[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[September 11, 1996]
[Pages 1540-1543]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in Pueblo, Colorado
September 11, 1996

    Thank you very much. Good morning. It's great to be back in Pueblo 
again. I want to say first, Dr. Martinez, thank you for welcoming us 
here to the courthouse. And all of you who live here must be so proud of 
this magnificent building. I love it. I think we should give Josh Rael 
another hand for doing such a good job on the national anthem. 
[Applause]
    I want to thank all of those who spoke before me, Mike Beatty, Al 
Gurule, Lieutenant Governor Gail Schoettler, and Tom Strickland. I hope 
you will send Tom Strickland to the United States Senate. I have a lot 
of confidence in him, and as I'll say in a moment, when these people 
present themselves for Congress and the Senate, there are real 
consequences to your lives.
    Ladies and gentlemen, I'm glad to be back here today because this is 
an election season, but elections should not be divorced from our lives. 
The choices we make as citizens for those who represent us affect the 
way we live after the elections are over.
    As I was sitting here looking at Mayor Webb making his remarks, and 
my longtime friend and former colleague, Governor Romer making his 
remarks, and I couldn't help thinking how lucky Colorado is to be served 
by public officials like this who can make a positive difference in 
people's lives.
    I also have to tell that I was talking with Patricia Heine before 
she got up here to speak; she told me that she had become a police 
officer 7 years ago, after working on raising her sons. And I thought to 
myself, it's a pretty great country when a mother who loves her children 
and cares for other people's children has the willingness, the ability, 
and is given the opportunity to go back to work in public safety to make 
this community and this State and our country a better place. And we 
thank you.
    Today I want to talk, as Governor Romer said and Mayor Webb said, 
about the issue of crime, about the link between crime and drugs, and 
about what we have to do to make our streets safer if we're going to 
realize our vision for the 21st century. As your President, I have 
worked hard on a simple, straightforward vision for the next century, 
and especially for the children in this audience. We're only 4 years 
away from a brand new century and a brand new millennium. We're 
undergoing enormous changes, as all of you know, in the way we work and 
live and relate to each other and the rest of the world.
    I want us to go into that next century as the world's strongest 
force for peace and freedom and prosperity. I want us to go into that 
century with all the American people in our mosaic from all different 
ethnic groups, all different walks of life, growing together and being 
stronger together in a close-knit community that help each other to make 
the most of their own lives. And I want to make sure the American dream 
is alive and well for every single man or woman, boy or girl, who is 
willing to work for it. And that is my vision: opportunity for all, 
responsibility from all, and everybody has a place in our American 
community. I hope you'll help me to realize that.
    We've worked very hard in the last 4 years to create economic 
opportunity, and this country is better off than it was 4 years ago. We 
have the lowest unemployment rate in 7\1/2\ years; 10\1/2\

[[Page 1541]]

million new jobs. We have 4\1/2\ million new homeowners. The deficit has 
gone down for 4 years in a row for the first time since the 1840's, 
before the Civil War. Wages are rising again for average working people 
for the first time in a decade. There are 1.8 million fewer people on 
welfare today than there were the day I took the oath of office.
    Child support collections are up 40 percent; 40 million people have 
had their pensions protected; 12 million Americans have taken some time 
off in the family leave law, keeping their jobs while their babies were 
born or they had a sick parent they needed to take care of. The air is 
cleaner for 50 million Americans, and we have cleaned up more toxic 
waste dumps in 3 years than were cleaned up in the 12 years previous. We 
are moving in the right direction.
    On October 1st, 10 million hard-working Americans will get a pay 
raise when the minimum wage law goes into effect. And that's a good 
thing for America.
    Twenty-five million Americans will be helped by the Kennedy-
Kassebaum health care reform bill which says you can't lose your health 
insurance anymore just because someone in your family gets sick or you 
have to change jobs. This country is on the right track for the 21st 
century.
    I have worked hard to make these things possible by working with all 
people of good will who were willing to move our country forward, to 
change the politics of Washington from who's to blame to what are we 
going to do about it, and what can we do together?
    I have asked the American people to join with me in building a 
bridge to the 21st century, a bridge that we can all walk across 
together, a bridge that will be strong enough to realize our dreams for 
the future, to give every child the chance to live up to his or her God-
given potential. And I want you to help me build that bridge. Will you 
do that? [Applause]
    We have to make educational opportunity available for all. That 
means we have to create the most excellent system of education in the 
world for all of our children without regard to their racial or ethnic 
background or whether they're poor, rich, or middle class, whether they 
live in poor, rural communities or big cities or some place in between. 
I have a plan to make sure that every 8-year-old child in America will 
be able to read on his or her own by the year 2000. And we need to do 
that.
    If we keep to our commitment to make sure that every classroom and 
library and every school in the United States is hooked up to the 
information superhighway by the year 2000, every child for the first 
time in the history of this country--every child--will have access to 
the same information at the same level of quality in the same time as 
every other child, rich, poor, or middle class. That will revolutionize 
education. And we have to do that.
    And finally, let me say, in this great community which has, among 
other things, a perfectly wonderful community college where I was the 
last time I came here--I want to ask you to help me make sure that in 
the next 4 years we make 2 years of education after high school, the 
equivalent of a community college degree, just as universal in America 
as a high school diploma is today by giving people a tax credit for the 
tuition there.
    By giving people a tax credit for the tuition cost of a typical 
community college, by giving our American people a $10,000 tax deduction 
per year for any tuition cost at any institution of higher education--
undergraduate, graduate, community college, you name it--by letting the 
American people and letting more Americans take out more savings in an 
IRA, save that money, and then withdraw it tax-free to pay for college 
education, health care, or to buy a first-time home, that will build a 
bridge to the 21st century.
    To build that bridge, we have to keep this economy growing steady 
and strong until every American has a chance to benefit from it. That 
means we have to balance the budget. But we have to do it in the right 
way. We must balance the budget to keep the interest rates coming down 
so that you can afford house payments, car payments, credit card 
payments. So that small-business people can afford to borrow money to 
build their businesses, we have made every small business in America 
eligible for a tax cut if they invest more money in their business. We 
are growing small businesses at a record rate, but we have to continue 
to balance the budget. But we can do it. And we must do it without 
wrecking Medicare, Medicaid, cutting back on our investments in 
education and protecting our environment. We have to do that.
    We have to build a bridge to the 21st century where families can 
succeed at home and at work. Most parents--whether the family is a one-
parent or a two-parent household--most

[[Page 1542]]

parents are working today, and most parents have to work. I hardly ever 
meet a family that doesn't tell me there has been some time in their 
lives when they've really faced a dilemma in the conflict between their 
obligations at work and their obligations at home.
    That's why we worked hard to pass the family leave law. That's why 
we worked hard to increase childhood immunizations, to increase Head 
Start, to pass the V-chip law to give parents the ability to control 
inappropriate programming and its access through television to the young 
children. That's why we've worked hard to protect our young people from 
the dangers of marketing and selling tobacco which is illegal in every 
State but prevalent in every State. And that's why I believe we should 
expand the family and medical leave law to say in a very limited way, 
people also ought to be able to take their children to doctor's 
appointments and to the local parent-teacher conference without losing 
their jobs in this country. And I hope you'll help me do that.
    We have a lot of environment work to do to build our bridge to the 
21st century. There are still 10 million American children--listen to 
this--10 million American children living within 4 miles of a toxic 
waste dump. I want to clean up two-thirds of those dumps, the worst 
ones, in just the next 4 years, by far the most rapid pace in history. 
But it's important to us. Our children should be growing up next to 
parks, not poison. And I want you to help me build that bridge to the 
21st century.
    But let me tell you, we cannot--we cannot--build the right bridge to 
the 21st century unless our children and their families are safe in 
their homes, on their streets, in their schools, in their communities. 
Four years ago, I came to this wonderful community just 2 weeks before 
election day. I said I wanted to prove, and I quote--this is what I said 
then, that ``you could be tough on crime and smart at the same time.'' 
Well, 4 years later, I can tell you that that approach is possible, and 
it's working.
    Just 2 years ago this Friday, in one of the proudest moments of my 
Presidency, I signed the 1994 crime bill. We began to put 100,000 police 
on our streets. We're about halfway home now. We have about 500 already 
funded in Colorado, five right here in Pueblo. We made ``three strikes 
and you're out'' the law of the land. We began helping States to build 
100,000 new prison cells. We began to expand prevention programs so our 
young people would have something to say yes to, not just no.
    And let me say, not a single sportsman or hunter in Colorado--
notwithstanding what they were told in 1994--has lost their hunting or 
sporting weapon--not a single, solitary one, not one. But you know what? 
Sixty thousand felons, fugitives, and stalkers could not get a handgun 
because of the Brady bill. It was the right thing to do. We are safer 
because of it.
    Now, this strategy is working. For 4 years in a row, the crime rate 
has come down. But no matter how tough our penalties, no matter how many 
new prisons we build, we will never break this problem until we break 
the cycle of crime and drugs and stop the revolving door between prisons 
and drug use on the streets.
    Let me be clear, the best antidrug program is still parents teaching 
their children right from wrong. It's still those D.A.R.E. officers in 
the schools standing up there in front of those classes and letting 
those little children with their wide eyes look at people in uniforms 
and say, ``That's the kind of person I want to be, and that's the kind 
of behavior I want to have.''
    That's why I fought for the safe and drug-free schools program, 
which puts antidrug counselors like Officer Heine in the classroom. The 
first bill I vetoed as President, the very first one, was a bill passed 
by this Congress that would have gutted the safe and drug-free schools 
program. I don't know about you, but I think we need more people like 
her, not fewer, in front of our children in the schools of America.
    Last year Congress gave me about $700 million less than I sought to 
fight drugs, and that's wrong, and I hope we can correct it before they 
go home. I appointed a four-star general, an American military hero, 
General Barry McCaffrey, to lead our attack on drugs, and he has 
developed a strategy for us that we will follow with great discipline 
over the next 5 years, targeted at keeping drugs away from our children 
and he deserves the support that he needs.
    Illegal drugs are a significant force behind the vast majority of 
violent crimes in this country and a big part of the problem with 
juvenile crime. Drug dealers with guns, criminals on drugs, they 
contribute a lot to the misery that the rest of America has to endure.
    Listen to this: Two-thirds of the men in State prisons have 
substance abuse problems. I have

[[Page 1543]]

signed an Executive order to require drug testing of anyone brought into 
the Federal system, but I have not been able to affect that. Listen to 
this. When criminals on parole go back on drugs, the chances are 
enormously high they will commit new crimes. Sixty percent--listen--60 
percent of all the heroin and cocaine sold in the entire United States 
goes to people on bail, on probation, or on parole. Seventy-five percent 
of the prisoners with a history of heroin or cocaine use who are 
released without treatment go back to drugs within 3 months and return 
to crime. We have to stop this cycle, or we'll never get on top of the 
problem.
    In spite of this problem, States often don't do much to test 
parolees or prisoners, or provide adequate treatment. That has to be 
changed. Drugs don't belong in prisons or in the hands of parolees. 
Parole is not a license to break the law, use drugs, and slip back into 
crime; it is a chance to go straight and live a better life.
    So today I propose to offer legislation that will say to every State 
in the country, we are prepared to continue to use funds from our crime 
bill to help you build your prisons. But if you want that money, you now 
must start drug testing prisoners and parolees to break the cycle of 
crime and drugs. It's time to say to inmates, if you stay on drugs, 
you'll stay in jail; if you want our of jail, you have to get off drugs. 
It's time to say to parolees, if you go back on drugs, you'll go back to 
jail; if you want to stay on the street, stay off drugs. And I want you 
to help me send that message to America.
    We know the States are hard-pressed, and we intend to do our part. 
Today the Department of Justice announced $27 million in grants to 
States for testing and intervention with prisoners, to help them break 
this cycle. States can start using this money right now for drug testing 
and for intervention to help prisoners and parolees.
    And let me tell you something, folks, this is not an election year 
pledge. This will work. A new report shows that in Delaware, prisoners 
who got treatment in prison and during work release were 75 percent 
drug-free and 70 percent arrest-free after 18 months; but 80 percent of 
the prisoners who did not receive treatment went back on drugs, and two 
out of three were arrested again. It is simple. We know what to do, now 
let's go do it. Let's build a bridge to the 21st century that breaks the 
cycle of crime and drugs.
    I want to say to all of you, I am more optimistic than I was when I 
came here 4 years ago about our future. I am more idealistic about the 
possibilities of Americans to do good things together. But we must make 
a commitment to work together, to create opportunity for all, to get 
responsibility from all of our citizens, and to reach out to one another 
across the lines that divide us so that we can go forward together. That 
is the bridge that I seek to build to the 21st century, and I hope you 
will help to build it.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 10:17 a.m. at the Pueblo County Courthouse. 
In his remarks, he referred to Richard Martinez, Pueblo County 
commissioner; Josh Rael, student, Pueblo South High School; Michael 
Beatty, chairman, Colorado Democratic Party; Al Gurule, candidate for 
Colorado's Third Congressional District; Lt. Gov. Gail Schoettler and 
Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado; Colorado senatorial candidate Tom 
Strickland; Mayor Wellington Webb of Denver; and police officer Patricia 
Heine. The President also referred to his memorandum of December 18, 
1995, on Federal arrestee drug testing, published in the Public Papers 
of the Presidents: William J. Clinton, 1995, Book II (Washington: U.S. 
Government Printing Office, 1996), p. 1904.