    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [October 21, 1996]
    [Pages 1878-1880]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at Cuyahoga Community College in Parma, Ohio
    October 21, 1996

        Thank you very much. Good morning. I won't let the rain bother me if
    you don't let it bother you; how's that? Thank you so much, all of you,
    for being here. I'm going to put on my raincoat. I cheat a little bit.
        First let me thank Dr. Jerry Sue Thornton and all the people here at
    this wonderful community college for hosting us. Thank you, Senator
    Glenn. Thank you, Mayor Gerald Boldt. I'm glad to be back in Parma.
    Thank you, sir. I'm the only President in history who has ever come to
    Parma twice just to eat pierogies, but I'm--[laughter]. We're going to
    do a little work today.
        Thank you, Cleveland Mayor Mike White. Thank you, Dennis Kucinich,
    for that great speech. He sounded like a Congressman to me. Thank you,
    Mayor Tom Coyne, for running for Congress. Thank you, Congressmen Tom
    Sawyer and Sherrod Brown, for being here. Thank you, Representative Jane
    Campbell, David Leland. Thank you, Mayor Dimora, for being here.
        And let me say a special thanks to the Valley Forge High School Band
    for being here. I am not so old that I do not remember what it's like to
    try to play one of those instruments in the rain. It's not easy, and
    let's give them another hand. Come on. [Applause] I also want to thank
    all the other students who are here. There is a group of students back
    here--[applause]--there is a group of students in the back over there
    with a sign that says they got out of school and I have to sign their
    permission slip. So I will do that for the ones in the back.
        Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for being here. Thanks for that
    ``Ohio Republicans for Clinton/Gore'' sign. That looks good to me. I am
    delighted to be back here.
        Let me say, all of you know that 4 years ago when I ran for
    President we had a time of high unemployment and rising frustration. And
    all of you know that compared to 4 years ago, we are better off. We have
    10\1/2\ million more jobs. The unemployment rate in Ohio has gone from 7
    percent to 4.8 percent. Average family income in the last 2 years is up
    $1,600 after inflation, after being stagnant for a decade. We are moving
    in the right direction. The crime rate has come down for 4 years in a
    row. The welfare rolls have dropped. Child support collections are up
    almost 50 percent. We're moving in the right direction.
        This election will determine what direction we take into the 21st
    century. That is the decision before all of you. Will you help me build
    a bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
        If you compare the work we've done in the last month since you had
    your voices heard, compared to the last 2 years, when I vetoed a budget
    that would have cut education for the first time in American history,
    weakened environmental protection, undermined the commitments of
    Medicare and Medicaid--and you stood by me and made your voices heard.
    Now, in the last month, we raised the minimum wage

    [[Page 1879]]

    for 10 million working Americans. We passed the Kennedy-Kassebaum health
    care reform bill that says you cannot lose your health insurance anymore
    because somebody in your family has been sick or because you changed
    jobs. We gave a $5,000 tax credit to families that would adopt some of
    these hundreds of thousands of children out there who need a home and
    support of a family. And we made it easier for small-business people to
    take out pensions for themselves and their employees. We are moving in
    the right direction.
        But now you have to make a decision in about 2 weeks. Your vote will
    decide whether we balance our budget and protect Medicare and Medicaid,
    education and the environment, and give targeted tax cuts to families to
    help them raise their children and educate them, to help them save for
    that first-time home or deal with medical costs, or whether we blow a
    hole in the deficit with a risky tax scheme that will raise taxes on the
    9 million working people, increase the deficit, and cut education again.
    I think the answer is clear.
        Your vote will decide whether we continue to support families,
    whether we continue to fight crime, whether we really finish the job of
    reforming welfare. Yes, we passed a bill that says people on welfare
    have 2 years to turn that welfare check into a paycheck. Now we have to
    make sure the jobs are there so that they can take the jobs and build
    good families.
        Your vote will decide whether we continue to clean up the
    environment or give in to those who say we have to weaken our
    environment to grow our economy. You know better than that. I want to
    clean up 500 more toxic waste dumps in this country so every American
    child will be growing up next to parks, not poison, and I think you do,
    too.
        Most of all, your vote will decide whether we continue our struggle
    for world-class education for the schoolchildren who are here, whether
    we continue to expand Head Start, whether we continue to raise
    standards, whether we hook up every single classroom in the United
    States of America to the information superhighway--the Internet, the
    World Wide Web--by the year 2000, so that for the first time in history
    every child in America, in a private, parochial, or a public school,
    whether in a rich, a middle class, or a very poor district--for the
    first time ever we'll have every child able to hook into the same amount
    of learning in the same time in the same way from all over the world. It
    will revolutionize opportunity for every child in the United States.
        And above all, your vote will decide whether we make the
    opportunities you enjoy here available to all Americans. In the last 4
    years we've had the biggest increase in Pell grant scholarships in 20
    years. We had a huge increase in work-study in just the last month
    approved. We created the AmeriCorps program, which has helped 69,000
    young people to serve their community and work their way through
    college. We have created the school-to-work program for young people who
    don't go to 4-year colleges, and that includes the Cuyahoga Community
    College's Tech Prep program right here. That's the kind of thing we have
    tried to do.
        Now, what I want to tell you is we have more to do. One of the
    things we did that you heard your president talk about is pass the
    direct loan program. It made it quicker and cheaper for young people to
    get college loans. Sixteen hundred schools now participate in that
    program, including Cuyahoga Community College and 69 others in Ohio. And
    what that has meant is that 10 million Americans have saved an average
    of $190 each on their college loan. And even more important, it means
    you can borrow money to go to college without worrying about how you're
    going to pay it back, because you cannot be required to pay more than a
    certain percentage of your income every year. That means every young
    person in this program can afford to borrow the money to go to college.
    But there is more to do. I propose the following three things. It's a
    big part of your decision on November 5th.
        Number one, look around you here. I want to make 2 years of
    education after high school as universal in America by the year 2000 as
    a high school diploma is today. And there's a simple way to do it. I
    propose to give every family a $1,500 tax credit--that's the cost of a
    typical community college tuition--a dollar-for-dollar reduction on
    their tax bill if they're going to a community college or another 2-year
    institution. Will you help me do that? [Applause]
        And I propose to give every family a tax deduction of up to $10,000
    a year for the cost of any college tuition, undergraduate, graduate, you
    name it. Will you help me do that? [Applause]
        Finally, I propose to let families save more in IRA's and withdraw
    from them without any

    [[Page 1880]]

    penalty if the money is being used for a college education or for health
    care or to buy a first home. Will you help me build that bridge to the
    21st century? [Applause]
        Folks, even in the rain we know that the key to our future is
    investing in the minds of our people. This decision, more than anything
    else, will determine whether we together as a nation recommit ourselves
    to the proposition that in the 21st century if we want every American to
    live up to the fullest of his or her God-given ability, we must
    guarantee every American a world-class education, and I need your help
    to do that. Will you help? [Applause] Will you support that? [Applause]
        The program that I have outlined altogether will make sure that the
    money saved by a middle class family for college need never be taxed,
    that we are going to invest together in a college education.
        Now, as all of you know, my opponent has a different view. He
    opposed the creation of the Department of Education, and now he says
    that he and Speaker Gingrich will eliminate it. I believe they're wrong
    and we're right. We need a Department of Education. Just imagine what it
    would be like in the United States, alone of all the great nations, to
    start the 21st century with no one in the President's Cabinet to speak
    up for the education of our children. I say let's keep it, let's make it
    better, let's expand educational opportunity for all of our children.
        Thirty-one years ago, my opponent voted against the creation of the
    student loan program in the first place. Three years ago, he opposed the
    direct lending program, which your president just praised and which you
    know has improved college loans right here at Cuyahoga Community
    College. He's tried to cut it back and cripple it ever since.
        And the budget I vetoed last year would have cut Pell grant
    scholarships for hundreds of thousands of students for the first time
    ever. Instead, we fought them back and we got the biggest increase in
    Pell grants in 20 years. Will you support the direction we are taking
    for education for all Americans? [Applause]
        I want you to be clear about that. Your vote is going to decide
    whether we continue to expand access to college and student loans or
    whether we eliminate the Department of Education, cut college aid, and
    tell our young people to fend for themselves. I don't know what all the
    family circumstances of all those young people in the band are over
    there, but I know one thing: All of us will be better off if every
    single one of them, without regard to their family income, can get a
    college education. And I want you to help me do that.
        I want you to help me make sure we have an America in 4 years at the
    dawn of a new century where every 8-year-old can read, every 12-year-old
    can log on to the Internet, and every 18-year-old in America can go on
    to college. We just have 2 weeks and a day. Will you help me for 2 weeks
    and a day build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
        Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:20 a.m. on the Campus Green. In his
    remarks, he referred to Jerry Sue Thornton, president, Cuyahoga
    Community College; Mayor Gerald M. Boldt of Parma; Dennis Kucinich,
    candidate for Ohio's 10th Congressional District; Mayor Thomas J. Coyne,
    Jr., of Brookpark, OH, candidate for Ohio's 19th Congressional District;
    State Representative Jane L. Campbell; David Leland, chair, Ohio
    Democratic Party; and Mayor Jimmy Dimora of Bedford Heights, OH.