    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [October 31, 1996]
    [Pages 1995-2001]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1995]]

    Remarks in Las Vegas, Nevada
    October 31, 1996

        The President. Thank you. I think the first thing I should say is,
    happy birthday, Nevada. I am so glad to be here today, so delighted to
    see all of you here in not only large numbers but with genuine
    enthusiasm. You should feel good about your country and good about our
    future.
        I want to thank the Green Valley High School Band for playing the
    national anthem, thank you; the Las Vegas Academy of International
    Studies, Performing Visual Arts, thank you. I want to thank the
    saxophonists who played here earlier from the musicians union and the
    mariachi band.
        Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, County Commission Vice Chair Paul
    Christianson. You arranged a beautiful day for us here today. I'd also
    like to say a special word of appreciation to a person who is not here
    with us today, the county commission chair, Yvonne Atkinson-Gates. We're
    thinking about her, and we miss her. Senator Dina Titus, Assembly Leader
    Richard Perkins. Thank you, Gladys Knight, for coming and speaking.
    Thank you, Andre Agassi, for coming. Thank you. Thank you, Attorney
    General Frankie Sue Del Papa. And thank you, my good friend Harry Reid.
        Ladies and gentlemen, I owe a lot to a lot of people. I'm on the
    verge of finishing the last campaign I'll ever be in unless I run for
    the school board someday. And I want to say that every time I come here
    to Las Vegas, I think of my wonderful mother who loved this community so
    much and loved to come here. And I wish she were here with me still for
    this election. I want to thank the mayor for always being so kind to
    her. And I want to say a special word of thanks, too, to Governor Bob
    Miller for being there with me in good times and bad--always there,
    always supporting us, always standing up for what was right and standing
    up for Nevada.
        And I want to tell you that something I have said in the Oval Office
    of the White House many times--I'd like to say here in public: I believe
    in Washington, DC, the most underappreciated public servant in the
    United States Senate is Harry Reid of Nevada. He is a remarkable,
    remarkable Senator. You should be very proud of him. You should be very
    proud of him. You know, because he's a gentleman and he's low-key and he
    just says what he has to say in a town where hot air and hot rhetoric
    and divisive actions take precedent, very often the people who really
    make a difference are not appreciated. Harry Reid should be appreciated
    here, and every day he's more appreciated back there in Washington.
        And thank you, Nell Justice, for having the courage to get up here
    and give a speech in front of all these people and for embodying, to me,
    what my job, this campaign, and our common destiny is all about. We are
    about to choose the last President of the 20th century and the first
    President of the 21st century. I believe more strongly than I can say
    that the greatest days of this country lie before us; that if we make
    the right decisions, if we do what we have always done in the past at
    critical times, if we meet our challenges and do it in a way that
    enables us to live more closely toward our values, our young people here
    will live in the age of greatest possibility the world has ever known.
        We are dramatically changing the way we work and live, the way we
    relate to each other and the rest of the world. A lot of these changes
    are very good, but some of them pose very stiff challenges to families.
    I'll give you one example of the changes that are going on.
        When I became President there were about 3 million people working in
    their homes and making a living. The other day I was in Atlanta at a
    rally, and I was introduced by a young woman. She and her husband were
    from Georgia. They were living in New York. They both had jobs there. He
    got a job in Atlanta; they moved back to Atlanta. She's still working
    for her company in New York, in Atlanta, because of the computer. There
    were 3 million people doing that in 1992. There are 12 million people
    doing that in 1996. There will be 30 million people doing that in the
    year 2000. That is just one example.
        The frontiers of knowledge are being pushed back dramatically. The
    life expectancy for people with HIV and AIDS is more than twice what it
    was just 4 years ago. We have uncovered--

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    we have discovered, medical researchers, the first real treatment for
    stroke victims that offers promise. Two of the genes which cause breast
    cancer were just uncovered. And I allocated another $30 million to that
    research just a week ago. It is really within our reach not only to cure
    but prevent that disease in the future.
        For the first time, a few weeks ago a laboratory animal with its
    spine completely severed had movement in its lower limbs because of
    nerve transplants to the spine from other parts of the body. These are
    unbelievable things. We just signed a contract, the United States
    Government did, with IBM to build jointly a supercomputer over the next
    couple of years that will do as many calculations in one second as you
    can do at home on your calculator in 30,000 years.
        This world is changing. And America is faced with the question of
    what to do about the changes. When I ran for President 4 years ago, I
    had a vision of what I wanted our country to be like in the 21st
    century. And I'm so glad there are so many young people here today
    because that will be your century. For me, it's pretty straightforward.
    I want every child in America, without regard to race or gender or where
    you start out in life, to have the same chance to live up to your God-
    given abilities and the same chance to live out your dreams that I and
    the members of my generation had. You deserve it, and I am determined to
    see that you get it.
        I want our great country to continue to be the world's strongest
    force for peace and freedom and prosperity. And I know that makes me do
    things from time to time that aren't especially popular, whether it's
    trying to stop the bloody war in Bosnia or kick the dictators out in
    Haiti or stand up for the cause of peace in Northern Ireland or try to
    deal with the problems of our neighbors to the south in Mexico. But
    America is stronger today than it was 4 years ago. No Russian missiles
    are pointed at our children today, for the first time since the dawn of
    the nuclear age, and we're moving in the right direction there.
        And I want our country to be coming together around our basic
    values. I want us to be able to celebrate, laugh about, cherish our
    diversity, and say, we're bound together by our belief in the values
    that have made America great, but otherwise we don't discriminate
    against anybody. We want to go forward in an American community in which
    everybody has a place and a role to play.
        Five days before this election, I want you to be upbeat about
    America, optimistic about your future, and determined to make the choice
    that will guarantee that that vision can be made real in your lives and
    the lives of your friends and neighbors. That is the choice.
        For me, it is best expressed in this idea of a bridge to the 21st
    century. I believe that there's a real difference here between Senator
    Dole and me, between Senator Coffin and Congressman Ensign. And I
    believe it's an honest difference. I don't like all this harsh rhetoric
    and personal attacks and attempts to convince people that your opponent
    is no good. I don't think there is very much to that.
        I'm about to end my last campaign. I can tell you this: I've been
    working at this for over 20 years now. Most of the people I've met in
    both parties, from all points on the political spectrum, have loved our
    country, have wanted what was best for it, worked hard and were honest,
    contrary to the image that is often portrayed. There are honest
    differences here, and you should be exuberant that you have a choice to
    make between honest differences.
        I don't believe that we should go into this--I know that there will
    be more individual choices than ever before. I know people can do things
    on their computers and will be able to do more. Pretty soon you can do
    all your shopping by computers. People won't even have to go out the
    door if they don't want to. I know that there will be more opportunities
    for us to do things as individuals. But I still believe that our country
    will only be great if we are determined to build a bridge to the future
    that we're all going to be able to walk across together, if we give
    everybody the tools to make the most of his or her own life. That's what
    I believe.
        And that's the choice. Would we be better off being told, ``You're
    on your own, and we hope you do well,'' or as a person I'm reasonably
    close to once said, do we believe it takes a village to raise a child,
    to build a future, to build a country? That is the choice.
        That was the choice we faced starkly about a year ago when Senator
    Dole and Congressman Gingrich and Congressman Ensign voted for a budget
    that would have cut education for the first time in modern history,
    would have reduced the number of children in Head Start,

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    eliminated the AmeriCorps national service program, cut college loans,
    terribly, terribly, terribly weakened the ability of the United States
    to protect our environment and to continue to enhance it.
        It would have repealed for the first time in 30 years our guarantee
    of health care to elderly people in nursing homes, to the very standards
    of care we have in nursing homes. It would repeal the guarantee of care
    to our poorest children and the middle class families who have family
    members with disabilities who can maintain a middle class lifestyle
    because we try to provide decent health care. It would have done all
    that. It would have allowed employers to raid their employees' pension
    funds and actually raise taxes on the hardest pressed working families
    in America. And I vetoed it because I thought it was wrong.
        And they thought it was so right for America, they shut the
    Government down. And they thought that we were such Government lovers,
    because that's the picture postcard cutout that's always made of us,
    that all of us would just sort of cave in and let them have their way.
    And I told them I'd a lot rather see the American people hurt for 3
    weeks than for 30 years; no, thank you, we weren't going to have that
    budget.
        But I don't believe that these people didn't believe what they were
    doing. I think they believed what they were doing was right. But I think
    they were wrong. And that's what you have to decide. Are we going to
    build a bridge to the future or a bridge to the past? Are we going to go
    forward together or be told we're on our own? These are big, big
    decisions.
        Now, 4 years ago when the people in Nevada voted for Al Gore and
    Bill Clinton, you took us on faith. You don't have to do that anymore.
    There is a record. And our friends have to face the fact that there is a
    record. We do have 10\1/2\ million more jobs than we had 4 years ago. We
    do have incomes rising for the first time in a decade, about $1,600 over
    the last 2 years for the typical family. We do have the largest drop in
    child poverty in 20 years, the largest drop in income inequality among
    working people in 27 years, the lowest rates of unemployment, inflation,
    and home mortgages combined in 27 years. Those are facts. That's where
    we are. We're going in the right direction.
        We do have a 15-year high in homeownership. We do have 4 years now
    of declining crime rates, which is why every major law enforcement
    organization in America has endorsed the Clinton/Gore ticket for
    reelection, because we have proved we can lower the crime rate.
        We do have 4 years of declining welfare rolls, 1.9 million fewer
    people on the welfare rolls. We do have cleaner air, safer drinking
    water, higher standards for food safety. We do have vast new protections
    for our natural resources: the biggest national park network ever
    created south of Alaska in the Mojave Desert in California; 1.7 million
    acres of wilderness in southern Utah, the Grand Staircase-Escalante
    National Monument. We're cleaning up the Florida Everglades. We're
    moving this country forward, and we have proved, yes, you can grow the
    economy and preserve the environment at the same time. We have proved
    that.
        Ten million people benefited from the increase in the minimum wage.
    Twelve million people took a little time off when a baby was born or a
    family member was sick without losing their jobs because of family
    leave. Twenty-five million Americans may be able to keep their health
    insurance now because we passed a law that says you cannot have your
    health insurance jerked from you because you changed jobs or someone in
    your family has been sick.
        America is a better place because I signed a law that says mothers
    and their newborn babies can't be kicked out of the hospital in 24
    hours, too. We're a better place because we're trying to provide more
    insurance coverage for mental health problems that so many of our
    families face. We're a better place because finally, after so long, way
    too long, we're giving health care and disability benefits to Vietnam
    veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange whose children have spina
    bifida as a result of it. We're a better place because we're doing these
    things together. We're a better place because child support collections
    are up 50 percent, $4 billion a year in the last 4 years. This is a
    better place.
        So I say to you, my fellow Americans, you don't just totally have to
    take it on faith anymore. There is a record. The evidence is there. And
    the question now is, what are we going to do for the future? I know it's
    Halloween, you know. And I understand why on Halloween people like to
    scare other people. But yesterday--with new evidence our economy is
    growing at about 3 percent a year, better than any other industrial
    country; we've got a 5 percent in-

    [[Page 1998]]

    crease in personal income after inflation this year; we've got the
    highest rate of business investment since John Kennedy was President--
    and we've done the things I've described, as they said, having the
    smallest Federal Government since President Kennedy, and we abolished
    more Government programs, more Government regulations and privatized
    more Government operations than the Republicans did in the 12 years they
    ran before our administration. So I understand all that.
        So along comes my opponent yesterday and says we have the worst
    economy in 20 years. Do you believe that?
        Audience members. No-o-o!
        The President. Is this the worst economy in Las Vegas in 20 years?
        Audience members. No-o-o!
        The President. If you think it is, you ought to vote for him. But
    now, the interesting thing is, this being Halloween, is that 2 weeks ago
    he said we had the worst economy in 100 years. I made up 80 years in
    just 2 weeks. I think you ought to feel good. Now, back in February,
    Senator Dole, in a more candid and open and accurate moment, said we had
    the best economy in 30 years--the best economy. That's when he was
    right.
        That doesn't mean we don't have more to do. And one of the things
    that I worry about all the time is--you know, life is about more than
    economics. Most of us work so that we'll have the wherewithal to live in
    the way we want to live, to raise our children well, to enjoy our lives,
    to find some personal fulfillment, to have good lives. And on Halloween,
    even though it's supposed to be ``fright night,'' I always think that
    what I really want is a safer Halloween for all of our children and
    stronger families and safer neighborhoods.
        So I say to you, I want you to feel good about America, and I want
    you to make this choice based on these two big ideas, because we still
    have more work to do. If we want to strengthen our families, we have to
    help parents succeed at home and at work. I was for the family leave
    law; he was against it. We had an honest difference of opinion. He said
    it would hurt the economy, but we've had 3 years of record starts of new
    small businesses and over 10 million jobs. You know who was right and
    who was wrong. The evidence is there.
        And I think we ought to extend family leave. I think people ought to
    be able to go see their children's teachers twice a year and go to the
    doctor's appointment with them without losing their jobs.
        There is nothing more important than helping parents succeed at home
    and at work. If the parents of America have to choose between their
    children or their job, we are in trouble, whichever choice they have to
    make. Their most important job is raising our children, but we have to
    have a strong economy. If we have a strong economy at the expense of
    raising our children, what are we working for anyway? We have got to
    work to create conditions in which everybody believes, ``I can do my
    work, and I can still be a good parent.'' There is no more important
    agenda for America.
        We have to help parents pass their values along to their children,
    and they should be reinforced. That's why I fought for more educational
    television. That's why I fought for a V-chip in new TV's and a rating
    system so you can control what young children see. Every study shows
    that too much violence too young numbs children to the meaning of
    violence and undermines their ability to see other people with dignity
    and respect. We have to deal with that.
        That's why we fought for the safe and drug-free schools program, and
    we got more than double the number of children who now see D.A.R.E.
    officers and others in their schools saying, ``Don't do drugs. They will
    kill you. They will ruin your lives. You deserve a better chance.'' We
    were right to fight for that. That's why I fought to stop the big
    tobacco companies from advertising and marketing cigarettes to children
    illegally. It was wrong.
        Now, in every single one of those instances, Senator Dole disagreed
    with me. That doesn't make him a bad person, but I think I'm right, and
    I think he was wrong about that. And you have to decide who you think is
    right.
        I believe we've got to keep our streets safe. I know it was
    unpopular in Nevada when we passed the crime bill and the Brady bill. I
    know a lot of people in the rural parts of this State were told, ``There
    they go again, those crazy Democrats and that awful President. They're
    going to take guns away from hunters and sports people.'' Well, you know
    something? I grew up in a State where more than half the people have a
    hunting or a fishing license or both. I was shooting a .22 at old tin
    cans when I was 12. But we don't need assault weapons on

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    our street. They're designed to kill people. They're designed to kill
    people.
        And that's just like a lot of this stuff. That's what they said 2
    years ago, but now we know. We've got a record. Not a single Nevada
    sportsman has lost a weapon, but 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers
    didn't get handguns because of the Brady bill.
        We're putting more police on our streets--this is unbelievable--if
    we keep going until we get all 100,000 police on the street, instead of
    4 years of declining crime we'll have 8 years of declining crime. We
    might actually be able to feel safe again in every community in this
    country.
        Here again my opponent voted against 100,000 police. Senator
    Coffin's opponent voted to eliminate it, even in the evidence--in the
    face of the evidence that the crime rate was coming down, they voted to
    stop doing it. I don't understand it. But that's one reason, when I was
    in Arizona this morning before I came here, that Bill Bratton, the
    former commissioner of police in New York City and Boston--and in New
    York City, because of community policing, because they put more police
    on the street, they brought the crime rate down 39 percent and the
    murder rate down 50 percent--and he endorsed Bill Clinton and Al Gore
    because he knows we ought to finish the job of putting 100,000 police on
    the street. And I want you to help us do it.
        I believe, as strongly as I can say, that we need to do these things
    block by block, community by community. We have to work together to make
    the American dream work. That's why I wanted someone like Nell Justice
    to introduce me, someone who has taken responsibility for her children,
    someone who's active in her community.
        I don't believe that the President for a moment can take full credit
    for any of the achievements that I've talked to you about. But it is the
    job of the President to do those things which we should do together as a
    country. And it is the job of the President to imagine the future and to
    try to lead the country into a better, brighter future in a way that is
    consistent with our values.
        What we have here in America today is an old-fashioned partnership.
    We're out working today to mobilize another million volunteers to work
    with police officers in their neighborhoods because we know community
    citizen groups can drive the crime rate down. I've asked a million
    volunteers a year to join with us to make sure every 8-year-old can read
    independently by the third grade. These are things we have to do
    together.
        But how we do it, what we do in Washington determines whether you
    can do it here. So you have to decide, do we want to balance the budget
    as I want to and still protect Medicare, Medicaid, education, the
    environment, technology? Or do we want to do what they want to do, which
    is to promise you a big tax cut that will blow a hole in the deficit,
    actually raise taxes on 9 million working people and will require bigger
    cuts in the environment, in education, in Medicare and Medicaid than the
    ones I vetoed? There's a big difference here. It's just an honest
    difference of opinion. I say balance the budget, protect our values,
    invest in our future.
        Do we want to keep reforming health care step by step? We've made a
    good start. My balanced budget plan--which cannot be funded by them--my
    balanced budget plan will help families that are between jobs keep their
    health insurance for 6 months, add another million children to the rolls
    of those with health insurance, provide free mammograms to women on
    Medicare. And for the over 1\1/2\ million families that are courageously
    out there caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's, it will give them
    some respite care. That is hard duty, and that's important, and we can
    do it. I think we ought to do it. Will you help us do that? [Applause]
        And let me say this, especially to the young people: The two biggest
    differences, the two biggest choices you have to make--the first is
    about education. I am telling you, I would not be here today, no way in
    the world would I be here today--I was born to a widowed mother in a
    little town in Arkansas; she married my stepfather, who did not have a
    high school diploma--if it hadn't been for my family drumming into me
    the importance of education and for the opportunities I was given, I
    wouldn't be here today. I know every politician stands up, loves to give
    speeches about self-reliance. Well, the woman who introduced me is self-
    reliant. But we all need a hand, too.
        Every politician would like you to believe that he or she was born
    in a log cabin they built by themselves. [Laughter] But that's just not
    true, folks. Educational opportunity is the gift we give not only to our
    children but to our-

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    selves, to give us a country that can be free and strong and that can
    grow and go forward together. And we have a lot still to do. Here's how
    we're going to teach every 8-year-old to read, and 40 percent of them
    can't do it. We're going to mobilize 30,000 AmeriCorps volunteers and
    reading specialists to go across this country and get a million others.
        One of the things that we did this year I'm very proud of is to
    allocate 200,000 more work-study slots to college students in the years
    ahead than we've had. And I want 100,000 of those--100,000, half of
    them, to be given to college students who say, ``If you'll give me work-
    study money, I'll go teach an 8-year-old to read.'' And I want you to
    help me do that.
        I want us to hook up every classroom and library in every school in
    America to the information superhighway, to the Internet, to the World
    Wide Web. I want every child for the first time in the history of this
    country, whether in a poor district, a remote rural district, a middle
    class or a wealthy one, every child for the first time to have access to
    the same information in the same way at the same time. It will
    revolutionize education in America.
        And I want to open the doors of college education to every single
    American. I want you to help me make community college, at least 2 years
    of education after high school, as universal as a high school diploma is
    today. And it will be easy to do. It will be easy to do. Just let people
    deduct dollar for dollar from their tax bill the cost of the typical
    community college tuition. I want to let people save in an IRA and
    withdraw from it without any tax penalty if the money's used for
    education or health care or homebuying. And I believe we should give
    families a tax deduction of up to $10,000 a year for the cost of any
    college tuition, undergraduate, graduate, at any school, for people of
    any age. And I can pay for it.
        Now, they believe that--their education agenda is to abolish the
    Department of Education.
        Audience members. Boo-o-o!
        The President. You think about this: Two cents on the dollar at the
    Department of Education goes to administration--or bureaucracy, if you
    want to use the disparaging term; 98 cents of it goes to help educate
    our children. What would it say to the world if America, the greatest
    democracy in the world, were to start the 21st century with no one at
    the President's Cabinet to speak up for the education of our children? I
    say, no. Let's build a bridge to the 21st century with the best
    education system in the world.
        Finally--this may be the most important thing of all--I have spent
    so much time, heartbreaking time, as your President dealing with the
    difficulties of other countries who are consumed by racial, religious,
    ethnic, and tribal hatreds: in Bosnia, people killing one another's
    children because they were Muslims or Croats or Serbs, even though
    biologically they are literally indistinguishable; in Northern Ireland,
    violence continuing, people fighting over battles they fought 3 and 600
    years ago--I can say that, they're my people, but it's crazy--the kids
    over there just want to get on with their lives; in the Middle East, the
    Holy Land for the three great monotheistic religions of the world,
    people still unable to lay down their hatreds of one another, rooted in
    religious differences so old.
        All over the world--in Rwanda we sent American forces to be with the
    French to save hundreds of thousands of lives when the Tutsis and the
    Hutus were killing each other, and neither one of them had enough money
    to get along on, neither one of them could provide for their children.
    And instead of working together to build a prosperous future, they
    preferred to slaughter one another.
        That is why I was so upset when hatred of the Federal Government led
    to the tragedy of Oklahoma City. That is why, when the churches were
    being burned, the synagogues defaced, the Muslim centers being defaced,
    I said, that is not my America. We must stand against it strong and
    hard.
        When the First Lady and our daughter and I went to open the Olympics
    for the United States in Atlanta, it was one of the great moments of the
    last 4 years for us, and I was filled with pride as I looked at those
    people from 197 different national groups walking around the Olympic
    Stadium and thinking, you know, we've got folks from all those places
    here in America; we've got people from everywhere here.
        So I say to you, this is important, too. We cannot say, you're on
    your own. We have to say that if you believe in the Constitution, the
    Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, if you're willing to
    show up for work or school tomorrow and be a good citizen, we need to
    know nothing else about you. You are part of our America. We're going to
    build a bridge to-

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    gether. We're going to walk across it together. And our best days are
    still ahead.
        Will you help me build that bridge? [Applause] Will you be there and
    vote? [Applause] If you've voted already, will you bring someone else?
    [Applause] You can go in the courthouse and do it right now. Be there,
    and we'll have a great celebration for America Tuesday night.
        Thank you. God bless you. And bear down. Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:30 p.m. at the Clark County Government
    Center. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Jan Laverty Jones of Las
    Vegas; State Senator Dina Titus; entertainer Gladys Knight; tennis
    player Andre Agassi; Nell Justice, who introduced the President; and
    State Senator Bob Coffin, candidate for Nevada's First Congressional
    District.