    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [October 7, 1996]
    [Pages 1784-1788]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in Manchester, New Hampshire
    October 7, 1996

        Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, 5 years ago today, on
    October 7th, 1991, I came to New Hampshire. I am told that I am the only
    sitting President since your own Franklin Pierce to actually come to New
    Hampshire every single year of my Presidency. I can tell you that on
    this gorgeous fall day, looking out at all of you and seeing so many of
    you who have been my friends now through good times and bad, there may
    be someone in America

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    right now who's happier than I am, but I have no idea who it would be. I
    am glad to be here. Thank you, and God bless you all.
        It's great to be back in Manchester. I want to thank the mayor and
    all those who came out to the airport to greet me. I want to thank the
    two football teams who changed their schedule so we could all be here,
    the Central High JV and the Concord High JV. Let's give them a hand.
    [Applause] Where are they? There they are back here and back there.
    Thanks. I want to thank the bands, the Central High School and the
    Spalding High School Marching Bands over here. Give them a hand; they
    did a great job. [Applause]
        I want to tell you how very proud I am to be up here with these fine
    candidates. I was listening to Arnie Arnesen speak, and I thought, she
    could double the energy in the House of Representatives all by herself.
    We need that kind of vigor in this country.
        And I heard Joe Keefe and I remembered how I employed him in the
    dark days to stay on as the chairman of the Democratic Party in New
    Hampshire, and he said he would, and what a difference a year and a half
    makes. Thank you, Joe Keefe, for fighting for New Hampshire, for
    America, and for the future of this country.
        I looked at Dick Swett and I thought of the times when we talked in
    quiet places without big crowds about this country and its future. I
    remembered when he was for a law to require Congress to live under the
    same laws it imposes on the rest of us before it was popular, before
    anybody knew anything about it. And it's the law of the land today. And
    I campaigned on it in 1992 in the State of New Hampshire because of the
    work that Dick Swett did. And he can do better work if you'll send him
    to the United States Senate where we can move forward and stop the
    negative forces and build the positive forces of America.
        And I was thinking of the first time I ever met Jeanne Shaheen and
    what a terrific Governor she would be for any State and especially for
    New Hampshire. Jeanne, I thank you.
        And I thank you, Dick, for what you said about the debate last
    night. I enjoyed that debate, and I thank Senator Dole for joining me,
    and I believe that the American people got a pretty good feel for the
    differences between us, the differences in our views. And we just proved
    you can still do it and be civilized and decent and humane. And that's
    the way we ought to conduct our public affairs in this country.
        Four years ago when I came here, the issue was how we could get our
    economy going again, how we could pierce the rising tide of cynicism in
    our electorate, how we could pull this country back together again.
    Today, the issue is what path will we take to the 21st century? Are we
    on the right path or should we turn back to another path?
        If you look at where we are now compared to where we were 4 years
    ago, just think back to then and what it was like in New Hampshire, a
    time of high unemployment, bankruptcies, rising frustration and anger. I
    said then and I repeat to you today: I want this country to go into the
    21st century with the American dream alive for every single child in
    America, with our American community coming together instead of coming
    apart.
        Think how many places in the world today are crippled and face
    destruction because people who come from different religions or races or
    ethnic groups simply cannot get along. In America, we can all get along
    if we share the same values and we honor our system and we show up for
    work.
        And I was determined to see this country continue to lead the world
    for peace and freedom. But 4 years ago you took me on faith. You don't
    have to do that anymore. Now there's a record: 10\1/2\ million jobs,
    record numbers of new businesses, record exports of American products,
    4\1/2\ million new homeowners, 10 million homeowners who refinanced
    their homes at lower interest rates, 4 years of declining crime rates,
    child support up 50 percent, welfare rolls down 2 million, out-of-
    wedlock births dropping for the first time in 20 years. This country is
    on the right track to the 21st century.
        Four years ago we doubted whether ordinary Americans would ever
    benefit even from an improving economy. But now we know we can turn that
    around. Since the passage of our economic plan, the average income for
    families, the typical family in America, has gone up more than $1,600
    after inflation. Last year we had the biggest drop in poverty in 27
    years, the lowest poverty rate among senior citizens ever recorded. And
    all people, all working people, were finally beginning to benefit from
    our endeavors. We had the biggest drop in inequality of working people's
    incomes in 27 years. We are on the right track to the 21st century.

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        And so I say to you, I hope that you in one month and one day, and
    all the American people like you all over this country, will make a
    decision to stay on that track, to plow new ground, to think new
    thoughts, to come up with new ideas, to leave behind the old debates,
    the old policies, and the things that got us in so much trouble because
    they were long out of date.
        Just think how far we have come and where we can go. We have cut the
    deficit by 60 percent. It's gone down in all 4 years for the first time
    since the Second World War. Truth is, it's gone down in 4 years for the
    first time since before the Civil War. But we had a surplus in some of
    those other years.
        But now we have to finish the job. People tell me--people tell me in
    Washington, ``Now, don't go anywhere and talk about balancing the budget
    because it bores people now, and it requires tough decisions.'' But it's
    important. Why? Because these declining deficits have meant as the
    Government borrows less money, it's easier for you to borrow money.
    That's why interest rates are lower for home mortgages, credit card
    rates, car payments, student loan payments, and business loans. That's
    why they're lower, because we're bringing the deficit down. So I say to
    you, now we have to finish the job of balancing the budget in a way that
    enables us to continue to invest in education and research and protect
    the environment and the health care of our seniors and our families in
    need. Will you help me build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
        We cut taxes for 15 million working families and made every small
    business in America eligible for a substantial tax cut when they invest
    more in their business. Now we have to cut taxes to help families raise
    their children and educate them, to pay for buying a home, not to pay
    taxes when you sell a home, to deal with a medical emergency. Will you
    help me build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
        We passed the Family and Medical Leave Act. We just passed a bill to
    stop what I call drive-by deliveries, requiring--letting insurance
    companies force mothers and their newborn babies out of the hospital
    within a day. That's over now. We ended that. We finally gave some
    recognition to the needs of mental health in health insurance policies.
    And finally, after a long, long time, we made the children of Vietnam
    veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange, who contracted spina bifida
    as a result, finally we made those families eligible for health care and
    disability payments that we should have done long ago. We're moving in
    the right direction.
        Now we ought to expand family leave to say you can take a little
    time off from work without losing your job to take your parents or your
    children to regular doctor's appointments or to go to that conference
    with a teacher at your child's school. We ought to give our families the
    opportunity if they earn overtime at work to decide whether to spend
    that overtime--to get that overtime in more money or more time if their
    children or their sick parents need it. We ought to do that as well.
        We made 25 million Americans more likely to keep their health
    insurance with the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill by saying no one can take your
    insurance away from you now just because you change jobs or because
    someone in your family has been sick. Now we need to finish the job and
    cover people when they're between jobs. That is also in my balanced
    budget plan. Will you help me build that bridge for families to the 21st
    century? [Applause]
        We passed the toughest crime bill in history and are bringing the
    crime rate down 4 years in a row. We need now to take on the tough
    problem of juvenile gangs, and we need to finish the job until we get
    all those 100,000 police out there like the ones I saw here in
    Manchester helping you to recover your neighborhoods. Will you help me
    build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
        We worked with States all over this country to move nearly 2 million
    people from welfare to work. And then I signed a historic welfare reform
    bill that says we will continue to provide to poor families health care
    and nutrition, and when the parent goes to work there will be more for
    child care than ever before. But now every State and community in the
    country has to take what used to be the welfare check, and if the adult,
    the parent, is able-bodied, that welfare check has to become a paycheck
    within 2 years. Will you help me create the jobs to put people to work
    and end the cycle of dependency in America and build that bridge to the
    21st century? [Applause]
        We've worked hard to improve our environment, to take chemicals out
    of the air, to make our drinking water safe, to improve the standards of
    health for our food. We've cleaned up

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    more toxic waste dumps in 3 years than the previous administrations did
    in 12. We fought their attempts and we beat back their attempts to cut
    environmental protection, toxic waste cleanups by a third, to take over
    some of the national parks and let them be privatized. We've protected
    our national parks, but we have to continue to enhance America's
    environment and to clean up the worst toxic waste dumps in this country
    so our children are growing up next to parks, not poison. Will you help
    me build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
        And above all, will you help me make education our number one
    priority so that all of our people can create, compete, and win?
    [Applause]
        My fellow Americans, the young people in this audience, within just
    a few years--let's hear it for them--[applause]--the young people in
    this audience, many of you will be doing jobs that have not even been
    created yet. Many of you, in fact, will be doing work that has not been
    imagined yet.
        We are pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, creating new
    activities, and coming together across national boundaries all across
    the world as never before. In just 4 years, medical research has more
    than doubled the life expectancy of people with HIV infections--in just
    4 years.
        We are--within a few years, every time a young mother comes home
    from the hospital, the mother and father will be able to get a genetic
    map which tells you what your child's health care profile will be like
    for a lifetime. People will know how to raise their children, what kind
    of exercise they most need, what kind of diet they most need, what kind
    of medical care they most need. We will extend life and make it more
    abundant because of what we are doing in research. But we have to have
    people educated to do it.
        We are doing a joint project now--research with IBM to build in a
    matter of a couple of years a supercomputer that will do more
    calculations in one second than you can do on your hand-held calculator
    in 30,000 years.
        We have got to invest in education and make America the education
    capital of the entire world. Will you help me build that bridge to the
    21st century? [Applause]
        Will you help me mobilize an army of volunteer literacy tutors,
    AmeriCorps volunteers, and others so that we can make sure that by the
    year 2000 every single 8-year-old in America can read independently?
    [Applause]
        Will you help me prove that we were right and those who opposed us
    were wrong, that the Goals 2000 program allows local schools to set
    their own grassroots reforms to achieve excellence? It's not a national
    standard of uniformity on the schools of New Hampshire; it's an
    empowerment tool to challenge every State to set national standards and
    international standards of excellence and cut the schools loose to
    achieve them. Will you help me do that? [Applause]
        Will you help us hook up every classroom in America to the
    information superhighway so that all of our students, no matter whether
    they are poor, rich, or middle class, can have access to the same
    learning at the same level of quality in the same time for the very
    first time in the entire history of the United States of America? Will
    you help me do that? [Applause]
        And finally, will you help me open the doors of college education to
    every single person in America of any age who needs to go? [Applause]
    Will you help me pass a tax credit so that people can deduct dollar for
    dollar the cost of tuition at the typical community college or
    vocational training school so that everybody can get 2 years of
    education after high school? [Applause] Will you help me pass that
    deduction of up to $10,000 a year for the cost of any college tuition so
    that every family can afford to go? [Applause]
        My fellow Americans, it feels a lot different in New Hampshire than
    it did 4 years ago. But the faces are the same; the spirit is the same.
    You embody the character and hope and promise of America. I can never
    thank you all for what you have done for me and for Hillary, for our
    family, our campaign, and our administration. If it weren't for you, I
    wouldn't be here tonight, and you know it.
        New Hampshire, you gave me the chance to serve you for 4 years. You
    know now that what you took on faith has been justified by the record.
    The American people saw last night the stark choices before us. Our best
    days are still ahead. Will you help me build a bridge to the 21st
    century? [Applause]
        Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:18 p.m. at Gill Stadium. In his remarks,
    he referred to Mayor Raymond J. Wieczorek of Manchester; Deborah (Arnie)
    Arnesen and Joseph F. Keefe, candidates

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    for New Hampshire's Second and First Congressional Districts,
    respectively; Dick Swett, New Hampshire senatorial candidate; and Jeanne
    Shaheen, New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate.