    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [September 28, 1996]
    [Pages 1718-1721]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in Fall River, Massachusetts
    September 28, 1996

        The President. Thank you.
        Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
        The President. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Fall River! Mr. Mayor,
    thank you for making me feel so welcome. Senator Kennedy pointed out I
    have been all over the world. This is my first trip here. If I had know
    what I was missing, I'd have been here sooner, I can tell you that.
    Thank you very much. Thank you.
        Are there any Portuguese-Americans here? [Applause] Obrigado [Thank
    you], Fall River. I'm glad to be here. I'm delighted to be here with all
    of you. I thank Joan Menard for starting us off and for the good work
    she has done. I want to thank Jim McGovern for presenting himself as a
    candidate for Congress, and I hope you'll make him a Congressman. He'd
    be a good one. I want to thank my good friend Congressman Barney Frank
    who's here, who used to represent you in the legislature. Thank you,
    Barney. And I want to thank his sister, Ann Lewis, who is the
    spokesperson for my Presidential campaign. You may have seen her on
    television taking up for me. She's going to wind up getting her name
    recognition up as high as her brother's, and that's a pretty good thing.
    And I want to thank their proud mother, Elsie Frank, who is here
    somewhere today. I saw her. Thank you, dear.
        I am delighted to be here with all of you. But I want to say a
    special word of thanks, as an old musician, to Our Lady of Light Band
    and the Mike Moran Band. Thank you both for providing the music for us.
        Thank you, Senator Ted Kennedy. And Vicki, thank you for being here.
    You know, I wish I had as much energy as Ted Kennedy does. I just left
    Providence, where I was with Congressman Patrick Kennedy, and he was the
    bounciest person on that stage. Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot imagine
    the phenomenal impact that Ted Kennedy had on this Congress. After they
    passed their radical budget and I vetoed it and you made clear--you and
    people like you all across America, in all 50 States, Democrats,
    Republicans, and independents, too--that you basically agreed with me
    and us and not them, it was just amazing what Ted Kennedy was able to do
    in this Congress.
        The Kennedy-Kassebaum health care reform bill will make 25 million
    Americans eligible to keep their health insurance when they change jobs
    and say they can't lose it if somebody in their family gets sick--25
    million. And this Congress, which just a year ago was out there trying

    [[Page 1719]]

    to raise income taxes on the lowest income working American families,
    trying to lower the income of the working people with the lowest incomes
    in the country--thanks to the leadership of Ted Kennedy, on October 1st,
    which I think is Tuesday, 10 million Americans will get a pay raise when
    their minimum wage goes up. Thank you, Senator, thank you.
        And I might add that bill will also make it easier for people in
    small businesses to take out retirement plans and for employees in small
    businesses to keep those retirement plans when they move from business
    to business. So it's good for workers and good for business. It also has
    a $5,000 tax credit for families who adopt children who need a home, and
    I hope more of them will get a home now. Thank you for that bill. It's a
    good bill for America.
        I'm delighted to be here with my friend Senator John Kerry and with
    Teresa. And I want to tell you, folks, I know that John Kerry has a
    vigorous and spirited race. But every one of you here in Fall River
    knows what's really at stake. We're going through a period of great
    change in this country in how we work, how we live, how we relate to the
    rest of the world, what it will take for us to see that every American
    lives up to the fullest of his or her God-given potential.
        When I put forward my economic plan in 1993, the other side said it
    would cause a recession and increase unemployment and increase the
    deficit. Well, now we know. We've got 10\1/2\ million jobs, and the
    deficit has gone down 4 years in a row for the first time since before
    the Civil War. John Kerry was right. He's on the right side of history.
        When we tried to get past 6 years of talking tough on crime but
    nothing happening--rhetoric and rhetoric and rhetoric and no action--to
    put 100,000 police on the street, to ban deadly assault weapons, to pass
    the Brady bill, the other side, they led the fight against it. But John
    Kerry helped us pass the toughest, smartest, best crime bill this
    country has seen in many a day, and the crime rate has gone down for 4
    years in a row. John Kerry was on the right side of history, and
    Massachusetts should stay with him.
        And when we were expanding Head Start and passing that school-to-
    work program Senator Kennedy talked about to help young people who don't
    go to 4-year colleges get good training and good jobs, when we improved
    the college loan program by cutting the cost and improving the repayment
    terms, when we did these things, the other guys, they tried to stop us.
    But John Kerry helped us pass it. He's on the right side of history. And
    he's on the right side of history in making college available to all
    Americans. We'll do it if you give us 4 more years and if you give us
    John Kerry back to the United States Senate.
        And finally, let me thank Sheila Levesque. Could every one of you
    get up here and do what she did?
        Audience members. No-o-o!
        The President. A single mom, a nurse, worked all night long on her
    shift, hadn't had any sleep--I said, ``Sheila, did you get any sleep
    last night?'' She said maybe an hour or two since she got off work--
    stood up here in front of this vast crowd and told you the story of her
    life. The reason we wanted her to do that is that this election is not
    about the politicians on this stage. This election is about whether the
    decisions we make connect and improve and advance the lives and the
    values of people like Sheila Levesque all over this country. That's what
    this election is about. That's what it's about.
        When I was in Providence, I was introduced by a woman who got a Pell
    grant to go back to the community college to try to do right by her
    family. And there was another young woman there in Providence that I
    featured in my book and that spoke at the Democratic Convention, a
    Puerto Rican immigrant girl, a high school dropout, worked several jobs,
    joined AmeriCorps, our national service program, and then got herself--
    after dropping out of high school and becoming a leader in AmeriCorps--
    got herself into Brown University, where she just started her second
    year. That's what this is all about, helping people to make the most of
    their own lives.
        Yesterday I was in the great State of Texas. And people tell me,
    ``Well, that's a Republican State; what did you go down there for?''
    I'll tell you why I went. There were 13,000 people in the small town of
    Longview, Texas, at about 8:30 yesterday morning. And after I spoke, as
    is my custom, I went out into the crowd and I started shaking hands. I
    met the following three people in 5 minutes. I met a 34-year-old single
    mother with two kids who joined AmeriCorps and had gotten herself some
    money

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    helping the local community and was going back to the junior college
    there.
        Then I met a woman who said, ``Mr. President, if it hadn't been for
    the Family and Medical Leave Act, I don't know what I would have done.
    My husband had cancer, but I got to take some time off and be with him
    when he was so desperately ill without losing my job and wrecking our
    family.'' You know, the other side, their leaders fought against the
    family and medical leave law. But John Kerry and Barney Frank and Ted
    Kennedy, they were on the right side of history, helping people succeed
    at home and at work. It was the right thing to do.
        And then I met a man who had a camouflage jacket on, obviously a
    veteran. He was a Vietnam veteran standing there with his wife. His
    little daughter was in a wheelchair. She'd had 12 operations because her
    father served our country in Vietnam, was exposed to Agent Orange, and
    like far too many children of veterans, his child got spina bifida. But
    finally last week in a bill that I signed, we finally at long last gave
    help in the form of disability payments and extra medical support to the
    children of Vietnam veterans born with spina bifida--who were exposed--
    and it's high time. That's what this election is all about. That's what
    this is all about.
        My fellow Americans, you were very good to me in 1992, but you took
    me on faith and the word of others. When I said to you that we could
    create an America in the 21st century with opportunity for everyone
    responsible enough to work for it, where we were coming together and
    respecting our diversity instead of being torn apart by it, where we
    were still leading the world toward peace and freedom and prosperity,
    you took me on faith. But after 4 years of working for opportunity,
    responsibility, and a stronger community, you don't have to do that
    anymore. The evidence is in, and now we know. Now we know.
        With 10\1/2\ million more jobs, a record number of new small
    businesses, and the census report last week telling us--I almost wept
    when I read it. Who ever heard of crying over a dry Government report?
    But every year they tell us how we did the year before. So the census
    report for 1995 said, compared to the year before, that typical American
    families had $900 more after inflation; that we had the biggest drop in
    childhood poverty in 20 years; the biggest drop in poverty in female
    households in 30 years, female-headed households; the biggest drop in
    the number of people living in poverty in 27 years; and the biggest drop
    in the inequality of working families in 27 years. We are on the right
    track to the 21st century, and we need to keep going. We need to keep
    going.
        We have more to do. We have more to do to build that bridge to the
    21st century. Yes, we made a lot of progress these last 3 months because
    you made your voices heard. But you have to say again on election day,
    what is the direction of this country? And in all candor, friends, I'm
    tired of the meanness and the personal attacks that have dominated our
    politics for too long. There are honest differences between us. We can
    share them with respect.
        And the ideas here at issue that will determine whether we're on the
    right side of the future are the following: Do you believe that we have
    to build a bridge to the 21st century big enough for all of us to go
    across, or can we try to reach back and build a bridge to the past? You
    know we have to build a bridge to the future.
        Do you believe, as my opponent said in all honesty in his speech to
    the Republican Convention--he was being absolutely honest and candid,
    and he said, frankly, he did not agree with the First Lady that it took
    a village; he thought families and individuals would be better off being
    left alone, that they could do better on their own. You know something?
    I think Hillary was right. I think it does take a village to raise our
    children and build our communities and build our future. But you have to
    decide. You have to decide.
        I'm glad that a little of my--a precious little of my income as a
    tax-paying citizen went to help to give Sheila Levesque a chance to be a
    better mother, a more productive citizen, and build a better future. And
    you know what? I think I'm better off because of that, and I think you
    are, too.
        For every young person in this audience, I believe it is a good
    thing for us to enact the educational program for the 21st century that
    Senator Kerry outlined. Why shouldn't we say we're going to make 2 years
    of community college education as universal as a high school diploma is
    in the next 4 years? We need to do it. Why shouldn't we do it? Let
    people take the money off their taxes for the cost of a typical tuition.
    Why shouldn't we give people a $10,000 tax deduction for the cost of
    tuition after high

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    school, any kind of college tuition, people of any age? Why shouldn't we
    do it? We can pay for it. I'm for that.
        And I'm for balancing the budget, too, because that will lower your
    interest rates on your student loans, your car payments, your house
    payments, on your credit card payments. It will lower your interest
    rates. It will keep interest rates down for business loans so that we
    can keep creating new jobs and build on the economic record of the last
    4 years. But I am not for doing it and using that as an excuse to wreck
    Medicaid, which has given our commitment, our solemn commitment of
    health care to poor children, to the elderly in nursing homes, most of
    them themselves the parents of middle class families. I don't want to
    see us walk away from middle class working families who because of
    Medicaid have had family members with disabilities who could live in
    dignity without driving their families into poverty. We don't have to do
    that to balance the budget, and I won't do it.
        We don't have to cut back on education or environmental protection.
    And we have to continue investing in research and technology. Yesterday,
    folks, I was in Houston, and I welcomed home that magnificent astronaut
    Shannon Lucid when she came home after 6 months. A lot of you saw her
    come home. When she was a little girl, she told an adult she wanted to
    be a rocket scientist when she grew up. And she was told, there is no
    such thing, and if there were it wouldn't be a girl. [Laughter] Well,
    guess what? There are a lot of them now, and a lot of them are women.
    And the young girls of America and the young women liked seeing Shannon
    Lucid up there.
        What is the point of that? President Kennedy believed we could go
    into space and make a success of the space program, and he fought for
    it. I'm glad he did. I'm glad he supported it. I'm glad I have supported
    it. And I'm glad we've still got it. And I think those who thought it
    shouldn't be done were wrong. We have to continue to invest in research
    to build a better future. I want the young people here to be able to do
    those jobs of the future. We are today building a supercomputer with IBM
    that will do more calculations in one second than you can do on a hand-
    held calculator in 30,000 years. And we have to do that.
        We are today seeing experiments with laboratory animals whose spines
    have been severed, who have movement in their lower limbs again because
    of nerve transplants. We have doubled the life expectancy of people with
    HIV and AIDS in only 4 years. We have to keep going and investing, and
    we're better off when we do that, building a better future, being on the
    right side of history, building that bridge.
        So here's what I want to know from you. For 38 days, for 38 days,
    will you help us build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause] Will
    you talk to your friends and your neighbors, your coworkers, people in
    Massachusetts and your friends beyond in other States and say, we have
    got to keep building that bridge to the 21st century, and we've got to
    go across it together? We cannot be divided by race, by gender, by
    religion, by ethnic group. We are a great, great country, and our best
    days are still ahead if we are committed to going across that bridge
    together. Will you do it?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. Then we'll prevail. Thank you, and God bless you all.
    Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:04 p.m. at Kennedy Park. In his remarks,
    he referred to Mayor Edward Lambart, Jr., of Fall River; State
    Representative Joan Menard; Senator Edward Kennedy's wife, Vicki;
    Senator John Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz; and Sheila Levesque, who
    introduced the President.