It does make a difference.
    You got the family and medical leave law, the Brady bill, a doubling of
    tax breaks on low-income working people. You have a whole new economic
    strategy. You've got the deficit cut in half. You've got a
    telecommunications law now that provides for honest opportunity for
    everybody to compete in this brave new world in a way that advances the
    public interest, all because of the votes in the last election. It does
    make a difference.
        But more importantly, it bothers me when I hear people say that our
    Government is intrinsically bad and every penny is wasted. My friend
    James Carville has written a book which I commend to you in which he
    says that in the last 30 years we have spent half of your tax money on
    just three things: national defense, Social Security, and Medicare. Now
    you decide if you got your money's worth. What happened? We won the cold
    war, and there are no missiles pointed at the United States or any of
    its people tonight. In spite of the fact that most people over 65 live
    on very modest incomes, we have cut the rate of poverty among our
    seniors in half because of Social Security. And most important for the
    present budget debate, if you live to be 65 in this country, our seniors
    have the highest life expectancy of any group of seniors in the entire
    world. So I think we got our money's worth. And it shows you what we can
    do when we go together and when we work together and when we stand
    together.
        Now, don't let anybody fool you, folks. It's just like I said 4
    years ago. This election is fundamentally about you and your families,
    your children, your future, your dreams, and your challenges. It belongs
    to you. And you have to seize it. The first thing you got to do is show
    up, be heard, and be counted. The second thing you have to do is to go
    to your friends and neighbors and get them to do the same thing.
        And then what you have to remember is--I will say it again--no
    country like this has ever existed. Look around this room. Just look at
    each other. Look at all the differences that leap out at you, the
    differences in age, the differences in physical condition, the
    differences in racial and ethnic background. Look at it all. And it all
    works when we realize that we must go forward together.
        I believe more strongly than anything else--you've got to decide--I
    am telling you there is no challenge out there we cannot meet. But we
    all got to show up. We have to put all our players on the field. And I
    want you to start Tuesday. Say to yourselves, your friends, your
    neighbors, we are going to go out there and take a stand for our future,
    and we are going to do it together.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 6:11 p.m. in the gymnasium at New Hampshire
    College. In his remarks, he referred to Jason Sabatino, student body
    president, and Donna Soucy, Manchester alderman.