    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [September 15, 1996]
    [Pages 1575-1580]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Rally for Senator Tom Harkin in Indianola, Iowa
    September 15, 1996

        The President. Thank you very much. It's good to be back. How many
    of you were here 4 years ago? [Applause] How many of you weren't here 4
    years ago? [Applause] Four years from now, we're going to have to rent
    the next farm to have this. Let's keep going.
        Let me say to all of you how very happy I am to be here. I'm sorry I
    wasn't here from the beginning. I'm sorry I missed Tom Arnold and my
    buddy Jerry Jeff Walker. Maybe they'll play a little on the way out
    while I'm shaking hands. But I'm glad they came here and thank them both
    for being here.
        I want to thank those who are here to support us: Attorney General
    Tom Miller, Agriculture Secretary Dale Cochran. Mike Peterson gave a
    heck of a speech up here a few minutes ago. He'll be a good candidate
    someday. I want to thank Mayor Kelley of Indianola, Mayor Davis of Des
    Moines.
        I want to thank Tom and Ruth and Jenny and Amy for serving the State
    of Iowa. I want you to know that Ruth Harkin has played a major role in
    the efforts that our administration have made to sell more American
    products around the world and get more American invest-

    [[Page 1576]]

    ment and have fair as well as free trade. And I thank her. You should
    all be very proud of her for the work she did as head of the Overseas
    Private Investment Corporation.
        I thank Senator Harkin for what he said but, more importantly, for
    what he has done and been to the people of Iowa, to the people of the
    United States, and to the President. He has been nothing short of
    magnificent in his service to our country and to this State in the last
    4 years since I've been in Washington.
        I can't tell you all the times that I have turned to Tom Harkin in
    the last 4 years when things were on the line for America, when we had
    to pass an economic plan to get the deficit down, to get the interest
    rates down, to get the economy going again. And Iowa is a strong two-
    party State; we're going to try to change that a little this time. And
    our friends in the other party were saying, ``Oh, the President's
    economic plan is just awful. It will increase the deficit; it will
    bankrupt the economy; it will hurt people.'' Every single one of them to
    the person lined up and said no. It's unfortunate for them because 4
    years later we got 10\1/2\ million new jobs, lower interest rates,
    record numbers of small businesses, American exports at an all-time
    high, businesses owned by women and minorities at an all-time high. They
    all said no, but Tom Harkin said yes. We got a 7\1/2\-year low in our
    unemployment rate. Thank you, Tom Harkin, for making the difference and
    for fighting for us.
        Then there was the family and medical leave law. They all said--
    their nominee is still saying, ``It was a terrible mistake, that law,
    bad for business.'' Glad he led the fight against it. We just had a
    bipartisan survey about the family and medical leave law, and the 12
    million American families that got to take a little time off from work
    when a baby was born or a parent was sick without losing their jobs,
    they said it didn't hurt. And I say one of the biggest challenges you
    have today, every one of you, is to create a country in which families
    can succeed at home and at work. It's good for the economy to help
    people be good parents, good children, good family members. Thank
    goodness we had Tom Harkin to fight the good fight.
        We said the crime rate was too high in America and we needed to do
    something to bring it down; we ought to put 100,000 police on the
    street. They didn't like that idea very much. And I might add, in the
    last 2 years, for reasons that totally escape me, they've tried to stop
    us from continuing to finish the job. But for the first time in who
    knows how long, the crime rate has gone down in America for 4 years. And
    if you leave Tom Harkin on the job and give us a little help, we'll take
    it down for 4 more years, so the American people can feel safe on their
    street.
        I thank you for what you said, Tom, about the flood. When I was a
    Governor in a State that had a lot of natural disasters, I learned that
    the Federal response was too often disorganized and inadequate, driven
    by appointees who got the job because of their politics instead of their
    knowledge about the issue. So I put a person in charge of our emergency
    management who had done it for me at home and before that had been a
    county judge dealing with disasters and didn't care anything about the
    politics of it; he just wanted the American people in their time of need
    to be well-served, taken care of, and thought somebody in Washington
    ought to understand what it takes to get the job done. That's why we
    were able to serve Iowa and the rest of the Middle West well in that
    500-year flood.
        And I thank you for what you said, but when I ran for President I
    wanted to make good things happen. And when I look at the farm prices,
    when I look at farm assets, when I look at the direction of the economy
    here, I'd say we're a lot better off than we were 4 years ago, and we
    ought to keep going in the same direction.
        Let me say to you, to echo what Senator Harkin said, this is a huge
    election. This is the last election of the 20th century, to elect the
    first President of the 21st century.
        Audience member. And you're going to win!
        The President. I am if you keep that same attitude for the next 51
    days. But I want all of you to think about this.
        Audience member. We love you, man!
        The President. You have to understand what is at stake. That's why
    this Senate race is so important. That's why these five fine people
    behind me who are running as our candidates for the House are so
    important. If you look at the challenges facing our country, in spite of
    everything, we clearly had the ability to balance the budget in the last
    2 years. And they said, ``We're going to shut the Government down if you
    don't do it our way. We're going to give you a tax cut, Mr. President,
    and people in your income

    [[Page 1577]]

    group whether you want it or not. And we're going to cut Medicare. We're
    going to walk away from the guarantee Medicaid has given for 30 years to
    middle class families whose parents were in nursing homes and had
    children with disabilities. And if you don't like it--we're going to
    increase the cost of student loans. We're going to cut Head Start. We're
    going to cut the safe and drug-free schools program. We're going to
    wreck 25 years of bipartisan commitment to preserving our environment.
    We're going to raise taxes on the 9 million Americans with the lowest
    incomes with children in their house. That's our balanced budget plan.
    If you don't like it, we're going to shut the Government down.'' And I
    said, ``The Democratic Party does not love the Government, it loves the
    people. The Government should serve them. Shut her down. Shut her
    down.''
        And yes, after you and the people of this country all over the
    country got their attention with repeated public opinion polls and
    strong disapproval of what was going on, they said, ``Oh, well, maybe
    we'll allow some good things to happen.'' So we got the minimum wage
    increase, and we got the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill. And we made it easier
    for small-business people to take out retirement plans. And we did a lot
    of good things. But don't forget what is really hanging in the balance.
        Don't forget what the budget battle said. I'm telling you, folks,
    there is a new Democratic Party. We have proved that we are the party of
    responsibility when handling people's money. We did lower the deficit 4
    years in a row for the first time since before the Civil War. I'm proud
    of that. But we did it in a way that kept faith with the children of
    America and the parents of America and the disabled of America and the
    people who deserve to go forward with us together. We need more help in
    that way.
        We proved that we would bring the crime rate down. They tried to
    convince every hunter in my State that they were going to lose their
    guns if we banned assault weapons and passed the Brady bill. And by the
    votes in '94, they did a good job of their efforts. They've got a real
    problem now. We've had two hunting seasons; there hasn't been a hunter
    in America lose their rifle. It's inconvenient for their rhetoric. But
    you know what, 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers did lose the right
    to get a gun to keep brutalizing the American people. We were right, and
    they were wrong.
        They talked a lot about welfare. Finally they passed a bill I could
    sign. But while they were talking, we were working on it. You know,
    there are nearly 2 million fewer people on welfare today than there were
    when I was here 4 years ago, 2 million people moving into jobs, working,
    supporting their families.
        So I say to you, we need people who believe in work and family, who
    believe in opportunity and responsibility, who believe in community and
    the Congress. And therefore, I want you to send Tom Harkin back to the
    Senate with the largest margin he has ever received and send these folks
    to the House of Representatives to help us do the job.
        At times like this when countries have to make big decisions that
    will affect the lives of people far into the future and when things are
    changing greatly--and believe me, things are changing greatly--these
    students in the crowd, in 10 years they will be doing jobs that have not
    been invented yet. Some of them will be doing jobs that have not even
    been imagined yet. We have to make the right decisions. And there are
    some big decisions to be made.
        And I have to say with all respect, I agreed with one thing my
    opponent said in his speech in San Diego--and what I said, this really
    is an election where you have to choose whether you want a leader who
    says, ``You're on your own,'' or one that says, my wife is right, it
    does take a village to raise a child and build a community and build a
    country.
        You have to choose. You have to choose. You have to choose whether
    you believe, as Senator Harkin said, in those politicians who are always
    looking for what they call wedge issues--``Oh, this is a great wedge
    issue; we can divide the American people, get them all torn up and
    upset, and we can get in power''--or whether you believe, like me, that
    we've had enough of that ``who's to blame'' business. And it works
    better, and we've proved it works better, if you say, ``Forget about
    who's to blame. What are we going to do to make a greater country for
    all the American people and pull the American people together? ''
        We have to choose--most important of all--we have to choose whether
    you believe this election is about trying to build a bridge to the past,
    which nobody has ever done or ever will succeed in doing, or whether
    you're willing to join with me to build a bridge to the future

    [[Page 1578]]

    we can all walk into the 21st century across proudly, together.
        I want to build a bridge to the 21st century with a strong and
    growing economy. That means balance the budget, all right, to keep these
    interest rates coming down. But it means do it in a way that continues
    to invest in education and the environment, in medical research and
    technology, and protects our obligations to those who need our help
    through Medicare and Medicaid. Will you help me build that bridge to
    America's future? [Applause]
        I want to build a bridge to the future that will help our economy to
    go through the right kind of tax cut. It is in this administration that
    we have increased by 250 percent the tax cuts available to small
    businesses who invest more in their business to grow the business, to
    hire more people, to become more productive. But it has to be the right
    kind. I want a tax cut that's targeted to people who will use it for
    education, for raising their children, for buying that first home, for
    dealing with medical emergencies, an IRA that you can withdraw from
    without any tax penalty for education or medical cost or buying a first
    home, a $500-a-child tax credit, an education credit, things that we can
    do that will grow this country.
        But I'll tell you something, folks, mine are paid for, and we've got
    to pay for them. We don't want to go back to that old time when we
    promised you a tax cut on the one hand and wrecked the economy on the
    other.
        Now, last year the leaders of the other party said something that I
    agreed with, and I want to tell you what they said last year before the
    election started. They said if we get off of this balanced budget plan,
    if we don't have a plan to keep bringing this deficit down, interest
    rates will be 2 percent higher. Now, I want every farmer in this crowd,
    every business person in this crowd, every student in this crowd, every
    family in this crowd to think what that means. Think what it would mean
    to have 2 more percent on your credit card payment, your car payment,
    your home payment, your farm loan, or your business loan. I don't think
    we want that.
        Audience members. No-o-o!
        The President. Let's have a tax cut we can afford. Let's help the
    folks that need it that are building this country. Let's create
    opportunity and strengthen families with our tax cut, but let's keep on
    the work of balancing the budget until we get the job done and we keep
    the interest rates down and we keep the economy going.
        And I want to build a bridge to the 21st century where America
    continues to sell its products around the world. I'm proud of the fact
    that our exports and, yes, our agricultural exports, are at an all-time
    high. If you'll give us 4 more years we'll add pork to those exports.
    We'll be selling them all over the world, and Iowa will be better. Will
    you help me build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
        But let's face it, you and I know the most important thing we could
    do to build the right kind of bridge to the 21st century is to give
    every single child in America the opportunity to have a world-class
    education. And I just want to mention, Iowa for years and years and
    years had led the way in proving that a good education builds good
    citizens, strong families, strong communities, successful careers, and a
    greater country. Iowa has led the way. Every child in America deserves
    the education that the people of Iowa have given their children for
    decades. And I'm going to do my best to give it to them if you'll give
    us 4 more years.
        And I just want to mention two things that I think are important
    parts of building that bridge. We have the opportunity right now,
    because of technology, because of the Internet, because of the World
    Wide Web, because of all these things that all these young folks know a
    lot more about than I do, we have a chance to do something that this
    country has never done. If we will do what Al Gore and I have been
    calling for and connect every school and every library, every classroom
    to the information superhighway by the year 2000, for the first time in
    the history of America, children in the most isolated rural districts,
    children in the poorest urban districts will have access to the same
    learning at the same quality at the same time in the same way that the
    richest classes in America have. Will you help me build that bridge to
    the 21st century?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. And I want to build a bridge to the 21st century that
    says to every person in America of any age who needs to do it, we will
    make a college education available to you.
        Our plan is pretty simple. First of all, we say, do no harm.
    Continue to resist the efforts of the other party to make it harder to
    get student loans and to raise the cost of the student loans. We want to
    keep that direct loan pro-

    [[Page 1579]]

    gram. I pledged to you 4 years ago when I came here, if you voted for me
    I would pass a student loan program that would reduce the cost of
    student loans and let people pay it back as a percentage of their
    income, so no matter how much they had to borrow they would always be
    able to afford to go to college. We kept that commitment, and I want to
    keep it going.
        Now what I want to do is two simple things. First of all, let's make
    a commitment that in the next 4 years we'll make at least a 2-year
    community college education as universal in America as a high school
    diploma is today. And here's how to do it. We can do that simply by
    giving the American people a $1,500 tax credit so they can reduce the
    cost of tuition at the typical community college, dollar for dollar from
    their tax bill, for 2 years. If we do that, we can say--and we can
    afford that; it requires no bureaucracy, no nothing; almost every
    American is within driving distance of a good 2-year education--we can
    say, we're going to make this as universal in 4 years as a high school
    education has been for the last 20. Will you help me do that? [Applause]
        And finally, we ought to say, we believe that people should be able
    to deduct the cost of tuition up to $10,000 a year for any education
    after high school, 4 years, postgraduate, medical school, you name it,
    whatever it takes. Let's pay and let people go to college and get the
    education they need. Will you help me build that bridge to the 21st
    century? [Applause] Will you do that for your children and your
    grandchildren? [Applause] That is the kind of opportunity agenda that
    will get us into the next century able to say with a clear conscience
    and absolute certainty, the American dream is alive and well for
    everyone who's willing to work for it.
        The second thing I want to say about that is, we've got to have more
    responsibility. We've got to continue to work to drive the crime rate
    down, as I said. We passed the welfare reform bill. I want to tell you
    about it because I want all of you to support what we have to do. The
    new bill says we'll still give poor families medical care, nutrition, if
    they go to work, guaranteed child care because they need that. But the
    check is now going to go to the States and the local communities, and
    they have to use that check to create jobs for able-bodied people.
        Now, here's what it's going to take. We can use that money--I was in
    Kansas City last week, and they're using that money. They say, ``Will
    you hire somebody on welfare and create a new job? If you will, we'll
    give you the check as a wage supplement. We'll guarantee their health
    care.'' But you cannot tell people, folks with little kids, they have
    got to work unless there is work for them to do. Will you help me create
    jobs so that we can prove that welfare reform is a second chance, not a
    way of life, a way to dignity and work and integrity? [Applause] That is
    important if we're going to build a bridge to the 21st century.
        Perhaps the deepest and longest and most intense fights of the last
    2 years have been over the environment. I grew up in a farming State
    like Iowa. I governed one. I know that we can find ways to preserve the
    environment and grow the economy, whether it's a farm economy or an
    industrial economy or a small-business economy. But that's exactly what
    we've got to do.
        I signed a bill the other day, the pesticide protection act, which
    will improve the quality of our food, supported by every farm group in
    America because it also gives more reasonable regulations to farmers
    across a broader range of activities. We can do this right. We have
    worked hard.
        We've worked hard with the auto industry to produce a clean car that
    will get triple the mileage of the present car. We're making progress.
    But we also worked with them to bring back the auto industry so that
    today the United States auto industry is number one in sales around the
    world for the first time in nearly 20 years. We can do both things. Only
    they believe you have to hurt the environment to grow the economy. That
    is not true. And let me just give you one example.
        We closed more toxic waste sites in the last 3 years than they did
    in 12. But it's not enough. There are still 10 million--think of this;
    look at these kids here--there are still 10 million American children
    living within 4 miles of a toxic waste dump. So if you give us 4 more
    years, we'll close 500 more, the two-thirds worst, and our kids will be
    growing up next to parks, not poison. Will you help us build that kind
    of bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
        Well, that's it. We're in better shape than we were 4 years ago:
    10\1/2\ million more jobs, 12 million people using family leave, 15
    million families with a tax cut that need it the most,

    [[Page 1580]]

    every small business in the country eligible for one if they invest more
    in their business, 40 million more Americans with their pensions
    protected, 50 million more Americans breathing cleaner air, 10 million
    Americans on October 1st will get an increase in the minimum wage, and
    that's a good, good thing. This country is moving in the right
    direction.
        But there is so much more to do before we can say we have preserved
    the American dream for everybody who is willing to work for it, we have
    maintained the leadership of our country for peace and freedom and
    prosperity, and we are doing it by building the American community.
        You know, one of the biggest problems in this old world today--you
    look at Bosnia; we had these elections in Bosnia yesterday. Thank
    goodness we've had 9 months of peace. And we had these elections, and
    they did pretty well, considering what they've been through the last 4
    years. And I thank all of you who supported what I tried to do there.
    But you think about the world that we're living in. Look at Bosnia; look
    at Northern Ireland; look at the Middle East; look at what South Africa
    went through. Look at what happened in Burundi, for goodness sakes, over
    tribal differences. Why?
        All over the world there are people who make a living getting
    political power, getting military power, staying in power by inflaming
    the passions of people, by trying to get them to look down on their
    neighbors. ``You really matter because you're not them; you're not
    them.'' That's what they say in the Middle East, ``You're not them.''
    That's what they said in Bosnia. They were slaughtering each other's
    children because they weren't Croatian or Serbian or Muslim. And they
    were biologically completely indistinguishable. It was an accident of
    history that got them into different so-called ethnic or religious
    groups.
        And you look around this crowd today. I see Asian-Americans. I see
    African-Americans. I see Nordic-Americans. I see Irish-Americans. I see
    German-Americans. I see Americans of Central European descent. I see
    Indian-Americans and Pakistani-Americans and Native Americans and you
    name it. You know why? Because we are trying to beat that curse that is
    bedeviling the rest of the world and threatens the 21st century.
        And so when you see--[applause]--that's the last thing I want to
    leave you with. I don't want to build a bridge that you only get to walk
    across because you're better than somebody else because of an accident
    of birth. I want to build a bridge that anybody can walk across if they
    say, ``I believe in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence,
    the Bill of Rights. I believe in the fundamental dignity of all people.
    And if you're willing to show up for work tomorrow, play by the rules,
    and love this country the way I do, I'll hold your hand, and we'll build
    a bridge we can walk across together.'' And if you'll do that, we'll
    have a great victory in November.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:20 p.m. at National Balloon Classic Field
    at Senator Harkin's 19th annual steak and pork-chop fry. In his remarks,
    he referred to entertainers Tom Arnold and Jerry Jeff Walker; Mike
    Peterson, chair, Iowa Democratic Party; Mayor Jerry Kelley of Indianola;
    Mayor Arthur Davis of Des Moines; and the Senator's daughters Jenny and
    Amy Harkin.