    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [September 2, 1996]
    [Pages 1459-1463]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Labor Day Picnic in De Pere, Wisconsin
    September 2, 1996

        The President. Thank you. Happy Labor Day! Thank you for coming out.
    I must say when I left home this morning in Arkansas to fly up here, I
    knew that the people of De Pere and the whole Green Bay area would be in
    an awful good humor after the Packers did so well yesterday. But I never
    had any idea so many of you would come up to tell me how happy you are.
    I'm glad to see you. Thank you for this great crowd, for your spirit,
    for your love for our country, for the signs you've had here.
        I want to thank the De Pere Band over here. Thank you for coming out
    to play for us on Labor Day, wearing those hot uniforms, when they could
    be in shorts drinking lemonade. Give them a hand. [Applause]
        Thank you, Senator Feingold, thank you for your leadership for
    Wisconsin and for the United States. Thank you for your long labor for
    real, meaningful campaign finance reform. We will get it next time--we
    will. And we will get it in a bipartisan fashion that will be good for
    America.
        I want to thank all those who are here--Mayor Walsh, thank you for
    welcoming me here. The people who are on the preprogram; the attorney
    general, Jim Doyle; Dr. Margaret Hutchinson; John Benson; Father
    Cornell--to all of you, thank you very much. Thank you, Alethia. Didn't
    she make a good talk, and isn't she a good representative of the young
    people of this country?
        Let me also say that Senator Feingold mentioned your former Senator
    Gaylord Nelson, also a great friend of mine. It was my great honor to
    present him with the Nation's highest citizen's award, the Presidential
    Medal of Freedom. Every person from Wisconsin should be very proud of
    the work Gaylord Nelson has spent since he left the Senate to save the
    environment for future generations.

    [[Page 1460]]

        My fellow Americans, this is Labor Day. We celebrate labor, and we
    honor labor. We honor the men and women who have built every bridge in
    our country's history, because you will have to help us build that
    bridge to the 21st century.
        You may have noticed that in the last several days, often with my
    wife and daughter and sometimes with the Vice President and Mrs. Gore,
    I've been on a train and I've been on a bus to tell the American people
    we're on the right track and the right road to the 21st century, and we
    shouldn't change now, we should keep right on going in the right
    direction and build on it.
        I wanted to take that train trip and that bus trip because I get to
    see more people like you. I get to hear the stories that make America
    live. I get to see the decisions in human terms that we have to make
    every day. As I said last Thursday in Chicago, fundamentally this year
    we face a choice between building a bridge to the future and building a
    bridge to the past, between whether we're going forward together as one
    nation arm in arm, or whether we're going to be told, you're on your
    own.
        Just since I have been here today in Wisconsin, I had one person
    come up to me and said, ``I'm so glad that I live in a country where
    we're all helping each other to make the most of our lives. I had a
    terrible accident in my family; I have someone in my family with a
    disability. Now I know that the only way we can maintain our lifestyle
    and our work is to have the kind of help that makes this the great
    country it is.'' And we're working hard to build strong families and to
    be productive.
        I had another young man come up to me and say, ``Five years ago I
    was homeless. I just finished my third year of college. I'm so glad that
    you believe in college loans and you stopped them from cutting it back
    last year.'' That's the kind of America I'm proud to live in.
        My fellow Americans, 4 years ago when the people of Wisconsin gave
    Bill Clinton and Al Gore a chance to lead the country, we had a simple
    message. We want America to go into the 21st century with the American
    dream alive for everyone responsible enough to work for it; with our
    great American community growing together, not drifting apart; with our
    Nation still the strongest force for peace and freedom and prosperity in
    the world. We have a simple but profound strategy: more opportunity for
    all, more responsibility from all, and a place at the table for all
    people who deserve to be there because they believe in our values and
    they're willing to work for them.
        Now, just think where we are today compared to 4 years ago: 10
    million more jobs; 4\1/2\ million new homeowners; 10 million homeowners
    who refinanced their mortgage at lower interest rates; record numbers of
    new businesses and exports; the lowest combined rates of unemployment,
    inflation, and home mortgages in 28 years. We're better off than we were
    4 years ago.
        Fifteen million of our hardest pressed working families have
    received a tax cut, and every single small-business person in the
    country has been eligible for a tax cut when they invest more money in
    the business to become more productive or hire more workers. Twelve
    million families have taken advantage of the family leave law when a
    baby's born or a parent's sick without losing their jobs, and our
    economy is stronger for it.
        Forty million Americans had their pensions secured after the
    terrible days of insecurity of the 1980's, when people were losing their
    pensions. We changed the law, and we have cracked down on deficient
    pension funds because we think on Labor Day if people work their whole
    lives and pay into their pension funds they ought to know it's going to
    be there for them when that retirement period comes.
        Fifty million Americans are breathing cleaner air, and we have
    cleaned up more toxic waste dumps in 3 years than the previous two
    administrations did in 12. This country is moving in the right
    direction.
        The crime rate has come down 4 years in a row; 1.8 million fewer
    people are on welfare; child support collections are up 40 percent; the
    deficit has been cut by 60 percent. It's the first time since before the
    Civil War that an administration has brought the Federal deficit down in
    every one of its 4 years in office. That's something you can all be
    proud of.
        Senator Feingold has worked hard for a balanced budget. What I want
    you to know when you think about all the proposals you will hear in the
    next 60 days about where to go from here is this: Our budget would have
    been balanced last year and would have a surplus this year except for
    the interest we have to pay on the debt run up in the 12 years before I
    took the oath of office. Let's don't make that mistake

    [[Page 1461]]

    again. Let's keep going and finish the job. We can finish the job in 4
    more years. Will you help me build that kind of bridge to the future?
        Audience members. Yes! Four more years! Four more years! Four more
    years!
        The President. Just a few days ago I signed legislation that is pro-
    work, pro-business, and pro-family. It's an example of America at its
    best. We raised the minimum wage for 10 million hard-working Americans,
    starting October 1st. We made it easier for small businesses, which
    create most of the jobs in this country, to take out pensions for the
    owners and the employees, and for those employees to keep those pensions
    when they move from job to job. It ought to be easier for people in
    small businesses to have a decent retirement as well. And we adopted a
    $5,000 tax credit for families who adopt children. There are a lot of
    children out there who need a good home today. I hope this helps more of
    them find it.
        We made 25 million Americans eligible to keep their health
    insurance, even if somebody in the family has been sick, and even when
    they move from job to job, under the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill. We've been
    fighting for that for a long time and it's high time, and there are
    people in this audience today whose lives will be saved because of it
    because they won't lose their health insurance now if someone in their
    family gets sick or they have to change jobs.
        So I say to you we are moving on the right track, but there is more
    to do. We have to build a bridge to the 21st century that enables every
    person in this country, every family, every community to make the most
    of their God-given potential. We have to build that bridge to the future
    strong and wide enough for all of us to walk across.
        Let me tell you some of the things I hope you'll think about on this
    Labor Day as we honor work and family. I want to build a bridge to the
    21st century in which we amend the family and medical leave law to say
    that you can not only take a little time off when a baby is born or in
    an emergency but also to take your child to those parent-teacher
    conferences at school and to regular doctor's appointments.
        I want to build a bridge to the 21st century in which we have the
    crime rate going down for 4 more years in a row in the hope that it will
    finally be down where it ought to be in America. And to do that, we have
    to finish the work of putting 100,000 police on the street. We have to
    do a better job of protecting our police officers by banning those cop-
    killer bullets, which are not necessary to hunt in Wisconsin or Arkansas
    or anywhere else.
        And I believe very strongly that the Brady bill has been a good
    thing for America. You know, when I signed it and I pushed it so hard
    and the leaders of the other party led the fight against it, they got a
    lot of votes in 1994. It may be why they won the Congress, banning
    assault weapons and the Brady bill, because they convinced a lot of
    rural people in Wisconsin and Michigan, my home State of Arkansas, up in
    New England, all over the country that somehow the Democrats were coming
    to get their guns.
        Well, let me tell you something, folks, it's been 2 years now and
    people know the truth. Not a single, solitary hunter has lost a rifle.
    But 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers did not get handguns because
    of the Brady bill. It was the right thing to do, and we're a safer
    country for it. And I personally don't believe that people who commit
    acts of domestic violence against their spouse or their children should
    be able to get guns either. That is a dangerous thing. We should not do
    that.
        We ought to build a bridge to the 21st century that continues to
    prove we can grow the economy and clean up the environment. Ten million
    American children still live within 4 miles of a toxic dump. If you will
    give us 4 more years, we will speed up the pace of toxic cleanups, even
    though we've done more in 3 years than the previous administrations did
    in 12. We'll clean up the two-thirds worst dumps in this country. We
    want our children to grow up next to parks, not poisons. Will you help
    us build that kind of bridge to the 21st century?
        Now that we have passed the health care protection bill, we ought to
    recognize that a lot of families need some help when they're between
    jobs. In my balanced budget plan, there is a provision to help people
    pay for and keep their health insurance when they and their families are
    between jobs. It's a good thing. Will you help us build that bridge to
    the 21st century? [Applause]
        And let me just mention two more things. This is Labor Day. We can
    be grateful that we have over 10 million more jobs. But we know we have
    to keep this recovery going. That means we have to continue to balance
    the budg-

    [[Page 1462]]

    et, but to do it in a way that grows the economy and keeps us together.
    We can balance the budget without wrecking Medicare, turning our backs
    on the medical commitments of Medicaid, which includes families with
    disabilities, little babies that are poor, pregnant women, and the
    elderly in nursing homes. We can balance the budget and increase our
    commitment to education and to research and to the environment, not walk
    away from it. Will you help us balance the budget in that way?
    [Applause]
        And then you have, as Senator Feingold said, the great tax debate.
    We can have a tax cut that will be good for the economy. I believe the
    tax cut we had in 1993 for the 15 million hardest pressed workers, for
    people who invest in new businesses to try to create them, for small
    businesses to invest more in their business, I think those things were
    good. Our tax cut plan is fully paid for, line by line, dime by dime. It
    supports education, health care, homebuying--and that's what it
    supports--and childrearing. If we can invest money to help people
    educate their children, care for their children, buy and sell their
    home, and put into an IRA and let people take out without penalty for
    education, for health care, for homebuying, that's good for America.
    Those tax cuts will be repaid to us many times over. But we have to do
    it while we balance the budget.
        Now, let me say this: The other guys will say, ``We ought to have
    one that's 5 times as big. We'll give you more money. Vote for us. Why
    do you care about the deficit?'' You know, in Washington we have all
    these political consultants. And if you listen to them, they say,
    ``Don't ever go out to a Labor Day crowd of middle class people and talk
    about the deficit. Nobody cares about that.'' Let me tell you why you
    should care about it. Let me tell you why you should care about it.
        They say, ``We'll give you a tax cut 5 times as big.'' You remember
    that budget I vetoed last year because it had excessive cuts in
    Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment, it allowed a raid on
    workers' pension fund--$15 billion--it raised taxes on the lowest income
    working people. If you thought that one was bad, you wait till you see
    what you get with this tax plan that our opposition has proposed. And
    even when they get through trying to cut things even more than they did
    in the budget I vetoed, the deficit will still explode.
        Why should you care? Because if the Government goes in and borrows
    money at the same time you're trying to, what will happen? Interest
    rates will go up. Our friends in the Republican Congress said last
    year--this is not me talking, this is them talking just last year--they
    say if we don't have a balanced budget plan, interest rates will be 2
    percent higher. What does that mean for you? A higher home mortgage
    payment, a higher car payment, a higher credit card payment. Even more
    important, what does it mean? All the small-business people in this
    audience, it means higher interest rates for them. It means fewer people
    borrowing money to invest to create more jobs, to be more productive, to
    raise incomes. Folks, we tried this once before. Would you go to the
    bank yourself and borrow money to give yourself a tax cut?
        Audience members. No-o-o!
        The President. Then why would you hire someone to do it for you?
    Let's keep going in the right direction. Let's balance the budget, keep
    interest rates down, keep the economy growing and going forward. We can
    do it. We can do it.
        The last and most important thing is, we have to recognize that the
    world of the 21st century will be the age of greatest possibility in
    human history, but that there is a greater challenge than ever before to
    make sure every person in America can participate in that. And that
    means we have to provide every single solitary American--and not just
    our children, our adults as well--with whatever educational needs they
    have for a lifetime. Excellent education by worldwide standards for a
    lifetime, not just for childhood.
        In the last 4 years we have done a lot to invest more in education,
    from expanding Head Start to giving schools the power to try grassroots
    reforms, to staying open late after school in a lot of high-crime and
    other tough areas to give our young people something to say yes to
    instead of something to say no to. We have expanded scholarships through
    the Pell grant program. We have got a lower cost college loan program
    that a huge number of young people are taking advantage of today so they
    can take loans and pay them back as a percentage of their income. We're
    going in the right direction, but we have to do more.
        And let me just say this: I want to build a bridge to the 21st
    century that has a lot of educational advances, but let me just mention

    [[Page 1463]]

    three. Number one, every 8-year-old in America ought to be able to read
    on his or her own by the year 2000, every single one. No one should be
    left behind, no one.
        I want to mobilize 30,000 mentors, our AmeriCorps volunteers who are
    working their way through college by doing community service, and a
    volunteer army of a million people to make sure that every single third
    grader in America can say, ``I read it myself.'' That will guarantee
    that the rest of their academic careers and their adult lives will be
    filled with productive learning and enable every person to have a chance
    to participate in the bounty of 21st century America. Will you help me
    build that bridge?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. Number two, I want to make sure we connect every
    classroom and library in every school in America to the information
    superhighway by the year 2000 so that for the first time in American
    history, for the very first time in American history, we can say with
    confidence, the children in the most remote rural schoolhouses, children
    in the poorest inner-city schools for the first time not only have
    computers and trained teachers, but have access to the finest learning
    in the same timeframe in the same way as the students in the wealthiest,
    most successful schools in America. We can do it. Will you help us build
    that bridge to the 21st century?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. And finally, I want to make sure that we make a
    college education available to every single solitary person in this
    country who is willing to work for it. I want the first 2 years of
    education after high school, at least a community college degree, to
    become as universal in 4 years as a high school diploma is today. Now,
    that's a tax cut worth fighting for, a tax credit for the cost of
    community college tuition in every State in the country. Will you help
    me do that?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. I want college tuition to be tax deductible up to
    $10,000 a year. I want to give unemployed and underemployed workers
    access to a skill grant worth up to $2600 a year, so that if you lose
    your job, you're changing jobs, and you need more education, you can get
    the grant, you can take it to the nearest community college or training
    facility so that even if you're 45 or 55 or 60, if you need more skills
    to support your family and improve your lot in life. Instead of being
    left behind in the race to the 21st century, we will take you along the
    way. Will you help me build that kind of bridge?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. My fellow Americans, in 4 years we can have a country
    where every 8-year-old can read, every 12-year-old can log in on the
    Internet, every 18-year-old can go to college, and every American can
    have the knowledge that he or she needs to succeed in the 21st century.
    That is a bridge worth fighting for.
        Now, as you look around at this vast sea of people here today, you
    don't know the life story of everybody who is here. There are a lot of
    people here who don't agree with each other about a lot of things. I saw
    one brave soul--thank you, ma'am--has a ``Republicans for Clinton''
    sign. God bless you. I wish I could sign that for you. Give her a hand.
    [Applause] Let me remind you that this country is not around here after
    220 years because we permitted ourselves to be divided by the wrong
    things. It's because we were always united by the right things.
        You have to continue to fight for a country that believes that,
    without regard to race or religion or income or status in life, if you
    believe in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill
    of Rights, and you're willing to show up tomorrow to do your best and
    play by the rules, you're part of our America. And we're going forward
    into the future, and you're going on that bridge with us. It's going to
    be wide enough for every single solitary one of us to walk across. Will
    you help us build that kind of bridge?
        Audience members. Yes!
        The President. Thank you. God bless you. Stay with us. We've got a
    great future. Thank you. Happy Labor Day!

    Note: The President spoke at 12:35 p.m. at Voyageur Park. In his
    remarks, he referred to Mayor Michael Walsh of De Pere; Margaret
    Hutchinson, former principal, Aldo Leopold Alternative School; John
    Benson, Wisconsin superintendent of public instruction; Robert Cornell,
    former State senator; and Alethia Anderson, student, Green Bay East High
    School.