[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.