    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [November 3, 1996]
    [Pages 2047-2050]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in Springfield, Massachusetts
    November 3, 1996

        Thank you. Well, hello, Springfield! Thank you. Thank you for this
    wonderful, wonderful welcome. Thank you for being here in such large
    numbers--I can't even see the end of the crowd back there. Thank you for
    being here in such high spirits. I thank especially all the young people
    that are here tonight. This election is about you.
        My fellow Americans, it's a great honor for me to be here in this
    State which has been so good to me and to our administration, a State
    which has given so much to our Nation. I have wanted to come here to
    this spot for a long time, and now that I see you here I don't know why
    it took me so long. I'm glad to be here.
        Thank you, Mayor Albano, for making me feel so welcome. Thank you,
    Shannon O'Brien, for your remarks. Thank you, Congressman Kennedy, for
    warming up the crowd and for your support and your leadership. Thank
    you, Congressman Olver, and thank you, Congressman Neal. All three of
    these Members of Congress from Massachusetts stood up for America when
    the Government was shut down and the future of America was on the line
    and we were being asked to choose. We stood for your future and refused,
    refused to give in to the blackmail of this Congress, and they deserve
    your thanks forever. Thank you.
        I want to thank all those who have performed here tonight: the West
    Springfield High School Band, the Pottenger School Children's Choir--
    they're here somewhere--and the Minutemen Marching Band. Thank you. I
    must say, this is the best sound effects I've ever seen. If I had
    another plane I'd just take them with me for the rest of the day.
        I want to thank Senator Ted Kennedy for so many things. But you will
    never know what it was like these last 2 years, how close we came over
    and over again to having some people lose hard and give in, having some
    people give up on raising the minimum wage, having some people give up
    on finally saying that you can't lose your health insurance just because
    you changed jobs or somebody in your family's been sick, that we would
    give up on passing a law that says we're not going to let insurance
    companies kick women and newborn babies out of hospitals after 24 hours
    anymore. But Ted Kennedy never gave up. He never gave up, and he
    prevailed.
        And thank you, John Kerry, for waging this long, courageous campaign
    many times against the odds, never giving up. Thank you for being a
    voice in Washington, for preserving our environment when it was out of
    fashion. Thank you for helping me to keep putting 100,000 police on the
    street when the Congress tried to stop us and we wanted a safe future
    for our children. Thank you for fighting a long and lonely battle for
    campaign finance reform. Long before it was popular you were there, and
    you will get everlasting credit when it becomes the law of the land next
    year. Thank you, John Kerry. And thank you for sponsoring our
    legislation to open the doors of college education to every single
    American. Thank you.

    [[Page 2048]]

        My fellow Americans, 4 years ago when Massachusetts gave me an
    enormous support and sent Al Gore and me to Washington to work for you,
    I had come to you and said we had to get our country moving, we had to
    change the politics of Washington, we had to stop the politics of
    insults and get to the politics of issues. We had to get away from the
    politics of division and embrace the politics of unity. We had to stop
    pointing our fingers at each other and ask what can we do together to
    get this country going in the right direction. You gave me the chance,
    and I came here to say thank you. Thank you for doing that.
        Four years ago, amid a time of high unemployment, rising crime,
    rising frustration, and increasing division, you took a chance on me.
    You took me on faith, and you did not know. You've heard all these
    debates about where we stand and where they stand tonight. But there's
    one thing that hasn't been emphasized. We now have some evidence about
    which side is right. When I became President, the unemployment rate in
    Massachusetts was 7\1/2\ percent. Tonight it is 4.2 percent.
        Incomes are rising for the first time in a decade. Inequality--
    inequality among people who are working has gone down by the largest
    amount in 27 years. We have the lowest rates of poverty among senior
    citizens ever recorded. We have 10.7 million new jobs, record new
    businesses, record new exports. The United States is number one in auto
    production again for the first time since the 1970's. We are moving in
    the right direction.
        The crime rate has come down for 4 years in a row. We have the
    lowest crime rate in 10 years. The welfare rolls have dropped for 4
    years in a row as nearly 2 million Americans have found their way to
    work and greater dignity. Child support collections are up 50 percent--
    $4 billion a year for the children of this country.
        We have worked hard to change the course of America and bring
    America together. And we have been a force for peace and freedom in the
    world, from the Middle East to Bosnia to Northern Ireland. And there are
    no Russian missiles pointed at any American children tonight for the
    first time since the dawn of the nuclear age. We are moving in the right
    direction.
        You know all the issues, but let me say to you that we are moving,
    at a time of great change, into a new world that we can't fully
    understand. We know that the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed
    back at a rapid rate. We know we are changing the way we work and live
    and relate to the rest of the world. When I became President, there were
    3 million Americans working full-time and living at home and working at
    home. Today, 4 years later, there are 12 million Americans doing it. And
    4 years from now, there will be 30 million Americans doing it.
        When I became President, there was no known cure for stroke. Today,
    we have treatment for stroke because of medical research, for the first
    time ever. And two of the genes that cause breast cancer have been
    uncovered; we may be able to cure it. We are developing a supercomputer
    that will do more calculations in a second than you can go home tonight
    and do on your hand-held calculator in 30,000 years. The world is
    changing, my fellow Americans, and we had better make the right
    decisions about how to respond to that change.
        There is too much personal negative attack in politics and too
    little analysis of what the basis of our differences are. Every issue
    that Congressman Olver, Congressman Neal, Senator Kennedy, Senator
    Kerry, and Congressman Kennedy mentioned--every one can be distilled
    into this: I believe that there are some things that we must do together
    as a nation to help give each other the chance to make the most of our
    own lives--not a guarantee but a chance. They believe you're better off
    on your own. That's what their budget was all about. And now you have to
    decide.
        If their budget were the law of the land tonight, we would have had
    reductions in Medicare, cuts 3 times as great as those that were
    necessary to preserve the Medicare Trust Fund. It would have cost our
    seniors, no matter how poor, $268 more a year, plus more in out-of-
    pocket costs over and above that. We would have had the first cuts in
    student loans and Head Start in modern history. We would have had the
    first cuts in the Medicaid guarantee of health care to poor children, to
    middle class families who have family members with disabilities. Even
    they would have repealed the standards of quality care for seniors in
    nursing homes. We would have paralyzed the ability of our Government to
    protect the environment. We would have, in short, divided our country.

    [[Page 2049]]

        But they believe that that was right because they believe we're
    better off on our own. And you have to decide. They shut the Government
    down, not once but twice, to force these cuts on the American people.
    And because these Members of Congress stood with me, they said, ``Oh,
    you Democrats will cave in; you're miserable when the Government is shut
    down.'' I said, ``This is not about Government; it's about people. I'd
    rather see the American people inconvenienced for 30 days than
    irreparably damaged for 30 years. We will not give in to your cuts and
    your approach.''
        So now you have to decide about tomorrow, for this election is about
    tomorrow. This is an election of enormous moment, with great
    consequences and clear choices. You should all be happy that the choices
    are as clear as they are. I am well aware that I am not solely
    responsible for the fact that we have 10.7 million more jobs. But we did
    our part. We cut the deficit by 63 percent. We invested in education. We
    expanded the ability of Americans to sell their products around the
    world. And we did other things to grow the economy. That's why we have
    those 10.7 million more jobs. We did it together. I want us to do more
    together. We're not better off on our own. It takes a village to raise a
    child and build a country and build a future.
        So you have to decide whether we will continue our work to balance
    the budget and protect the medical programs that our seniors, our people
    with disabilities, our poorest children depend upon; continue to invest
    in education, in the environment, and technology; and target our tax
    cuts to people who need them for purposes that are needed, education and
    childrearing and buying a first home and dealing with a medical cost--or
    whether we will adopt their scheme, which will blow a hole in the
    deficit, require bigger cuts than the ones I vetoed, and send the
    economy of this State into a tailspin. Will you stand with us to build
    America's future and build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
        You have to decide whether we were right to say people shouldn't
    lose their jobs if they have to take a little time off when a baby is
    born or a family member is sick and whether we shouldn't expand the
    family leave law to say people should be able to get a little time off
    to go visit their children's teachers and take their family members to
    the doctor. Will you help us do that? [Applause]
        You have to decide whether we're going to clean up 500 more toxic
    waste sites. You have to decide whether we're going to really implement
    welfare reform in the right way. It's all very well to say people have
    to turn a welfare check into a paycheck. I'm for that, but I want the
    jobs to be there. You can't make people go to work unless there's a job.
    We have a plan to move a million people from welfare to work. Will you
    help us implement it and build that bridge? [Applause]
        You have to decide whether we were right or they were when we passed
    the Brady bill and kept 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers from
    getting handguns. And now people who beat up their spouses and their
    kids won't be able to get them either. You have to decide if we were
    right. You have to decide whether you want us to finish the job of
    putting 100,000 police on the street or let them take away the police
    that are still to be placed. Why in the world they want to do that I
    don't know, but they do. You have to decide.
        And more than anything else, you have to decide where we're going in
    the issues that will affect whether we can grow together. We did pass
    health care reform, but our balanced budget plan would give insurance to
    families who are between jobs for 6 months, would insure another million
    children, would give free mammograms to women on Medicare, would give
    respite care to the nearly 2 million American families caring
    courageously for a family member with Alzheimer's--all paid for. You get
    it in our balanced budget plan. They cannot do it. You have to decide.
    Shouldn't we do more to bring the American people together and help our
    families to succeed at work and at home? [Applause]
        And you have to decide, more than anything else, you have to
    decide--and this is not just a matter of this cheering crowd. Remember
    the changes I described in the beginning. Education will no longer be
    just the province of youth. It will be the work of a lifetime. It will
    become a part of everyone's work life. We will have to learn and learn
    and learn. And we must begin to create an education system for the 21st
    century that gives every American child and every American adult the
    finest educational opportunities in the world. We cannot do it with
    their approach. They want to abolish the Department of Education. I want
    to give you world-class

    [[Page 2050]]

    education, and you have to decide. You have to decide.
        Thanks to Senator Kennedy and Senator Kerry and others, we got
    200,000 more work-study positions for college students in this last
    budget. Here's what I want to do with half of those. And I want to ask
    you college students that have been cheering tonight, I want to ask you
    to help me. We have improved the student loan program. We've given
    70,000 of our young people a chance to serve in AmeriCorps in their
    communities and earn their way to college. We have increased Pell grants
    by the largest amount in 20 years. But we must do more.
        But we have to start with our young children. Do you know that 40
    percent of the kids in this country can still not read a book on their
    own by the age of 8? It may be because we have so many people whose
    first language is not English. But that will be cold comfort to them as
    they move through school and fail to learn. I have a plan to mobilize a
    million volunteers to go into all the land to help parents and teachers
    teach our children to read. And I want 100,000 of those work-study slots
    to go to college students who will earn work-study by teaching children
    to read. Will you help do that? Will you be one of them? [Applause] By
    the year 2000, I want every 8-year-old in America to be able to pick up
    a book and say, ``I can read this all by myself.'' Will you help us do
    it? [Applause]
        Will you help us hook up every classroom and every library and every
    school in Massachusetts, the smallest rural school, the poorest inner-
    city school to the information superhighway so that for the first time
    in the history of America, every single child--poor, rich, or middle
    class, urban, rural, or suburban--every child for the first time will
    have access to the same knowledge in the same way in the same time? We
    can revolutionize the education of our children. Will you help us do it?
    [Applause]
        Will you help us open the doors of college to all by saying we will
    give Americans a dollar-for-dollar reduction on their tax bill for the
    cost of a typical community college tuition so every American of any age
    can have at least 2 more years of education as universal as high school
    is today in the next 4 years? Will you help us? [Applause]
        Will you help us to give America's families a $10,000 tax deduction
    a year for the cost of college tuition at any institution of higher
    education, graduate or undergraduate, in the United States? Will you
    help us? [Applause]
        And most important of all, remember now, you may have your mind made
    up, but not everybody does. These are the choices at stake. It's not
    Senator Kerry and his opponent, President Clinton and Bob Dole,
    Democrats versus Republicans. It has fallen to our party and our
    administration at this moment in history to represent the idea that
    America must always put forward at a time of great change. Whenever we
    go through changes, we have the option to be more divided or more
    united. Whenever we have gone through changes, we've had the option to
    try to make sure everyone could prosper so we could move closer to our
    ideals.
        This is not about money. It's about using the resources of America
    to enable people to live up to their God-given capacities. And you must
    decide. The great idea is whether we are going to give each other the
    conditions and tools to give everybody a chance to make the most of
    their own lives, or whether we will say, ``You're on your own.'' The
    great idea is whether we will say, ``There's the 21st century out there,
    America's best days, the time of greatest possibility in human history.
    Yes, there's a big river to ford and a deep valley to go into and a high
    mountain to climb; I hope you get there.'' Or would you prefer our
    approach, where we all roll up our sleeves, without regard to race,
    religion, gender, you name it, and say, ``If you will work hard and do
    your part, we will together build a bridge to the 21st century wide
    enough and strong enough to take us to America's best days.'' Will you
    do that? [Applause] Will you be there Tuesday? [Applause] Will you be
    there between now and Tuesday and bring your friends? [Applause]
        God bless you. Thank you, Massachusetts. I'll see you Tuesday. Thank
    you.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:17 p.m. at the Court Square. In his
    remarks, he referred to Mayor Michael Albano of Springfield and Shannon
    O'Brien, former Massachusetts State representative and senator.