    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [August 25, 1996]
    [Pages 1336-1339]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1336]]

    Remarks on Beginning a Whistlestop Tour in Huntington, West Virginia
    August 25, 1996

        The President. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen--[applause]--thank
    you. Ladies and gentlemen, 36 years ago, when President Kennedy came
    here, he said, ``The Sun doesn't always shine in West Virginia, but the
    people do.'' Today we have the Sun and the people. [Applause] Thank you
    very much. Thank you.
        Thank you for making Hillary and Chelsea and me feel so welcome.
    Thank you, Governor Caperton, for being my friend and supporter and for
    the fine job you have done. Governor Caperton did a lot to put West
    Virginia on the national map by putting computers in the schools of your
    children. If you reelect Al Gore and Bill Clinton, in the next 4 years
    we'll hook every one of those classrooms in America and in West Virginia
    up to the information superhighway, so that all of our children will
    have world-class education.
        Thank you, Charlotte Pritt, for flying down with me and for running
    for Governor of West Virginia. Thank you for sharing your plans to
    develop the economy on the way down here. They are consistent with my
    own, and they depend upon initiatives like the one that Marilyn just
    talked about. I want you in the governorship, and we'll work together to
    get West Virginia's unemployment rate down to and below the national
    average. And we shouldn't be satisfied until we get there.
        Thank you, Congressman Wise, for all that you do in Congress and for
    heading the Democratic Policy Group and putting our party in Congress
    squarely on the side of raising the minimum wage, increasing educational
    opportunity, increasing access to health care, and growing the economy
    for 4 more years. And thank you, Nick Rahall, your Congressman, for all
    the work he has done to build the infrastructure of our country and this
    State. You know, if you put the Democrats in the majority in Congress
    again, Nick Rahall will be chairman of that committee again and can do
    more good for you.
        Thank you, Jay Rockefeller, for standing up for children and for
    health care and for the ordinary citizens of the United States and your
    beloved West Virginia. I thank you and Sharon for being such good
    friends to Hillary and to me. Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know
    that when we signed that Kennedy-Kassebaum bill this week, which said to
    25 million Americans, you can't be cut off your health insurance if
    somebody in your family gets sick, and you can't lose it if you change
    jobs--in addition to the sponsors of that bill, the people who were most
    responsible for bringing it up and hammering it home to the public
    consciousness were Jay Rockefeller and the First Lady of the United
    States, because they fought for health care before it was popular.
        And I want to thank both your Congressman and your Senator and two
    of our guests who are out here, Senator Wendell Ford and Congressman
    Mike Ward from Kentucky, who are here with the Governor of Kentucky,
    Paul Patton, and the former first lady, Phyllis George Brown. We thank
    you all for coming, because when our friends in the opposition tried to
    pass a budget that would have given us a two-tiered system of Medicare,
    one for the wealthy and one for the poor; that would have turned away
    from our historic commitment to health care for families with people
    with disabilities, for the elderly in nursing homes, for the poorest
    children in our country; that would have cut our investment in education
    when we need to spend more and cut our investment in protecting the
    environment when we need to invest more, and I vetoed it, they upheld my
    veto. If it hadn't been for them, none of this would have happened. They
    stood up, they were counted, and they said no.
        Let me thank all the other officials who are here. Thank you, Mayor
    Jean Dean. I thank all the State officials who are here, your treasurer;
    your secretary of state; your attorney general; your agriculture
    commissioner; your auditor; the president of the senate, Senator Tomlin;
    your party chair, Chuck Chambers; and former Governor Smith. I thank all
    of you for coming here. I thank President Cecil Roberts of the UMW for
    being here. I thank President Wade Gilley of Marshall University. And
    thank you, Marshall Thundering Herd Band. You were great today. And
    thanks for being so good to Hillary.

    [[Page 1337]]

        If you would, I'd like you to indulge me one personal moment, too. I
    want to say a special word of thanks to the State of West Virginia for
    the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Treasury, Sylvia Matthews,
    from Hinton, West Virginia, who is here with me today, one of the
    brightest and best people in our administration. And I would like to say
    a special word of gratitude to one woman who is here, Emma Williams. She
    is the mother of Bill Morton, who was the special assistant to Secretary
    Ron Brown. And Bill was killed on that plane with Ron, serving our
    country, helping to grow our economy, standing up for America, and I'll
    always remember and love him for it. Thank you, Emma Williams, for being
    here today.
        And finally, thank you, Marilyn Milne. Your story, your spirit, that
    is what we have been fighting for for the last 4 years, more stories
    like this, people who are down but not out, people who give other people
    a chance to make something of their lives. And that's what our
    enterprise community initiative did, working with your mayor here,
    working with your city council, working with the local business people
    when you lost that factory. That is the kind of initiative we need to
    move this country forward. We've got to turn our country around
    economically, person by person, family by family, town by town. That is
    what I have tried to do to let enterprise take root in every community
    in America, every one. More Marilyn Milnes, that's what this election is
    all about.
        My fellow Americans, 4 years ago I came to you in West Virginia and
    told you that West Virginia was a lot like my home State of Arkansas. I
    told you that I believed we were on the verge of the greatest age of
    possibility in American history, where more of our people would have
    more chances to live their dreams than ever before but only, only if we
    found a way to meet the challenges of the 21st century and preserve our
    timeless values.
        It was a hard message to deliver then. We had high unemployment,
    stagnant job growth, wages were leveled or going down for many people,
    the crime rate was going up. We had a host of social problems that were
    unaddressed. Our country seemed to be more divided by harsh political
    rhetoric and just sort of drifting into the future. But I knew that we
    could turn this around.
        And I come here to say to you, I'm on my way to Chicago. And I'm
    going on a train because I want to see the people like you that I've
    been working for and fighting for for 4 years and because I want America
    to see people like Marilyn Milne who are the product of our efforts for
    the last 4 years and because I want America to know we are on the right
    track in this country and we're going forward, we're not turning back.
        There are a lot of people in West Virginia who embody the America I
    want to see: Dorothy Slack, 82 years old, who's given 1,300 hours to the
    Ronald McDonald House; Richard Lowe, who threw the javelin in the
    Special Olympics; Ocie Lockhart, of only one of 716 athletes of the
    United States to go to the 1997 Special Olympics in Canada; all the
    people of Marshall University who bring health care and preventive care
    to isolated towns and villages of this region. It does take a village to
    raise a child, help a family, build a community, and lift the country,
    and you're doing it in West Virginia.
        In the year 2000, when we stand at the dawn of a new century, my
    vision today is what it was 4 years ago: I want the American dream of
    opportunity for all alive for everybody who's responsible enough to work
    for it. I want this country coming together, not drifting apart. Our
    diversity is a strength, not a weakness. We ought to walk arm in arm,
    hand in hand, into the future together.
        And I am determined that we will still be the strongest force for
    peace and freedom and prosperity in the world. This is still a dangerous
    world, still a world with untapped opportunities, and America needs to
    lead the way into the new future we want for the world we want our
    children to live in.
        Now, folks, you've heard a lot of this, but I just want you to
    remember it. I want to tell you very briefly what we've done, remind you
    very briefly of what we wouldn't let be done, and talk just a little bit
    about what we're going to do for the next 4 years. That's mostly what I
    want to do in Chicago. But I want you to be the vote and the voice and
    the steps of our moving America forward. Just think of this--you heard
    about the 10 million new jobs; that's a lot of people. The 10 million
    new jobs came because, first, we decided we would cut the deficit in
    half to get interest rates down so people could invest in America again
    and afford to borrow money for businesses and homes. That's what we had
    to do.

    [[Page 1338]]

        This is the first time that the deficit has gone down all 4 years in
    a President's term since the 1840's, before the Civil War. Ask our
    friends what they say about that. And my opponent and the Speaker of the
    House led the fight against that move. They said it would wreck the
    economy and increase the deficit. Well, it produced 10 million jobs and
    it gave 15 million families a tax cut and it was the right thing to do.
    It is moving us forward. There are almost 4\1/2\ million new homeowners,
    and 10 million Americans have refinanced their home mortgages at lower
    interest rates because we got those interest rates down. We did the
    right thing, and they were wrong to oppose it.
        Because of the health care bill, 25 million Americans have access to
    health care. Because of the minimum wage bill, 10 million Americans have
    a rising wage. Another thing in the minimum wage was that it made 90
    percent of the small businesses in this country eligible for a tax cut
    if they invest more in their businesses, and it made it easier for
    people like Marilyn to get pensions for herself and her employees, and
    that's very important, too. Twelve million Americans, working Americans,
    have been able to take a little time off from work without losing their
    jobs when there's a baby born or a parent sick because of the Family and
    Medical Leave Act. Our opponents led the fight against it. They were
    wrong. We were right. It's good for America.
        The crime rate has come down for 4 years in a row. We are midway
    through putting those 100,000 police on the street. There are 200 more
    in West Virginia alone. We have to finish the job. Our opponents last
    year tried to take back that commitment to 100,000 police. They're
    trying to restrict it today. I said no. Your Congressman said no. We
    want people safe on our streets, and we know the policemen will do the
    job. Help us keep that commitment to America; help us stay after it.
        We have supported policies that made the air cleaner for 50 million
    Americans. We cleaned up more toxic waste dumps in 3 years than they did
    in 12. We defended our country's national parks. We are moving this
    country in the right direction. We expanded the college loan program so
    all these students at Marshall and other places could have access to
    lower cost loans with better repayment terms. And we created a national
    service program so children could earn their way through college by
    doing community service. We're moving in the right direction. We're on
    that right track.
        And unemployment in West Virginia is 4 points lower than it was 4
    years ago. If we keep going at one point a year, it will be 4 percent by
    the year 2000. I'd like to do it, if you'll help me. Let's just keep
    going. I want you to remember that. When people say, ``Why should we
    support Bill Clinton and Al Gore,'' tell them what I told you and ask
    them what their answer is and ask them why they fought it. And I want
    you to remember that in the pivotal moment of 1995, when they said to
    Bill Clinton and Al Gore and Jay Rockefeller and Robert Byrd and Bob
    Wise and Nick Rahall, ``If you don't take our budget, if you don't walk
    away from the commitment of health care to the elderly in nursing homes,
    to families with people with disabilities in them, to the poorest
    children in this country, if you don't walk away from the commitment to
    invest in the environment and the education of our children and our
    future, we're going to shut the Government down,'' we said, ``Have at
    it. We don't stand for blackmail; we stand up for America.''
        Now, the most important thing is, shall we keep going on the right
    track or turn around? Would you take a U-turn if you were going in the
    right direction?
        Audience members. No-o-o!
        The President. In the next 4 years, we've got to build on the health
    care work. We have to make it possible for people who are unemployed to
    keep their health insurance for at least 6 months when they're
    unemployed. Their families shouldn't be put on the street without a
    doctor just because people lose their jobs.
        We have to make the next 2 years of education, the first 2 years of
    college, just as universal in the next 4 years as a high school
    education is today, with a tax credit for those 2 years and a tax
    deduction for all college tuition up to $10,000 a year.
        And we ought to have the right kind of tax cut. The right kind of
    tax cut is one that's targeted to people who need it, focused on
    building strong families and educating people so that they'll be more
    productive, they'll grow the economy, they'll be stronger, and is paid
    for in a balanced budget. That's what our tax cut does. Give people tax
    breaks to go to college, give people tax reductions if they have young
    children, give people an expanded IRA that they can withdraw from for a
    first time or health

    [[Page 1339]]

    care or education needs, but don't give people a big tax cut that costs
    over $500 billion that will blow a big hole in the deficit, raise
    interest rates, raise your mortgage rates, your credit card payments,
    your car payments, and require even worse cuts than the ones we vetoed
    last year. That's the wrong way. No U-turn. Stay on the right track. Go
    forward into the future. That's the right way.
        I have said a thousand times, but I'll say one more time, I know we
    still have problems. There are still too many people who want work who
    don't have it. We've got to give all those people that we're saying--on
    welfare--there's no more guaranteed check anymore--we've got to make a
    lot more Marilyn Milnes because they're entitled to work if we're going
    to cut them off a check for their kids. We've got to give them the jobs.
    We've got to create the jobs.
        I know there are still people who have worked hard and don't have a
    pay raise. And we've got to give those folks the education they need and
    challenge their employers to be responsible when they make a profit to
    share their income with their employees so we can go forward and grow
    together. I know that. But I will say again, as I have said over and
    over and over again since 1991, if we want a country where the American
    dream is alive for everybody who will work for it, if we want a country
    where people are coming together, not being divided, if we want a
    country that is leading the world for peace and freedom and prosperity,
    we've got to have opportunity for all, responsibility from all, and a
    sense of community.
        We are all in this fight for the future together. I don't want to be
    told, ``You're on your own.'' I don't want to look at people and say,
    ``You're on your own.'' I believe we're stronger when we join hands and
    march into that future together on the right track, the right track.
    Will you help us? Will you stay with us? Will you fight for victory?
    Will we win? [Applause] I know we will.
        Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:40 p.m. at the old C&O train station,
    prior to his departure on the 21st Century Express. In his remarks, he
    referred to Gov. Gaston Caperton of West Virginia; Charlotte Pritt, West
    Virginia gubernatorial candidate; Marilyn Milne, president, Boomerang
    Medical Transcription, Inc.; Senator Rockefeller's wife, Sharon; Mayor
    Jean Dean of Huntington; Chuck Chambers, co-chair, West Virginia State
    Democratic Party Executive Committee; Hulett C. Smith, former Governor
    of West Virginia; and Cecil Roberts, president, United Mine Workers of
    America. A portion of these remarks could not be verified because the
    tape was incomplete.