    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [November 2, 1996]
    [Pages 2027-2031]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in Little Rock, Arkansas
    November 2, 1996

        The President. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, let me
    say it's good to be home, and thank you for coming out to say hello. I
    want to thank the Parkview High School Band, the Central High School
    Band, the Little Rock Community Choir. I want to thank all of those who
    are up here on the platform with me. I don't have everybody's name up
    here; I don't know if I can remember without eyes in the back of my
    head. I never needed eyes in the back of my head until I moved to
    Washington. [Laughter]
        I'm glad to be here today. I have just come from a great rally in
    front of the Alamo in San Antonio. And we were in El Paso, New Mexico,
    Arizona, Nevada, California on the day before that. I'm on my way back
    across the country, from here to New Orleans and then on to Florida. But
    I wanted to stop here just to be with you once before this election to
    say a special word of thanks to my good friend David Pryor for his
    lifetime of service to our State, to Congressman Ray Thornton for his
    lifetime of service and to wish him well on his new service on the
    Supreme Court. Thank you, Ray.
        I thank my good friend Dale Bumpers. Folks, I don't know what I'd
    have done in the last 4 years if it hadn't been for Dale and David up
    there keeping me sane in the tough times, standing up for you and for
    what was right, and never being intimidated by some of the most
    overbearing and destructive tactics I have ever seen coming from the
    other side.
        I want to thank Sharon Priest and Lottie Shackelford and Julia Peck
    Mobley and Gus Wingfield, Charlie Daniels, Mayor Dailey, Mayor Hays,
    Judge Villines. Thank you, Charlie Cole Chaffin, for running for
    lieutenant governor, and good luck to you. You were terrific. Bynum
    Gibson, my longtime friend Jimmy Lee Fisher, who was the coordinator of
    my campaign in the First Congressional District in 1978. We've been
    together a long time. Thank you, Jimmy Lee.
        I read an article in the paper today, our morning paper here, saying
    that if the past was any precedent, it might be a mixed blessing for
    Winston Bryant and Vic Snyder and Marion Berry and Ann Henry for me to
    be coming down here today, because Arkansas people didn't really like
    for the President to tell them how to vote. Well, I couldn't tell you
    how to vote when I was Governor; I don't know how I'm going to start
    now. [Laughter] It never occurred to me to tell you how to vote. I will
    say this: Since he asked me for it, I'm going to give Vic Snyder my vote
    on Tuesday. I'll be here, and I'll be proud to vote for him. And I'll be
    proud to vote for Winston Bryant, and I wish I could vote for Marion and
    Ann.
        Let me say to all of you, you ought to vote for yourselves, your
    children, and your future on Tuesday. But you need to understand that
    while all four of these people are friends of mine and I have worked
    with them and I know them very well, what you really should be voting on
    is what you want our country and this State to look like when we start
    that new century just 4 years from now.
        We're about to have a Presidential election for the last President
    of the 20th century and the first President of the 21st century. And the
    stakes could hardly be greater. We're actually very fortunate because
    not only are the consequences large but the choice is so clear.
        I really don't like a lot of what's happened in politics in the last
    several years. I don't like the fact that, especially when you get down
    toward the end and people get desperate, they think the only thing to do
    is to try to convince you that their opponent is no good. The truth is,
    since you all started me out 22 years ago, it has been my experience
    that most people who do the public's work are honest people, they work
    hard and they do what they think is right, virtually all the time--in
    both parties.

    [[Page 2028]]

    That's been my experience. And what I want to talk to you about today is
    that there are honest differences here. You know, I worked with
    Representative Hutchinson when he was in the State legislature; I liked
    him. We had a cordial relationship. Hillary and I send our prayers out
    to Tim and his wife for the welfare of their son. I know all of us feel
    that way, without regard to party. We ought to get away from this idea
    that we have to demonize our opponents in order to clarify our
    differences.
        This is--and I appreciate what Winston said about that, you know.
    But don't worry about me. Every time I get down I remember--when they
    start picking at me I remember what Mark Twain said about a dog. Mark
    Twain said, ``Every dog ought to have a few fleas''--[laughter]--``keeps
    him from worrying so much about being a dog.'' [Laughter] Some days I
    feel I have more fleas than I wish I did, but don't worry about that.
        Here's what the issue is, and you saw it in that budget fight we had
    when they shut the Government down and I vetoed the budget. This is
    about two different ways of looking at how we are as a people and how
    we're getting to the future. They believe that we're better off being on
    our own. And if we do good things together, that's fine. But it ought to
    basically be a question of letting everybody just go out there and do
    the best they can.
        I believe that we do better when we help each other to have the
    tools to make the most of our own lives. Every politician I ever knew
    would try to give a speech every now and then trying to convince you
    that he or she was born in a log cabin that they built themselves.
    [Laughter] But the truth is there's not a one of us standing here today
    who'd be here if it weren't for the help of some other people. And I
    believe America is better when we work together to give everybody the
    tools to live up to the fullest of their God-given ability to keep our
    country a strong force for peace and freedom and prosperity and to give
    us a chance to live together in one community. That's what I believe.
    And that's the difference.
        That's why the real issue is, should we say we're on our own, or
    should we build a bridge to the future we can all walk across together?
    That is the issue. That's the issue in all these Congress races. That's
    the issue in this Senate race. That is the issue.
        I think they believed what they were doing when they passed that
    budget. I think they thought it was a good thing to give people like me
    a tax cut even though I didn't need it and cut Medicare and Medicaid.
    Let me just say, those words may not mean much to people. What they
    tried to do was to end the standards for nursing home care that David
    Pryor spent his entire life working for. They thought that was an
    inappropriate thing for us to be doing together, saying that there's
    some things that every senior citizen in every nursing home in every
    place in America ought to know that they can get if the Government is
    paying, through the taxpayers' money, to put them in a nursing home. I
    think David Pryor was right and they were wrong.
        They wanted to take away the guarantee that we had given for 30
    years to middle class families who have family members with disabilities
    so they can care for them, they can live at home, they can work, and
    they can have a decent life. They wanted to forget about that guarantee.
    They wanted to take away the guarantee of health care we've given for
    poor women and their little infant babies. And I think it was wrong.
    They wanted to cut the student loan program, cut Head Start, paralyze
    our ability to protect the environment, clean air, and clean water.
    That's what they wanted to do, and I think they were wrong.
        But you have to decide whether they're right or not. I read all this
    stuff in the press about how Arkansas is, you know, more Republican or
    more Democrat, both parties are worried, and all that kind of stuff. Let
    me tell you, when I went up there 5 years ago and one month from
    tomorrow, when I announced for President here in Little Rock--I got a
    quote here of what I said--I said I wanted to go to Washington to do a
    better job of the old-fashioned work of confronting the real problems of
    real people and pointing the way to a better future: more opportunity,
    more responsibility, a stronger community.
        Well, 4 years ago, the rest of the country took me on faith. You
    were the only people that knew exactly what you were doing. [Laughter]
    The rest of them took a chance. The rest of them took a chance.
        But when you think about which approach works, when you think about
    Ann Henry, who's been our friend forever--she and her husband, Morris,
    hosted Hillary and I--our wedding re-

    [[Page 2029]]

    ception in their home, and I've been wondering how many votes it was
    going to cost them in the election. [Laughter] But they did a great
    thing for us, and we'll never forget it. When I think about Marion
    Berry--I don't know how many times that Dale and David and I have been
    in Marion Berry's home for the coon supper at Gillette, but he's been
    with us all the time. He did a superb job at the Agriculture Department.
    When I think about Vic Snyder and all the votes that he cast in the
    Arkansas State Senate to give our children a better future and our State
    a stronger economy and make our environment stronger; when I think about
    Winston Bryant and the work that he did as secretary of state, as
    lieutenant governor, as attorney general--all the work we did together,
    all those years that we worked together, and I realize that they believe
    in the approach. And now you know whether it worked or not.
        It's inconvenient for our friends in the Republican Party, but we do
    have 10.7 million more jobs than we did 4 years ago. It is inconvenient
    for them that this is a faster rate of job growth than under any
    Republican administration in 70 years. It's inconvenient. We have the
    lowest deficit of any great country in the world, the lowest it's been
    in America in 15 years; our average unemployment rate is the lowest it's
    been in 20 years; our average inflation rate is the lowest it's been in
    30 years; we've had the biggest decline in income inequality among
    working people in 27 years; the lowest rates of unemployment and
    inflation together, the so-called misery index, in 27 years. This
    approach is working. That's why you ought to send him to Congress; it is
    the right thing for America. We need to keep going on this track.
        We had 4 years of declining crime rates. The crime rate in America
    is at a 10-year low. There are 2 million fewer people, nearly, off
    welfare than there were 4 years ago. Child support collections in
    America are up 50 percent, $4 billion a year. This approach is working.
        Now, it's interesting to me that right before this Congress had to
    go home and face the voters, they all of a sudden decided they like my
    agenda. So now they're home running on the fact that even though they
    opposed it, finally we did raise the minimum wage for 10 million people;
    we passed a health care reform bill that says you can't have your health
    care taken away from you just because you changed jobs or somebody in
    your family has been sick; said the insurance companies can't kick
    mothers and their newborn babies out of the hospital after a day.
        Those were good things. It is a good thing. But that's what we
    should have been doing all along. And I'm telling you, this is not--and
    let me just say this: One thing it isn't, this race, it is not about
    conservative or liberal. The crime bill we passed had 100,000 police. It
    had the death penalty for drug kingpins and people that killed police
    officers. It has ``three strikes and you're out.'' It also had, as you
    know, the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban. And they made a lot of
    hay out of that in Arkansas.
        Do you remember 2 years ago? Now, you know they were going around
    Arkansas saying, ``Oh, that Clinton's gone crazy. He went to Washington;
    now he's going to take your gun away.'' Well, it's been 2 years, and now
    we know there's not a single hunter in Arkansas that's lost a weapon,
    but 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers didn't get handguns because
    of the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban--don't need to be on the
    street in Little Rock. They don't need to be here.
        Now we know. So vote for yourselves, but this approach will work.
    There's still a lot of things we have to do. Your vote--don't be deluded
    here--there are huge consequences to your vote. What would America look
    like--Dale Bumpers is right--what would America look like if their
    budget had prevailed? If their budget had prevailed it would have been a
    clear message: ``You're on your own; we're going to be more divided.
    Those of us that are well-positioned, we're going to do better. And
    those who aren't, well, they'll do worse and it's just tough.''
        Now, that's what would have happened. And when they shut the
    Government down, they thought that Dale and David and Ray and I, they
    thought we'd wilt. They thought that the Democrats would just be
    miserable not having the Government open every day. They were even
    willing to bring us to the point of default, the people in that Congress
    were, to wreck all the economic progress we'd made because they thought
    we'd wilt. And you know what I told them? ``I'd a lot rather see the
    American people hurt for 20 or 30 days than for 20 or 30 years. You have
    at it; I'm not going to buy that budget. You can forget about it.''
        Now, you have to decide. But how you vote in these races will
    determine whether we do what I want to do, which is to balance the

    [[Page 2030]]

    budget and still protect Medicare and Medicaid and education and the
    environment, or adopt their scheme of an even bigger tax cut which would
    still raise taxes on 9 million of the hardest pressed working people in
    America and blow a hole in the deficit and require bigger cuts than the
    ones I vetoed. You have to decide.
        You have to decide whether we are going to continue to put 100,000
    police on the street. This is an amazing thing--you ask the mayors that
    are here; this is amazing. First they tried not to put 100,000 police on
    the street. Then they tried to do away with it in their budget. Then
    they tried to cut it back a third time. And I stopped them every time.
    I'd like to have somebody up there in Washington who believes in law
    enforcement and would like to make our streets safer. If we have 4 more
    years of declining crime, we might have every neighborhood, every
    street, every school, and every child in this country safe again. And
    that's what I want. And that's what they want. And I hope you'll give us
    a chance to do it.
        There's a lot more to do in health care. Our balanced budget plan
    has some things in health care reform that they'll never be able to do.
    But I turned it in, in a balanced budget plan: let families keep their
    health insurance for 6 months when they're between jobs, put another
    million children into the ranks of health-insured, free mammograms for
    women on Medicare, and a little help for respite care for the 1.7
    million families who are courageously helping to care for family members
    with Alzheimer's disease. These are important things. They won't do it,
    and we will. If you want that done, you better vote for them. That's
    what's at stake here.
        But let me say this: Of all the issues--and you know them well--the
    biggest issue before us involves these children here, and that's the
    question of education. What is their plan for education? Abolish the
    Department of Education. Do you really want that?
        Audience members. No-o-o!
        The President. Do you believe America can afford to be the only
    great country in the world to start the 21st century with no one even
    sitting at the President's Cabinet to speak for the children of America?
        Audience members. No-o-o!
        The President. That's their position. My position is hook every
    classroom in every rural school in Arkansas and every inner-city school
    up to that information superhighway and give those kids access to world-
    class education, open the doors of college education to all Americans.
        You want to talk about a tax cut--the most important tax cut we
    could give is to let people deduct the cost of a typical community
    college tuition from their tax bill. That would open 2 more years of
    education to every American. Let people deduct $10,000 a year for
    college tuition at any college in America then every young person and
    every grownup who needs to go back to college could afford to go.
        That is the choice. And you just have to decide. And I'm telling
    you, when you go in there on Tuesday, when you talk to your friends and
    neighbors and you go back home--there are people here from all over this
    State, from all of our congressional districts--you tell them that it's
    exactly what is on the line here. Are we going to do this together, or
    are we going to be driven apart?
        You know, so much--when I left here I couldn't have known exactly
    what challenges would confront me as President, in terms of foreign
    policy especially. I'm grateful that the United States has been a force
    for peace. I'm grateful that we've been able to open new markets for
    American products and we're selling more American products than ever
    before. We're number one in auto production now for the first time since
    the 1970's. I'm glad we've been able to do these things.
        But it's amazing how much time I have to spend with people around
    the world doing things that we try to teach our children not to do.
    People all over the world--you look at the Middle East or Bosnia or
    Haiti or Northern Ireland or all those tribal wars in Africa and all
    this. What is this about? People hating each other because they're of
    different religions, different races, different ethnic groups, and
    different tribes. Everything you try to teach your kids not to do--you
    know, treat everybody with respect and define yourself in terms of what
    you believe, not who you can look down on. There are people all over the
    world now who are literally consumed with hatred for other people
    because they're in different groups.
        And if we get divided, that will happen more. That's why I spoke out
    so strongly against hating people who worked for the Federal Government
    after the tragedy in Oklahoma City. That's why when all these church
    burnings occurred, we got on it and we tried to stop it and we tried to
    get after it. And that's why I want you to

    [[Page 2031]]

    think about that, too. How long were we held back in this State because
    black people and white people couldn't get along? How long?
        Audience members.  Too long!
        The President. How long will we be held back in the 21st century if
    we say, ``We're not going to work together. I want mine; you get yours.
    There's the future; I hope you make it.'' Hillary was right, it does
    take a village to raise our kids and to build our future.
        The world is changing in ways you can't imagine. Arkansas will
    change in ways you can't imagine. No one can fully perceive the
    implications. When I became President, 3 million people were making a
    living in their homes. Today, because of computers, 12 million people
    are making a living in their homes. Four years from now, 30 million
    people will be making a living in their homes.
        In the last 4 years, we've found two genes that cause breast cancer,
    and if we're lucky, we may be able to find enough genetic information
    not only to cure breast cancer but to prevent it. We're using a lot of
    these satellite, sophisticated imaging technologies now to beam into
    bodies to see if we can find out what's wrong with people before any of
    their problems get out of hand. We just found out that we could make a
    laboratory animal with its spine severed have movement in its lower
    limbs by transferring the nerves from the legs to the spine. None of
    this has ever been done before. We're building a supercomputer, the
    Government is, with IBM that will do more calculations in one second
    than you can do on a hand-held calculator in 30,000 years.
        I'm telling you, the world is changing. And for us to go back to the
    old politics that the other side is preaching, trying to convince people
    that their opponents don't share American values, that they're aliens
    from outer space, that everything the Government ever did was wrong, is
    nuts.
        We have to stand up for a bright future. The best days of this
    country are still ahead. But we'll only achieve them--we will only
    achieve those days if we define carefully what we should do together.
    But I'll say again, it's not about liberal and conservative. I want you
    to tell your friends and neighbors this when you go home: We have
    reduced the size of the Government to its smallest size since Kennedy
    was President, more than the last two Republican administrations did. We
    eliminated more Government regulations and more Government programs than
    the two Republican administrations did. We privatized more Government
    operations than the two Republican administrations did. This is not
    about liberal or conservative. We have run by far the most fiscally
    conservative Government, and we've done more to stand against crime. And
    we've stuck up for this country in having a strong foreign policy.
        I think the record will stand on its own. This is not what that's
    about. This is about whether you're going to be diverted and divided, or
    whether we're going to find common ground and build that bridge to the
    21st century together. You've got enough sense to figure out how to talk
    to your friends and neighbors about that between now and Tuesday. Don't
    let the people of Arkansas be diverted from the real issue. This country
    is better off and this State's better off than it was 4 years ago. It's
    going to be better off 4 years from now if we stay on the right track to
    build that bridge to the 21st century.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:50 p.m. on the tarmac at Central Aviation
    Services at Adams Field. In his remarks, he referred to Sharon Priest,
    Arkansas secretary of state; Lottie Shackelford, vice chair for women's
    advocacy, Democratic National Committee; Julia Peck Mobley, first vice
    chair, and Bynum Gibson, chair, Arkansas Democratic Party; Gus
    Wingfield, State auditor; Charlie Daniels, State land commissioner;
    Mayor Jim Dailey of Little Rock; Mayor Patrick Henry Hays of North
    Little Rock; Buddy Villines, Pulaski County judge; Jimmy Lee Fisher,
    State treasurer; Winston Bryant, Arkansas senatorial candidate; and Vic
    Snyder, Marion Berry, and Ann Henry, candidates for Arkansas' Second,
    First, and Third Congressional Districts, respectively.