    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [August 30, 1996]
    [Pages 1433-1437]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in Paducah, Kentucky
    August 30, 1996

        The President. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad
    to be back in Paducah. Folks, I don't know if you remember this, but on
    the day before the election in 1992, I flew to Paducah and I didn't have
    any voice at all. I've still got a little left now. And I could only get
    up and say to you, ``Folks, I have lost my voice, but if you folks in
    Paducah and Kentucky will vote for me, I'll be your voice for the next 4
    years.''
        Well, folks, I'm here tonight with what the crowd counters tell me
    is 25,000 of our good friends and Americans to tell you I have been your
    voice. Compared to 4 years ago, we are better off. We are on the right
    track, but we still have work to do. And I want you tonight, for the
    next 4 years, to help me build that bridge to the 21st century. Will you
    do it? Will you do it?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. I want to thank Governor Patton and Mrs. Patton for
    being here, for their leadership and their energy. I want to thank our
    good friend Senator Wendell Ford, a great leader in the Senate and an
    immensely respected man. I don't know how many times I've thought to
    myself, if we just had about 10 people like Wendell Ford in the Senate
    we could solve half the country's problems in a month or two.
        I want to thank Lieutenant Governor Steve Henry for being here. I
    want to thank Steve Beshear and join in what has been said about him.
    When I was looking at him speak tonight, I thought, boy, Kentucky would
    be better off if he were the United States Senator, along with Wendell
    Ford.
        You know, it's really too bad that a person like Steve Beshear or
    our fine candidate for Congress, Dennis Null, whom I urge you to help
    elect--it's too bad that they have to get up and give campaign speeches,
    with so much to be done in this country, about what they have to help
    stop. It's too bad that they have to talk about--here it is, 1996--that
    a Congress in 1996 actually tried to break apart Medicare into a two-
    tier system; that a leader of the Congress, now a nominee for President,
    actually bragged about--in 1996, not before--actually bragged about
    being one of the only 12 people to vote against Medicare in the House;
    that they tried to take away the guarantee that Medicaid gives not just
    to elderly folks in nursing homes, not just to pregnant women and poor
    little kids

    [[Page 1434]]

    but also to a lot of middle class families that happen to have a family
    member with a disability.
        A lot of you saw Christopher Reeve and his magnificent speech to the
    convention. But, you know, one of the most moving conversations I've had
    in the last several months was with Mr. Reeve when he said, ``A lot of
    people with my disability don't have the income of movie stars, and even
    movie stars can go broke caring for something like this. Don't ever let
    anything happen to Medicaid, Mr. President.'' We need for working middle
    class families to be able to care for their children, their brothers,
    their parents, their spouses if they have a disability without going
    broke and going to the poorhouse. We ought not to have to defend that
    against these congressional leaders.
        At a time when we know we need to be doing more for education, we
    ought not have to defend our education programs. Why would anybody want
    to make student loans more expensive and have fewer people in Head
    Start? We ought not to have to defend that. At a time when we have
    proved in this administration that you can grow the economy and save the
    environment at the same time, and create more high-wage jobs, we ought
    not have to deal with people coming in and trying to repeal 25 years of
    bipartisan environment protection. We ought not to have to do that.
        Now, if you don't want to have to worry about that anymore, I want
    you to send Steve Beshear and Dennis Null to the Congress to advance
    your interests, and you won't have to worry about those negative things
    happening to you anymore.
        I want to thank my colleagues--former colleagues Martha Layne
    Collins and Julian Carroll for being here. Mayor Jones, I'm delighted to
    be here in your community. I want to thank your county executive, Danny
    Orazine, and J.W. Cleary, the president of the Paducah NAACP; all the
    Kentucky legislators who are here; the chairman of our party, Bob
    Babbage; Sandra Higgins, the vice chair of our party, a native of
    western Kentucky; Glenn Dowdy, the head of the western Kentucky AFL-CIO,
    is here.
        I want to mention one other person here just for personal reasons.
    Nearly 20 years ago, or anyway, more than 15 years ago, I spent the
    night in western Kentucky in a nearby county where I met Mike Miller,
    the Marshall County judge. Now, folks, he kept me up half the night
    talking about western Kentucky. And that's why I got gray so young in my
    life. [Laughter] That's the only reason Al Gore's got dark hair and I've
    got gray hair; I had to stay up half the night with Mike Miller a long
    time ago. [Laughter] And I am here to deliver a report: Governor Patton
    and Senator Ford have made absolutely sure that the administration is
    perfectly aware that we are all for getting your new locks on the
    Kentucky Down, Judge. We are there. I have reported. Now, the next time
    I come to your county, I want to get a good night's sleep. Thank you
    very much.
        Folks, when I asked--oh, one other thing. I'm an old band boy. Let's
    give a hand to the Murray State Band. They were great. They were great.
    [Applause] Thank you.
        Folks, when I asked the American people last night--hello, folks.
    Keep playing; you're great.
        When I asked the American people last night, all of you, to help me
    build a bridge to the 21st century, that's not just a slogan with me.
    The Vice President will tell you that the thing that dominates our
    thinking and has for 4 years is the plain fact that our whole country is
    going through such a period of rapid change, how we work, how we live,
    how we relate to each other, how we're relating to the rest of the
    world. Most of these changes are very good, but not all of them are.
        We have enormous new opportunities and some stiff new challenges.
    And all the time I'm thinking, we're only 4 years from a new century.
    What's this country going to look like when we start that century?
    What's this country going to look like when our children are our age?
    What's it going to look like when our grandchildren are our age?
        This is the greatest country in human history. We've been around
    here for over 220 years now because more than half the time, in times of
    profound change, our people were both good and smart and did the right
    thing. And I'm telling you, the issue now is, are we going to build a
    bridge to the future or a bridge to the past? Do we believe we have to
    go forward together and help each other to make the most of our own
    lives, or would we be better off saying you're on your own?
        I believe the answer is clear. We said in the convention a lot that
    Hillary's book was right, that it does take a village. And I believe
    that is right. We ought to go forward together.

    [[Page 1435]]

        And so tonight I say to you again, I want to build a bridge to the
    future with a strong economy. That means that we have to keep these
    interest rates down, investment going, keep the wages rising. That means
    we do have to balance the budget. But don't let anybody tell you any
    different, we do not have to balance the budget by breaking Medicare,
    turning away from our commitments in Medicaid, undermining our
    investments in our children's future, wrecking the environment, allowing
    $15 billion to be taken out of worker's pension funds, turning our backs
    on the research and development that is critical to our future here in
    western Kentucky. I got asked--I heard it tonight from the platform--
    what we want for the Technology Center in western Kentucky. We have to
    invest in these things, folks. So I say again, yes, balance the budget,
    but, no, don't compromise our future or divide our people. Do it
    consistent with our values. We'll grow the economy.
        And should we have a tax cut? Yes, we should. But it ought to be the
    right kind. It ought to be a tax cut we can afford. It ought to be
    targeted to people who need it. And it ought to be targeted to things
    that will grow the economy, educating our children and caring for our
    children, helping people to buy that first home, helping them get in
    another home, helping them to save for health care costs. That is what
    this tax cut ought to be.
        And I want to say again to you, any tax cut I propose to you in the
    election will be paid for line by line, dime by dime. I am not going to
    let this country go back to exploding the debt. I learned what happened.
    We quadrupled the debt of this country in 12 years before we took
    office, and today your budget would be in surplus--in surplus--and we
    could have a bigger tax cut but for the interest we are still paying on
    the debt we ran up in the 12 years before Bill Clinton and Al Gore took
    over the White House. That is a fact. We cannot go back.
        Now, our opponents say the way to go to the 21st century is to have
    a tax cut that's 5 times that big, that's undifferentiated, that can't
    be paid for. Well, I want to tell you something, if they got their way
    there would be even bigger cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education, and
    the environment than the ones I vetoed that Steve talked about, number
    one. And still it wouldn't cover it, so we would blow up the deficit
    anyway.
        Now, what does that mean? Who cares what happens to the deficit? You
    should. Why? Because if the Government borrows more money, then your
    interest rates will go up: what you paid for your home mortgage, your
    car payment, your credit card payment, what every small-business person
    in Paducah and all over western Kentucky has to pay to borrow money to
    start a new business or expand a business and hire new people.
        So I am telling you, let's keep the economy going and growing and
    wages rising and jobs coming in with the right kind of tax cut targeted
    to educating our people, raising our families, meeting their health care
    costs, and fully paid for in a balanced budget. That's my part of the
    bridge to the 21st century.
        I want you to help me build a bridge to the 21st century where we've
    got the best educated people in the world; where every person, no matter
    where they live, because of technology now has a chance, now has a
    chance to get a world-class education. I want you to support my
    initiative to make sure every third grader in this country can read on
    his or her own by the year 2000, with more tutors, support for teachers,
    support for parents.
        I want you to support our idea which will have phenomenal
    consequences in places like Kentucky and rural Tennessee and my native
    State of Arkansas. We are going to see, by the year 2000, that every
    classroom and every library in every school in this country not only has
    computers, not only has the teachers trained to teach the students how
    to use the computers but is hooked up to the information superhighway,
    so that for the first time in history, in the poorest hill and hollow in
    Appalachia, in the poorest inner-city school district in any city in
    this country, they have access at the same time to the same information
    children in the wealthiest school districts in America do. It has never
    happened before. We're going to make it happen if you help us. Will you
    help us do that?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. Will you help us build that bridge?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. By the year 2000, I want us to make sure that 2 years
    of college education, at least a community college education, is just as
    universal in America as a high school education is today, by giving
    people a tax credit

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    for the cost of that community college tuition for 2 years. We ought to
    do that.
        I want us to make sure that every student in this country who wants
    to go to college, whether they're young, middle-aged, or older, who
    needs to do it can do it. I want to preserve our good student loan
    program, and I want to give people a $10,000 deduction for the cost of
    college tuition every year they're in school.
        I want us to make sure that we don't short-change education, as our
    friends in the opposition tried to do in the budget I vetoed. I want us
    to do more with education. You know as well as I do, we will never,
    never, never give every American a chance to participate in tomorrow's
    economy unless we give every American a chance to get a world-class
    education. And I want you to help me.
        And I might say, the Vice President talked about how we're going to
    run a civil campaign and just talk about our disagreements. I disagree
    with the condemnation of teachers which I heard at their convention. I
    think we ought to be lifting our teachers up and supporting them and
    supporting their efforts with our children and helping them to do a
    better job.
        I want us to build a bridge to the future that breaks the cycle of
    welfare dependency. I am proud of the fact that there are 1.8 million
    fewer people on welfare today than on the day I took the oath of office
    as President of the United States. I am proud of the fact that child
    support collections have increased by $3 billion, 40 percent, since we
    took office. We're supporting more children. But I'm telling you, we can
    do more. If everybody paid the child support they owed, 800,000 women
    and children would leave welfare tomorrow.
        It's all very well for us to sign a welfare reform bill, and I was
    glad to do it, but you cannot make people go to work unless there is a
    job for them to take. So in the next 4 years let us resolve that we are
    not only going to tell people who are poor but able-bodied on welfare,
    ``We'll support your children with health care and child care and
    nutrition, but you have to go to work.'' Let's resolve to make sure we
    do everything we can to create the jobs wherever they're needed so
    people have the jobs to work at. That's a Democratic idea, and we owe it
    to them.
        Let me say just one other thing. We can't build a bridge to the
    future unless we go there together. More than any other issues, the
    things that symbolize what we have to do as a community to me are,
    first, helping families to make the most of their own lives and to
    succeed at home and at work. Of the many achievements of our
    administration, I am perhaps most proud, among the top two or three,
    certainly, of the family and medical leave law because it has enabled 12
    million--think about this--12 million American working folks to take a
    little time off when their babies were born or their parents were sick
    without losing their jobs. And it hasn't hurt our economy a bit. We are
    a stronger economy today because we're standing up for families and
    working people.
        So I want to expand the family and medical leave law a little bit to
    say to these same working people, you can take a little time off to go
    to regular parent-teacher conferences, because that's important to our
    future, and to take your kids to the doctor or your parents to the
    doctor. And I want to say to people, if you earn overtime you ought to
    have the option--not anybody else--you ought to have the option to take
    that overtime in money or in extra time with your family, with your
    children, with your sick parents, with an uncle or an aunt with
    Alzheimer's, whatever you need, whatever is best for the family. We need
    to do what we can to make sure every single American can succeed as a
    parent and as a worker. That's important.
        Last thing I want to say is, we can protect the environment and grow
    the economy. We still have 10 million kids living within 4 miles of
    toxic waste dumps. If you give Bill Clinton and Al Gore 4 more years,
    one of the ways we're going to build that bridge to the future is to
    clean up two-thirds of those dumps, the two-thirds worst of them. We
    want our kids to be living next to parks, not poison. And that will
    create jobs, not cost them. Will you help us build that bridge?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. Will you help us do that?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. Folks, on this beautiful, soft summer night, where
    there are more people than I ever dreamed I'd see--and I'm sorry you had
    to wait so long, but a lot of your fellow Kentuckians and folks from
    Illinois and folks from Missouri were waiting along the side of the
    road, too--I just want you to think about what kind of world our
    children can live in.
        The children in this audience today, many of them will be doing jobs
    that have not been

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    invented yet. Some of them will be doing jobs that no one has imagined
    yet. Right now, not sometime in the future, right now we are involved in
    a project with IBM--now, listen to this--to create a supercomputer
    within the next couple of years that will be able to do as many
    calculations in one second as you could do with a hand-held calculator
    in 30,000 years.
        No one knows how many opportunities are going to explode for our
    people. But if we want the kind of America I believe we do, we have to
    say, we can't make it unless we've got opportunity for everybody. We
    can't make it until everyone is responsible. And we can't make it unless
    we recognize we have an obligation to help all of our people make the
    most of their own lives to build strong families and strong communities
    so we can go forward together.
        Now, I want you to go home and think about that tonight. Our
    children are going to live in the age of greatest possibility in human
    history if we simply have the courage to meet our challenges and protect
    our values. It's going to be a wonderful ride. And I just want, in this
    last campaign of my life, to do whatever I can to make sure that we
    build that bridge to the future sturdy, strong, beautiful, and straight,
    and wide enough for everybody to walk across. Will you help me?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. For 68 more days will you help?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. And 4 years after that will you help?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. I need you, and we'll do it for America. Thank you,
    and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:50 p.m. at Harbor Plaza. In his remarks,
    he referred to Gov. Paul E. Patton of Kentucky and his wife, Judi;
    Steven Beshear, Kentucky senatorial candidate; Dennis Null, candidate
    for Kentucky's First Congressional District; Martha Layne Collins and
    Julian Carroll, former Governors of Kentucky; and Mayor Albert Jones of
    Paducah.