[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[September 19, 1996]
[Pages 1620-1623]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1620]]


Remarks in Longview, Washington
September 19, 1996

    The President. Thank you. Wow! Thank you way back there in the back. 
Can you hear? [Applause] Oh, thank you for waiting for us. Thank you for 
making us feel so welcome in this stunningly beautiful community. What a 
wonderful place you have to live.
    I want to thank right here at the outset the people who have 
provided our music, the R.A. Long and Mark Morris High School bands. 
Thank you, bands, thank you. And the Checkers, thank you. And I 
understand that the R.A. Long football team is undefeated and down here 
somewhere. Congratulations! [Applause] Thank you.
    I'd also like to say a special word of thanks to Axel Swanson, the 
student body president at R.A. Long. Now, you just think about it, he 
got up here in front of this big crowd, and unlike me, he doesn't do 
this all the time. And I thought he did a terrific job, and I was really 
proud of him. You know, when I was his age I had a chance to shake hands 
with President Kennedy. It made an impression on me I never forgot. But 
I was looking at him today, and I can tell you that today he looks a lot 
more like a future President than I did then. I liked it, and I hope he 
does very well. Congratulations, Axel.
    I want to thank Brian Baird for presenting himself for Congress. 
Ladies and gentlemen, it's hard to run for Congress these days. It's a 
hard and arduous task. And much to my dismay, many of these races have 
become so intensely negative and so difficult--often difficult to get 
idealistic young people to present themselves. He has, and I am 
confident he would do a find job representing you. I wish him well, and 
I hope you will wish him well and help him do well.
    And to Gary Locke, let me say I was so impressed with the race that 
you and your other fellow Democrats ran in that primary. You won a hard-
fought, clean, honest, progressive, forward-looking race. You can be 
proud of the race you just ran and the race you are now running. And I 
hope you folks will help to make Gary Locke the next Governor of the 
State of Washington, to keep moving forward into the 21st century.
    You know, we've had a wonderful day today, and I know we're a little 
late, but you wouldn't believe the crowds we've seen all along the road 
and every place we've stopped. We began in Tacoma, where I believe we 
had over 25,000 people. We went to Roy and Yelm and Tenino and 
Centralia. And then of course we were just in Kelso, and we crossed the 
bridge--anybody here from Kelso? [Applause] You could have fooled me; I 
thought the whole town was along the highway back there. And I want to 
say to all of you, you cannot imagine what a source of encouragement it 
is to Hillary and Tipper and to Al and me to see you out here, loving 
your country, believing in its future, determined to play a role in its 
future.
    Four years ago when I came to Washington State and the people of 
this State were so good in voting for me and giving me your electoral 
votes, I asked you to take us on faith. I had never worked in 
Washington, DC--the other Washington--before. I'd been a Governor for 12 
years who ran for President because I didn't like what was happening to 
my country. I didn't like the high unemployment, the low job growth, the 
stagnant wages, the unaddressed social challenges. I didn't like the 
fact that we were growing more divided and that people were becoming 
ever more cynical about their political system. I didn't think we became 
the greatest country in the world and lasted for over 220 years by 
having those kind of problems and those kind of attitudes. And I wanted 
to change.
    I wanted to lead this country into the 21st century with the 
American dream alive and well for every single American willing to work 
for it; with this country coming together, bridging our divisions and 
mutual respect, not dividing; and with our country still the strongest 
force for peace and freedom and prosperity in the world. And I can tell 
you that after 4 years we're in better shape than we were 4 years ago 
and we're on the right track to the 21st century.
    I welcome this debate with our opponents over the next 6 weeks and 5 
days because it will be a clear picture of starkly different approaches. 
You could hardly find two different platforms, two different programs, 
two different

[[Page 1621]]

records that were more opposite in their views of what our purposes are 
as a people and what our role in Washington is. You see, we really do 
believe that it takes a village; we don't think you're on your own. 
Longview looks like a pretty good village to us. We think you help each 
other to make the most of your own lives. We really do believe we must 
build a bridge to the future; we can't build a bridge to the past. We 
really do believe that at this moment in history, if we do the rights 
things, if we build the right kind of bridge, we can make it possible 
for more people than ever before in history to live out their dreams and 
live up to their God-given potential. But we have to do the right 
things.
    It is not an accident that the unemployment rate is down, that the 
deficit has been reduced by 60 percent, that we have an all-time high in 
exports from Washington State and the United States, that America's auto 
industry is number one again, that we have 10\1/2\ million jobs, that we 
have 10 million people about to get a pay increase when the minimum wage 
goes up on October 1st. That is not an accident. It is not an accident.
    Finally, finally, we passed a meaningful piece of health care reform 
that says if you have to change jobs or if someone in your family gets 
sick, you still can't be denied health insurance. It's long past time 
when we should have done that.
    It is not an accident that we made every small business in America 
eligible to get a tax cut if they invest more in their business to hire 
more people, to grow the business, to make America stronger, if they 
take out health insurance. We made it easier for them to take out 
retirement and to protect their own retirement and their employees' when 
they move from job to job. That didn't happen by accident.
    It's not an accident that 40 million American retirees and workers 
have more secure pensions than they did 4 years ago. It's not an 
accident that tens of millions of us are breathing cleaner air, that we 
have safer drinking water standards, higher standards for food safety, 
that we have saved the national parks from an ill-advised attempt to 
sell some of them off, that this environment is cleaner, that we've 
cleaned up more toxic waste sites in 3 years than were cleaned up in the 
previous 12. None of that is an accident. It happened because we changed 
the direction of this country, and we're on the right track to the 21st 
century.
    It is not an accident that the crime rate has gone down for 4 years 
in a row. It is not an accident that finally juvenile crime has started 
to go down. It is not an accident that the welfare rolls have gone down 
by 1.8 million, that child support collections have gone up by 40 
percent, and that there are one million fewer crime victims in the 
United States today. That is not an accident. It happened because we 
worked together--together--to create the conditions and to give you the 
tools to make the most of your own lives. And now we have to finish 
building that bridge to the 21st century.
    I came here today to tell you that if you will work with us for 6 
weeks and 5 days, if you'll talk to your friends, your neighbors, your 
family members, your coworkers and you'll help us build that bridge, 
then we'll give you 4 years in which we will roar into the 21st century 
with opportunity, responsibility, and a stronger American community 
alive for all the people of this country. Will you help us build the 
bridge? [Applause]
    My fellow Americans, I want to build a bridge to the 21st century in 
which we have the finest education system in the world and every 
classroom in every school in America is hooked up to the information 
superhighway, to the Internet, to the World Wide Web. And if you're not 
a computer expert, I'll tell you what it means. It means for the first 
time in history, 4 years from now, if we do our jobs, the children in 
the most remote rural school districts, the children in the poorest 
inner-city school districts, the children in the small towns and the 
rich towns and the middle class towns, all of our kids, for the first 
time ever will have access to the same learning in the same time at the 
same level of quality for the first time ever. Will you help us do that? 
[Applause]
    I want to build a bridge to the 21st century in which we make 
college educations available to all Americans who want to go whether 
they're young or middle aged or older. If they need to go back and get 
more education, they ought to be able to do it. And I want to do it in 
three ways.
    First, more people saving more with IRA's and then you can withdraw 
from them without any tax penalty if you're going to use it to educate 
yourselves or your children or deal with health care or buy a first-time 
home.
    Second, we want to make 2 years of education after high school as 
universal in 4 years from

[[Page 1622]]

now as a high school diploma is today. Every American, we know now, 
needs more education. And here's how we're going to do that. We're going 
to let you deduct from your tax bill dollar for dollar the cost of the 
average tuition at the typical community college in the United States--
just take it off your taxes, go back to community college, get that 
degree, move this country forward.
    Third, we want to give you a deduction of up to $10,000 a year for 
the cost of tuition at any college anyplace in this country, whether 
it's undergraduate school, graduate school, a special program, you name 
it. If you have to go back and get more education and training to do 
better with your lives, even if you've been out of school for years, you 
ought to be able to do it. And we'll support you in doing it.
    The second thing I want to do is to keep this economy going. We can 
have tax cuts, my fellow Americans, but they have to be paid for and 
they ought to be targeted to education, to childrearing, to buying that 
first-time home, to dealing with medical emergencies. You ought not to 
have to pay a tax if you sell your home and you've got a gain on it 
because it's appreciated in value over time. But we ought to pay for 
those things.
    We have to continue our work to balance the budget. Why? Because we 
have brought the deficit down by 60 percent. That may not mean much to 
you. Every time I leave Washington, some political expert says, ``Now, 
Mr. President, don't go out there in the country and start talking about 
reducing the deficit. People only care about it when the economy is in 
the tank. When the economy is doing well, it bores them to tears.''
    Here's why you shouldn't be bored. If we bring the deficit down and 
we borrow less money just to pay the Government's bills, then interest 
rates go down. For you that means a lower home mortgage payment, a lower 
care payment, a lower credit card payment. For business it means lower 
loan rates, which means they can borrow more money, hire more people, 
grow this economy, and take us into the 21st century. We have to balance 
the budget. We have to do it.
    We can't have a tax cut so big we undermine the economic recovery of 
the country. What good would it do you to see this deficit blown up? You 
get a tax cut on one hand and turn around and have it taken away on the 
other hand with a higher mortgage payment, a higher credit card payment, 
a higher car payment, and fewer jobs in America. We've got to keep this 
economy growing until everybody that wants a good job has one. We need 
to keep going. Will you help us build that bridge to the 21st century? 
[Applause]
    I want you to help us build a bridge to the 21st century where we 
have security for people. We have to continue to bring the crime rate 
down. I am proud of the fact it's come down 4 years in a row. And I 
can't help but noting that right here in Washington State, a lot of 
congressional districts changed hands and went to the other party in 
1994 because the people in the other party came out to small towns and 
rural areas in Washington, and they said, ``The President and his party 
voted for that awful crime bill, and they're going to take your guns 
away.''

[At this point, an audience member required medical attention.]

    The President. You need a doctor over there? Send a medic over 
there, right back there. We'll be right there. Just keep your hands held 
up. We've got the doctor back there, right back there.
    Now, remember this--in 1994, I remember them. I remember them going 
into all these little towns and saying, ``Why, the President voted to 
take your gun away, the Democrats in Congress did. That crime bill is 
terrible. It's not going to do anything to bring down crime.''
    Well, now we know. Four years later, we have 4 years of a declining 
crime rate. We're halfway home in putting 100,000 police on the street. 
We didn't take a single hunter's rifle away from him in Washington State 
or my home State of Arkansas. Everybody's still going into the woods 
with the same weapons they had. But 60,000 felons, fugitives, and 
stalkers lost their right to buy a handgun under the Brady bill. We were 
right; they were wrong. They were wrong about that.
    And we need to keep going. We should oppose their efforts to cut 
short the 100,000 police commitment. When you put more police officers 
on the street, knowing the neighbors of the people, getting to know the 
kids, encouraging young people to stay off drugs and out of gangs and 
out of trouble--when people work in partnership, they can drop the crime 
rate dramatically. I have been to community after community after

[[Page 1623]]

community where people gave up on it but where the streets are now safe. 
And I don't want to stop until every American feels safe in their homes, 
on their streets, in their schools, in their places of work. We can do 
this. And I want you to help me build that bridge to the 21st century.
    Let me also say that in every election people always talk about 
family values. Well, our administration has tried to value families. 
Tipper Gore has worked for 20 years to try to create conditions in which 
people could raise children without having them subject to destructive 
influences from our larger culture. The First Lady has worked for over 
20 years to try to help improve the conditions of childrearing and 
health care for our young children.
    We were the first administration in history that took on the tobacco 
industry and said it is illegal to sell cigarettes to young people--no 
more advertising, marketing, and sales to them. It is wrong.
    The first bill I signed was the family and medical leave law. It 
said simply you can't be fired if you have to take a little time off for 
the birth of a child or the illness of a child or a parent. Now, this is 
a classic example of our differences. My opponent led the fight against 
that law. He says today, we made a terrible mistake to pass it, that it 
was antibusiness. Well, if it was antibusiness, how come we got 10\1/2\ 
million more jobs and record numbers of new small businesses? It wasn't 
antibusiness. People do better at work if they know they're doing right 
by their kids at home. That's what I mean by a village, a bridge we can 
all walk across.
    And I'd like to see the family and medical leave law expanded just a 
little bit to say that people shouldn't lose their jobs either--they 
ought to have a little time off to go to regular conferences with their 
children's teachers and to be able to take their kids and their parents 
to the doctor when they need to go. It will make us stronger. It will be 
a good thing for the economy.
    The last thing I want to say is the Vice President and I worked very 
hard to prove that you could grow the economy and preserve the 
environment and that in the end you can't grow the economy unless you 
preserve the environment. I told you a few minutes ago we cleaned up a 
lot of toxic waste dumps. That's the good news. The bad news is 10 
million American children still live within 4 miles of a toxic waste 
site. If you give us 4 more years, we'll get rid of the two-thirds worst 
ones, 500 of them, so we can say America's children are growing up next 
to parks like this, not next to poison. That's a big part of our bridge 
to the 21st century.
    Now, I want to ask you again, I want you to take the next 6 weeks 
and 5 days, go out to your friends and neighbors, without regard to 
their party, and say, let's have a talk about what we want America to 
look like in the 21st century. Let's have a talk about what we want 
America to look like when our children are our age. Let's have a talk 
about this election because we're electing the last President of the 
20th century and the first President of the 21st century. And let's have 
a talk about how we can build that bridge big enough, wide enough, and 
strong enough so we can all go marching across it together to the best 
days America has ever had.
    Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:40 p.m. at Sacajawea Park. A portion of 
these remarks could not be verified because the tape was incomplete.