[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
[February 17, 1996]
[Pages 282-286]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 282]]


Remarks to the Community in Rochester
February 17, 1996

    Thank you very much. Thank you for waiting. Thank you. I can see 
that someone was up to a lot of mischief before I got here. [Laughter]
    Let me say that I was all dressed up and ready to go at 7 sharp this 
morning, and they said I couldn't leave the White House until 8 because 
of the weather. And when I got to the airport, we sat there for another 
2 hours. But I knew that I would wait for you if you would wait for me, 
and I thank you for being here. I'm glad to see you.
    I want to thank the Rochester Middle School Rock and Jazz Band for 
playing and for playing ``Hail to the Chief.'' Give them a hand there. 
[Applause] I want to thank the Spaulding High Red Raiders, the boys and 
the girls basketball teams, who gave up their practice yesterday to 
prepare this. Thank you very much. I thank my friend Jeanne Shaheen for 
her leadership here in New Hampshire and for that wonderful introduction 
and what she embodies. I want to thank George Stephanopoulos and my old 
friend David Matthews for warming the crowd up before I came. I want to 
say thank you to the mayor; your deputy mayor; your county attorney; my 
old friend George Maglaris, who was here earlier and I think said a few 
words; all the others who spoke before. I'd also like to acknowledge two 
friends of mine from 4 years ago who aren't here today, Mayor Roland 
Roberge and his wife, Lorraine. I miss them, and I know you remember 
them well here in Rochester.
    I know someone before I came here mentioned it, but 4 years ago, I 
made 75 scheduled appearances and countless more unscheduled appearances 
in New Hampshire in just the last 6 weeks of the campaign, from New 
Year's Day forward. And not very far from here, at the Dover Elks Club, 
I gave what became a rather famous speech, because I said that I was 
trying to give the election for President back to the American people 
and back to the people of New Hampshire and that if you would give it to 
me, I would be there for you 'til the last dog dies.
    I have come here today to give you an accounting of that pledge and 
to ask you to look to the future and to ask you to bring all this 
incredible enthusiasm with you into this election year as citizens and 
to ask you, yes, to go out and vote in the primary on Tuesday for Bill 
Clinton for President of the United States.
    I brought a straightforward vision to this job. I wanted to see the 
American dream available for all Americans, not just a few. I wanted to 
see our country continue to be the world's greatest force for peace and 
freedom. And I wanted to see our country coming together, not being 
divided for cheap, short-term political reasons. I said that I thought 
the only way we could achieve that is if all of us worked for more 
opportunity, all of us showed more personal responsibility, and all of 
us made a real commitment to build an American community.
    Well, in the last 3 years, here's where we are--the good and the not 
so good. Look at the economy. We have the lowest combined rates of 
unemployment and inflation in 27 years; almost 8 million new jobs; 
homeownership at a 15-year high. We're moving in the right direction.
    The unemployment rate in New Hampshire is less than half of what it 
was on election day in 1992. And the commitments that I made to you 
helped that to occur. I said we would cut the deficit in half, and we 
did in 3 years. I said we would have 8 million more jobs, and in only 3 
years we had 7.7 million more jobs. We're going to make that record and 
beat it by a good long ways this year. I said that we would expand trade 
in a fair way, and now, for the first time in years, our exports to 
other countries are growing faster than imports into America and 
creating good jobs for the United States of America.
    I said that we would invest in new technologies, that we would 
expand educational opportunity, and that we would find a way to protect 
the environment and grow the economy. That's the only way you can do it 
in the long run, and that's exactly what we have done.
    I asked you to give me a chance to try to give America a more secure 
future and a more peaceful, more democratic world. And the fact that 
there are no nuclear missiles pointed at any American children for the 
first time since the dawn of the nuclear age is evidence of that 
commitment kept.

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    And I am proud of what the United States has done to stand up 
against terrorism, to limit the spread of dangerous weapons, to work for 
a ban on all nuclear testing, to stand up for peace in the Middle East 
and in Haiti and in Northern Ireland and in Bosnia today, where our 
brave soldiers are fighting for peace. I am proud of them.
    And we are coming together around our basic values. In this country 
as a whole, the crime rate is down, the welfare rolls are down, the food 
stamp rolls are down, the poverty rate is down, the teen pregnancy rate 
is down. And I am proud of the work that we have done with our crime 
bill, with promoting welfare reform, with being tougher on child support 
enforcement, the kinds of things that we have done to support good 
family values, to bring people together, and to help our country work 
again. I am proud of that. And you should be proud that those things are 
going in the right direction.
    But any full accounting, my fellow Americans, would require us to 
look at the full picture. Isn't it perplexing that we could have almost 
8 million new jobs, that your unemployment rate could be cut by more 
than half, and that people could still feel economic insecurity? Why is 
that? Who would have believed we could have this many more jobs and more 
than half the American people would still be working harder without a 
raise? Who would believe we could generate this many more jobs and still 
the great companies of America would be downsizing--their stock price 
goes up, but their middle-aged middle managers trying to send their kids 
to school go off, and what happens to them?
    Who would believe that we could bring the crime rate down, but that 
violence among juveniles would go up? Who would believe that drug use 
could go down, but that casual drug use and rampant illegal cigarette 
smoking among juveniles would go up? What explains this? How could 
things be so good on the one hand and still have these troubling 
elements?
    Look at the rest of the world. Everybody ought to know that peace is 
better than war, that economic competition is better than terrorism. But 
here we are on the brink of a new peace in the Middle East and my 
friend, the Prime Minister, is murdered. Here we are on the brink of a 
new peace in Ireland and, foolishly, the peace is broken by a bomb. Here 
we are on the brink of making our people safer than ever before, but we 
know that none of us are free from terrorism generated at home and 
abroad.
    So we are moving in the right direction, but there are challenges we 
have to face. How did this happen? It is happening because I see now 
more clearly even than I did when I came here 4 years ago that we are 
going through a period of change more profound than anything the 
American people have experienced in 100 years. About 100 years ago, we 
moved from mostly being a people who lived in rural areas to mostly 
living in towns and cities. We moved from being people who mostly made 
their living on farms to being people who mostly made a living from 
factories and the economic opportunities that factories generated.
    Today we are moving from people who mostly make a living based on 
information and technology. We are moving into a period where, no matter 
where people live, they operate all over the world because of technology 
and computers. We are moving in a period where we sell things, our 
goods, our services, and our money throughout the world.
    And this great uprooting has created an enormous age of possibility 
for the American people. The young people in this audience will have an 
opportunity to do more things to live out their dreams than any 
generation of Americans ever has. But whenever things change this much, 
there is bound to be dislocation, uncertainty, people who worry about 
whether they will be a part of that future. And whenever that happens, 
it is our common responsibility as Americans to make sure, as I said 4 
years ago, that everybody who will work for it has access to the 
American dream, that we do it together, and that we continue to be the 
great beacon of hope and freedom and peace that this country was meant 
to be. That is our mission, and we still have to fulfill it.
    And in the State of the Union Address, I said that the most 
important lesson I have learned in 3 years as President is something I 
knew when I took office but something I now feel in my bones and the 
very fiber of my being, and that is, when we are together, we are never 
defeated, and when we are divided, we defeat ourselves. We have to go 
forward together. We have to work these issues through together. We have 
to seize these opportunities together. We have to face these challenges 
together.

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    That is what the balanced budget debate is all about. I hate these 
big deficits. We cut the deficit in half in 3 years. We do have to 
finish the job, but we have to do it together, which means we have to 
honor our responsibilities to our parents and to our children through 
Medicare and Medicaid, to the future through investments in education 
and the environment. We have to remember that all among us deserve a 
chance at the present and all among us deserve to have our children have 
the kind of future they deserve. That is how we must balance the budget.
    And let me just say that I told you here in this county 4 years ago 
that I did not believe that Government had the answer to all the 
problems, that I was not a Democrat who favored big Government 
bureaucracies. Look at the record. The United States Government is 
205,000 employees smaller today than it was the day I took the oath of 
office. It's the smallest it's been in 30 years. At the end of this 
year, it will be the smallest it's been since John Kennedy was the 
President of the United States of America.
    We are getting rid of unneeded regulations and unneeded programs and 
unneeded bureaucracies. But just because we don't need a big Government 
doesn't mean we need a weak one. Just because we don't need a big 
Government to solve all of our problems doesn't mean we can go back to 
the time when Americans were left to fend for themselves, when people 
were told, ``You're on your own.'' We have to do this together.
    And if you look at the challenges we faced in moving to the 21st 
century and meeting our mission of guaranteeing the American dream for 
all and maintaining our leadership and bringing the American people 
together, you can see it. What are those challenges?
    One, we have to strengthen our families and give all children a 
childhood. Yes, it begins with parents. But it also includes things like 
having the American National Government help as we did last week when 
the telecommunications bill gave parents the V-chip so they can decide 
whether their children should see this mindless violence on television.
    We have to make sure we educate everyone for the 21st century. Yes, 
it begins with parents and teachers and local schools. But we need a 
national effort to see that all of our classrooms and all of our 
libraries are hooked up to the information superhighway by the year 
2000. And we need--it is in the Nation's interest to see that every 
child who wants to go on to college can do it with a scholarship, with a 
loan, and, I believe, with a tax deduction for college tuition for the 
parents.
    We have to see--we cannot ask parents to wait for their children to 
achieve economic security. If people are out there working hard, they 
deserve to be able to raise their children and have a stable, secure 
life. And yes, it begins with people's willingness to work and to learn 
and to acquire new skills, but it is legitimate for the Government to 
say, ``We're going to give all working families access to health care.'' 
And there is a bill that would prevent--[applause]--there is a bill 
before the Congress today, before the Senate, that would say insurance 
companies can't cut you off when you change jobs, insurance companies 
can't cut you off if someone in your family gets sick. That's what 
insurance is for.
    It is a simple bill. It has 45 Democratic and Republican cosponsors. 
It's been voted out of the committee unanimously. But because the 
insurance lobby is holding it up, we cannot bring it to a floor vote. It 
is out of the committee. It will pass. It should pass the Senate. It 
should pass the House. It is an American bill. It's in America's 
interest. We ought to do it for the people of the United States.
    Yes, people have to take care of themselves, but we ought not to let 
our Government once again go back to the time when companies could raid 
their workers' pension funds. Instead, it should be easier for small 
businesses to take out pensions for their employees and for themselves.
    Yes, people ought to have to get retraining if they need it, but we 
ought to make it easier. I have asked the Congress to get rid of dozens 
and dozens of these training programs and create a pool--to create a 
``GI bill'' for America's workers, just give a simple training voucher 
to anybody who loses their job and let them decide where to spend it and 
how to spend it at the nearest and best educational institution.
    We have to continue the fight against crime. Even though the crime 
rate is going down, you know it's too high. It is still too high. When 
will we know we have won that fight? When you turn on the television 
news and you see a report of a crime and you're surprised. That's when 
we know. When you're surprised. When

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once again it is the exception rather than the rule. When people do not 
feel afraid on their streets or for their children in their schoolyards. 
We have to continue that.
    That means we cannot--we cannot--reverse our commitment to put 
100,000 more police officers on the street. It means we should not walk 
back on any of our anticrime initiatives. But let me say this in New 
Hampshire. I know it wasn't popular here when I signed the Brady bill 
and when I signed the assault weapons ban. And I know what the hunters 
were told. But let me say this, let me say this, in my home State we 
just had a great duck season. And in New Hampshire you just had a great 
deer season. And I'll bet you anything every hunter that wanted to shot 
deer in New Hampshire and ducks in Arkansas with the same gun they had 
last year. They did not tell you the truth. I'll tell you who doesn't 
have guns: 41,000 criminals who couldn't get them because we passed the 
Brady bill.
    Let me say this. For a very long time in America our commitment to 
the environment was a common bipartisan commitment. It has only recently 
become partisan. My fellow Americans, we must make it bipartisan again 
by the vote and the voice of the American people in this election. We 
cannot afford the illusion of believing that the only way we can grow 
this economy is to destroy our natural resources and undermine our 
future. All the evidence we have indicates that that is a fool's choice 
that we will pay for dearly. And we have evidence that is overwhelming 
that we can create good new jobs by having the right kind of 
environmental protection. I will not weaken our commitment to preserve 
and protect the environment of this country.
    Nor will I walk away from the responsibilities of this country in 
the world of today and tomorrow to lead for peace and freedom. No one 
else can do this. We have to do the right thing, and the right thing 
makes us more secure. We can be hit by terrorists from anywhere. It is 
the right thing to stand up against terrorism everywhere. We have to 
stand for the things we believe in.
    And finally, let me say this. We have got to make democracy work. 
And all these other challenges--you say it starts with the citizens and 
ends with the Government. In this case it starts with the Government and 
ends with the citizen. I have worked hard. We have passed tough new 
lobbying laws, as I pledged we would in '92. We have eliminated the tax 
deduction for lobbying in Washington, as I promised we would in 1992. We 
have applied to Congress the laws they impose on the private sector, as 
I said I would try to do in 1992.
    There are two more things we have to do. The Congress should give me 
the line item veto they have been promising. And we should join hands, 
as the Speaker and I did when we shook hands in Claremont not very long 
ago, and finally pass a bipartisan campaign finance reform bill to give 
elections back to the people of New Hampshire and the people of the 
United States of America.
    But it ends with you. It ends with you. There is no call--they say a 
politician is never supposed to disagree with the majority at election 
time, but I'm going to tell you something: There is no call for the 
cynicism, for the negativism, for the apathy that so many express today.
    Yes, it is true that we have not solved all the problems in the last 
3 years, but what I said was--in Dover 4 years ago--that the Presidency 
is the most important hiring decision the American people ever make. If 
you vote for me, I won't solve all the problems, I won't give you a 
miracle, but I will give you movement. You won't have to worry about 
whether I'm working every day, caring about you every day, or making 
progress.
    My fellow Americans, by any standard, we have made progress. But 
most important is what will we do tomorrow, what is your vision of the 
future, and are you willing to do something about it? Cynicism is a very 
cheap excuse for inaction, and it is ultimately frustrating and 
unrewarding. It guarantees the failure of democracy.
    So I ask you again to participate in democracy. They say, ``Well, 
there is no opponent in the primary.'' Oh, yes, there is. Cynicism is 
our opponent. Apathy is our opponent. Division is our opponent. The 
siren song of simple answers that are wrong is our opponent. And you 
should know that, whatever anybody says, this is still the greatest 
country in human history. Most people would give anything to be in your 
shoes around the world today. And this system will work if you will make 
it work. This system will work if you will make it work.
    All my life I have been driven by the conviction that it is simply 
wrong, it is wrong when any person is deprived of the opportunity to

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live up to the fullest of their God-given potential. I now know more 
strongly than I ever had that it is also wrong to believe for a moment 
that we can ever become all we ought to be unless we do it together.
    And so I say to you, I have tried to be there for you. I have loved 
the opportunity to be your President. I am grateful beyond words for the 
chance you gave me in New Hampshire when everybody who was an expert 
said it was over. I am grateful. But I do not want you to reelect me 
based on what we have done, or even based on your personal feelings. I 
want you to do it because the only way you and your children and your 
community and your State and your country are going to meet the 
challenges of today and tomorrow is if we do it together, together 'til 
the last dog dies.
    God bless you, and thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:50 a.m. in the gymnasium at Rochester 
Community Center. In his remarks, he referred to Harvey E. Bernier, Jr., 
mayor, and Sandra Keanes, deputy mayor; Lincoln Soldati, county 
attorney, and George Maglaris, county commissioner, Strafford County.