    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [August 26, 1996]
    [Pages 1368-1373]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Community in Toledo, Ohio
    August 26, 1996

        The President. Thank you so much to the citizens of Toledo. Thank
    you very much, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for
    making us feel so very welcome tonight. Now, I want to tell you first of
    all, I love Toledo, and I love to spend the night here. I love to run
    along the water here in the morning. And I'm delighted to be back. I've
    still got my Toledo Mud Hens cap. And I'm glad to be back. I also want
    to tell you that if you saw

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    Senator Glenn and I talking a little while the program was going, you
    need to know that at some point in about 15 minutes I'm going to stop,
    and the whole country is going to see you, because we're going to be
    talking back and forth to our convention in Chicago. So I want you to
    help me. Will you do that? [Applause]
        Now, in the meanwhile, I'd like to talk to you a few moments. First,
    I want to acknowledge your mayor and thank him for his vigorous
    leadership to help develop Toledo economically and to help fight the
    crime problem and working with us on it.
        Secondly, let me say, there is not in the entire United States
    Congress another Member of the Congress who is as active and energetic
    and aggressive and effective on behalf of the constituents as Marcy
    Kaptur is for you. She's fought for your jobs; she's fought for your
    welfare; she's fought for your values. You can be proud of her.
        And let me say of Senator Glenn, I have known very few people in
    public life that I would say I admired as much as John Glenn. He is an
    American hero and a national treasure. He's too modest to tell you, but
    we did downsize the Government, but we didn't put those Federal
    employees in the street. We didn't cast them off and forget about them.
    We gave them early retirement. We helped them find other things to do.
    And we used the opportunity of the savings to do things like put 100,000
    more police back on your streets, to bring your deficit down. And we
    used ways to save money and increase the effectiveness of national
    defense, increase the effectiveness of our ability to respond to
    emergencies. We cut the budget of the Small Business Administration, for
    example, and doubled the loan volume. We did those kind of things, in
    large measure in 1993 and 1994, with the help and leadership of John
    Glenn. And he deserves a lot of credit for it.
        I also--a lot of Ohioans know that Senator Glenn is one of America's
    leaders on the problem of nuclear proliferation. That's a big old word,
    but I'll tell you what it means now. During this administration--and
    thanks in no small measure to the leadership of John Glenn--for the
    first time since the dawn of the nuclear age, on this night, this
    beautiful night, there is not a single nuclear missile pointed at a
    child in the United States of America. And we can be proud of that.
        I want to thank the CitiFest organization for helping this to become
    possible. I want to thank our Lucas County Democratic chair, Keith
    Wilkowski, for his work on this. And I want to mention two other folks,
    one, the gentleman to my right who is sitting over there with Chelsea.
    He's one of yours. His name is Robert Wyckoff. He was wounded fighting
    for your country in World War II, but he had never received, after all
    these years, the combat medals he earned, including a Bronze Star and a
    Purple Heart. Well, 50 years too late, on our train tonight, just before
    we got to Toledo, it was my great honor to pin on Robert Wyckoff the
    Bronze Star and the Purple Heart he earned for our country before. Would
    you stand up, sir? Let's give him a hand. [Applause] Thank you.
        There's another person I want to introduce tonight who is not here,
    and you'll understand in a minute. Marcy gave Chelsea the keys to the
    Jeep. [Laughter] One of the things I'm proudest of in America's economic
    recovery is that for the first time in 20 years, the United States is
    the auto capital of the world. We're producing more cars than the
    Japanese, and we're selling more around the world. And tonight, tonight
    in Chicago at our convention, an autoworker from Toledo named Todd
    Clancy is speaking on behalf of the working people of America. And I
    know you can be proud of him.
        We have had a wonderful time. We've been to West Virginia, Kentucky.
    We've been all over Ohio. We started this morning at the State police
    training academy in Columbus. We've been to Arlington. We had an
    unbelievable rally in Bowling Green. We are having a good time taking
    the train across America's heartland, a train that gives me a chance to
    thank you for giving me the chance to serve as your President, to say
    that I have worked for you, and to look in your eyes and tell you we've
    been up there for 4 years every day trying to help you go forward. And
    we'd like 4 more, because America is on the right track, the right
    track.
        Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
        The President. Thank you. Thank you so much. We're on the right
    track. And I'll tell you, I want you to watch our convention. We're
    going to have a good time. And I'm glad a few of our friends from the
    other party showed

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    up tonight with their signs. You're welcome here. We're glad to have you
    here.

    [At this point, there was a disturbance in the audience.]

        Audience members. Boo-o-o!
        The President. No, don't boo them. Don't boo them. Don't boo them.
    We're glad to have them here. But our convention is going to be a little
    different. We're not going to hide our leaders. We're going to parade
    them out on the stage and say we're proud of them. And I have read our
    platform. I'm proud of it, and we're all glad to run on it. We're not
    running away from it. And we don't need to avoid our record or distort
    it. We'll just run on our record and on our ideas for the future. We're
    proud of it. We're proud of it. We're proud of it.
        I want you to think about what has been going on for the last 4
    years. When I came to see you 4 years ago and I asked you to take a
    chance on me, I had never worked as an elected official in Washington,
    DC. I ran for President because I was worried about what was happening
    to my country, because we had high unemployment and stagnant wages,
    because we had a rising crime rate, a host of unsolved social
    challenges, a widening rift among our people, a growing sense of
    cynicism about the ability of political leaders to make a difference in
    ordinary people's lives. And I was sitting out there in my home State
    going to work every day as our State's Governor, and I didn't like it
    and I decided I'd try to make a difference. And I asked you to help me.
        And on June 2, 1992, the votes of Ohio gave me a majority of the
    delegates I needed to be nominated. In July of 1992, at the national
    convention, the delegation from Ohio cast the votes that put me over the
    top. And as John Glenn said, in November of 1992, when they called Ohio
    for Bill Clinton and Al Gore, the commentator said, ``As Ohio goes, so
    goes the Nation. They will win the election.''
        And so tonight, my friends, I come to you to make a report, to say
    we are on the right track, but we have more to do; to ask you to join
    with me for the next 70 days to tell your friends and neighbors, whether
    they're Democrats, Republicans, or independents, about what has happened
    in America these last 4 years, what the choice is in this election, and
    what we still have to do.
        Look at the record. Look at the economy. You heard Senator Glenn say
    that we brought the deficit down in all 4 years of this administration
    for the first time since before the Civil War. That's the last time that
    happened, in the 1840's. I'm proud that our Democrats did that. I wish
    we had had some help from the folks in the other party, but I'm glad we
    did it anyway. I'm glad we did it. We paid a price for it, but I'm glad
    we did it.
        Do you know that we would have a surplus in Washington today in your
    budget--a surplus--were it not for the interest run up when we
    quadrupled the national debt in the 12 years before I took office. If we
    didn't have to pay interest on the debt in the 12 years before I took
    office, we'd have a surplus in that budget today. We've got to keep on
    going until we balance it, to keep the interest rates down and the jobs
    coming back to America. That's what we need.
        But we have to balance that budget in the right way. Last year, I
    presented a balanced budget. The congressional leaders presented their
    balanced budget. They passed theirs and didn't want to talk about mine.
    And I vetoed it because it had cuts that were too big in education and
    the environment, in Medicare and in the Medicaid guarantees for our
    people. I vetoed it because it raised taxes on the poorest working
    people in America. I vetoed it because it allowed workers' pensions to
    be raided by corporations, and we spent the whole last several years
    trying to secure workers' pensions. So yes, I did. But I'm still for
    balancing the budget. We have cut the deficit 60 percent, and we're
    still going to do it. But we're going to do it in the right way. They
    can shut the Government down if they want to. I will not be blackmailed,
    not ever. We're going to do it in the right way.
        Let's look at education. Today, there are more children in Head
    Start. Our schools have funds to promote safe and drug-free schools that
    they didn't have before. They have funds that help them to stay open in
    after hours--we need a doctor here. We got one. Thanks. They have funds
    to stay open after hours when these kids often need someplace to go so
    they don't get in trouble. There are literally hundreds of thousands of
    young people who now have lower cost college loans because of the
    initiatives we have. And the AmeriCorps program has given young people a
    chance to serve in their community and earn money for college. Those are
    things

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    we did, and we're proud of it. We're proud of it.
        But, my friends, we must do more. We ought to put a million children
    in Head Start. We ought to hook up every classroom in America not only
    with computers and qualified teachers but hook them all up to the
    information superhighway so every child has access to the best
    education. And we need to make the first 2 years of education after high
    school as universal in the next 4 years as a high school education is
    today. If you vote for me, that's just what we're going to do.
        I want to give a tax credit worth $1,500 to every family so you can
    go to a community college. And every single American will know, at the
    very least, we can all get a community college education. Whatever our
    age, whatever our station in life, we can all get it. I want to give
    every working family in this country a tax deduction worth $10,000 a
    year for the cost of college tuition for the kids or the parents to
    educate our people. That's what we still have to do.
        Look where we are with health care. We've worked hard to get the
    inflation rate down in health care. For the first time in 30 years this
    year, it's running below the overall inflation rate in the economy. And
    right before I left to come on this trip, I signed the Kennedy-Kassebaum
    health care bill which says to 25 million Americans--25 million
    Americans--no longer can you lose your health insurance because you
    changed jobs, and you can't be denied because somebody in your family
    got sick. It is a good bill. It is a good bill.
        But we need to do more. In our budget we also say--and you know here
    in Toledo from your lean years, there are a lot of good people who
    sometimes have to be unemployed for longer than they'd like until they
    get another job. We think we ought to help the unemployed to keep their
    health insurance for at least 6 months, and their kids. We believe older
    women ought to be able to get mammographies. We believe people who are
    caring for their parents because they've got Alzheimer's disease ought
    to be able to get a little help with respite care to keep the families
    together and keep going. We like that. We believe in that. And we can
    afford that.
        If you look at where we've come in crime, for 4 years in a row now
    in the United States, the crime rate, including the violent crime rate,
    has dropped. I am very, very proud of that, and I know you are, too. But
    you also know that the crime rate is still too high and we have to do
    more. We're about halfway home in putting those 100,000 police on the
    street. We have to finish the job. That's a big difference between the
    two parties, I guess, philosophical difference. They voted against the
    100,000 police, and they've tried to do away with it a couple of times.
    And I've said no every time because I know that if you've got those
    police on the street they're not only going to catch criminals, they're
    going to prevent crime, they're going to get to know the kids, they're
    going to get to know people that can help to work with the children and
    say, ``Don't commit that crime in the first place.'' Let's finish the
    job with 100,000 police in the next 4 years.
        Let's finish the job with the Brady bill. It's kept 60,000 felons
    and fugitives from getting handguns. And not a single Ohio hunter has
    lost their weapon. But you know what? We ought to finish the job of
    protecting our police officers and people at home. I believe that if
    someone has committed a crime of domestic violence against a member of
    his or her family, they ought to be covered by the Brady bill, too. They
    shouldn't have a weapon they can kill somebody with. And I think we
    ought to ban those cop-killer bullets. They don't do any good on the
    hunting trail, but they do a lot of harm in America.
        If you look at where we are on welfare reform, I've worked hard for
    4 years to move people from welfare to work. Seventy-five percent of the
    people in this country were under welfare-to-work experiments before
    Congress passed the welfare bill I signed, and we reduced the welfare
    rolls by 1.5 million people. We can be proud of that. But now--now that
    we have a new law that says that you're on welfare and you're able-
    bodied, we'll give your children health care, we'll give you child care,
    we'll protect your food stamps, but you've got to go to work if you
    can--we've got to create work so people have the jobs they need.
        We've worked hard to protect the environment. We've cleaned up more
    toxic waste dumps in 3 years than they did in 12, and I'm proud of that.
    Fifty million Americans are breathing cleaner air, and I'm proud of
    that. The meat standards are higher, the protection against pesticide
    poisoning is better, and I'm

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    proud of that. But we have to do more. We ought to clean up two-thirds
    of the waste dumps in this country and keep on proving you can grow the
    American economy and protect the environment for our children. We know
    we can do that.
        Most important of all, my fellow Americans, I have tried as hard as
    I know how to say that we're going to get into the 21st century with the
    American dream alive for everybody who's responsible enough to work for
    it. We're going to get into the 21st century with America leading the
    world for peace and freedom and prosperity if--but only if--we make up
    our mind we have to go into that future together, as one community. I
    don't like the fact that people are too often divided here by race, by
    religion, and by all kinds of other categories just to try to put
    somebody down so somebody else can be lifted up. That's not the America
    I want to live in.
        Look at what I dealt with as your President, trying to make peace in
    the rest of the world. Look at the Middle East. Look at Bosnia. Look at
    Northern Ireland. Look at the problems in Rwanda and Burundi in Africa.
    You'd think in those poor countries, where people don't have enough to
    get along, they'd want to roll up their sleeves, work together, and try
    to help lift each other up. But place after place after place, people
    define themselves by being able to look down on their neighbors, and
    it's wrong. But we've got to fight it in America. That's why we've got
    to stand against those church burnings in the South. That's why if a
    synagogue is marked up or an Islamic center is defaced, we've got to
    stand against that, too. In my America, you can be whatever you want to
    be. As long as you believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the
    Declaration of Independence and you're willing to show up, pay your
    taxes, work hard, and obey the law, you're a part of my America and
    we're going into the future together. That's what I believe.
        And so we're on the right track to Chicago and to the 21st century.
    The best days of this country are still before us. Our children will do
    things we haven't even imagined yet. These children in this crowd
    tonight will have lots of jobs that haven't been invented yet if we do
    what we know is right, to create more opportunity for all Americans, to
    get more responsibility from all Americans, and to go forward and grow
    forward as one American community. That will take America into the 21st
    century. That will keep Toledo growing and going. That will make us
    very, very strong and keep us the hope of the world. That is the
    commitment I want from you. Will you help me for the next 70 days?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. Will you be there on election day?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. We passed the Family and Medical Leave Act--I love
    all these signs--we passed the Family and Medical Leave Act to help our
    families. Twelve million American families got to take some time off
    without losing their jobs when a baby was born. Will you help us keep it
    and expand it? Will you stand for things like that? [Applause]
        And in the next 4 years, are you willing to stand up and keep
    helping us try to move this country forward, not only by passing laws in
    Washington but by lifting people up in Toledo? Do you believe that we
    have to take responsibility for our children? And do you believe that if
    you're a parent you need to raise your kids and take responsibility, but
    you need help from the local teachers, from the local churches and
    synagogues, from the people who run the police departments and the
    people who look after the hospitals and the people who look after the
    health of your food? I guess what I'm trying to tell you folks is, I
    think my wife was right, not them: It does take a village to raise a
    child.
        If you believe all that--if you believe all that, you're part of the
    new Democratic Party. And we're going together into the 21st century
    because we're on the right track, the country is on the right track, and
    we're going to take the right track all the way into the best days
    America has ever, ever, ever known.
        Thank you, and God bless you. Thank you.

    [After a pause, the President spoke by satellite to the Democratic
    National Convention in Chicago, IL.]

        The President. Folks--hello, Chicago! Can you hear us? This is
    Toledo, and we say hello and thank you. Thank you. Thank you all.
        Well, folks, I just want to say to our delegates in Chicago, if they
    can hear me--Josh, can they hear me in Chicago? I want to say to the
    folks in Chicago, Chelsea and I are proud to be here with Senator Glenn
    and Congresswoman Kaptur and Mayor Finkbeiner in Toledo.

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        We're proud we're bringing the 21st Century Express to Chicago
    because America's back on track, and we're on the right track for the
    21st century. We're coming right at you. And we want you to know that
    those of us who are here in Toledo tonight are proud of you in Chicago.
        Thank you, Christopher Reeve; thank you, Sarah and Jim Brady; thank
    you, all who spoke. Thank you for loving America. Stay with us, and
    we'll be there.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:46 p.m. at Promenade Park. In his
    remarks, he referred to Mayor Carty Finkbeiner of Toledo; Joshua A.
    King, Director of Production, White House Office of the Press Secretary;
    actor Christopher Reeve; and Sarah Brady, head of Hand Gun Control,
    Inc., wife of former White House Press Secretary James S. Brady.