[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[September 27, 1996]
[Pages 1689-1694]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the Community in Longview, Texas
September 27, 1996

    The President. Thank you. Thank you.
    Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
    The President. Thank you very much. Folks, I would have come all the 
way to Longview just to see the Rangerettes and hear the Ranger Band. 
Thank you very much. I thank you for coming out on a little bit of an 
overcast day and keeping the rain away. I feel like the Sun shines on us 
in Longview today, don't you? [Applause]
    Thank you, Martha Whitehead, for being a great mayor, a great State 
treasurer, for keeping your campaign commitment and working yourself 
right out of a job. Somehow I think that people will think you're 
entitled to a lot more good jobs in the future. Thank you for your 
leadership. Thank you, county commissioner James Johnson, for being 
here. Thank you, Ann Richards, for your wonderful talk. I heard it in 
the back. Thank you, Texas Democratic Party chair and former Deputy 
Secretary of the Department of Energy Bill White. He did a great job for 
us in Washington, and he's doing a great job for the Democratic Party 
here in Texas. And thank you, Garry Mauro, my friend of many years, for 
standing up for us, sticking with us, and waiting around until we 
finally got to the point where we can win in the State of Texas because 
we've done a good job for the people of Texas.
    I also want to thank Max Sandlin for being here and for speaking 
earlier. And I want to ask you to send him to the United States 
Congress. We've got some great candidates in this part of Texas running 
for their first terms in Congress: Max Sandlin, Jim Turner, John 
Pouland. I hope they will all win. I hope you will help them so they can 
help you build that bridge to the 21st century that we've been talking 
about.
    Thank you, Judge Frank Maloney, for being here. And ladies and 
gentlemen, I'd like to take a little personal privilege here and ask 
your retiring Congressman, Jim Chapman, who has served you well and 
worked hard, just to come up here and say one word. This is the biggest 
crowd he'll see in Longview until he leaves office, and I want him to 
have a chance to say hello to you. Come on up here, Jim.

[At this point, Representative Jim Chapman made brief remarks.]

    Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

[[Page 1690]]

    The President. Thank you. Thank you.
    Ladies and gentlemen, 4 years ago I had a pretty tough time here. I 
ran for President against two guys from Texas. [Laughter] It hardly 
seemed fair to me. I'm sure I spent more time in Texas than anybody else 
who had run for President recently. And you were very good to me. We had 
a good showing here. I've had an opportunity to come back to Texas many 
times in the last 4 years, and I want to thank all those who have been 
my friends and supporters through good times and bad.
    You know, we had some tough decisions to make when I became 
President. But think what this country was like 4 years ago. We had high 
unemployment, the slowest job growth since the Great Depression, growing 
inequality because working people's wages were stagnant. The crime rate 
was going up. The welfare rolls were going up. The country was becoming 
more divided, and people were becoming more skeptical, even cynical, 
about our politics. And I believed it was because we did not have a 
unifying vision to take us into the 21st century.
    And I have a simple, straightforward idea of what I want this 
country to look like in 4 years when we start a new century and a new 
millennium. In Longview, Texas, and every town like it all across 
America, I want the American dream to be alive and well for everybody 
who is willing to work for it, without regard to where they start out in 
life. I want this country to be the world's strongest force for peace 
and freedom and prosperity, because our peace and our freedom and our 
prosperity depends upon America's ability to lead and stand up for those 
things in the world. And I wanted us to be a country that's coming 
together, not being torn apart by our differences. And I believe we can 
all say we're a lot better off by that standard today than we were 4 
years ago. We're on the right track for the 21st century. We've done it 
by trying to meet our challenges and protect our values with a simple 
little strategy: opportunity for all, responsibility from all, and an 
American community that treats everybody fairly and gives everybody a 
role to play.
    Now, you look at the results and you think about the tough times in 
1993 and 1994. When we were passing our economic plan, Mr. Morales' 
opponent said, ``If the President's plan passes, unemployment will go 
up, the deficit will go up, we'll have a terrible recession.'' That's 
what he said. Well, now we know. A trained economist, they say. Four 
years later we have 10\1/2\ million new jobs, 900,000 here in Texas; the 
lowest unemployment rate in America in 7\1/2\ years; the lowest 
unemployment rate here in 15 years; in every single year a record number 
of new small businesses; the highest rate of homeownership in 15 years; 
4\1/2\ million new homeowners.
    And yesterday, in the annual report of the United States Census 
Bureau on how we're doing as a country in terms of our income, we got 
the following information. Last year, median--that's the people in the 
middle, direct middle, not the average, the people in the middle--median 
household income last year increased by almost $900 after inflation, the 
biggest increase in family income in 10 years. Family income since that 
economic plan passed has gone up over $1,600.
    And even more important, more of us who are working are sharing in 
it. We had the biggest decline in the inequality of incomes and the 
biggest decline in the number of working Americans living in poverty in 
27 years, from one year to the next. We had the biggest decline in the 
number of children living in poverty in 20 years. We are on the right 
track, and we need to stay on that track to the 21st century.
    We have increased education opportunities, from more children in 
Head Start to a better, lower cost college loan program, to the 
AmeriCorps program to allow young people to work their way through 
college by serving in their communities. We're moving in the right 
direction.
    The crime rate has gone down for 4 years in a row because of those 
100,000 police Ann Richards was talking about. And when they told all 
the hunters in east Texas that the President was trying to take their 
guns away when the Brady bill passed, it sounded pretty good at the 
time, and we took a terrible licking in a lot of places in 1994. You 
would have thought I was going to knock on the doors myself and take 
people's guns away. Well, guess what? Now we know. Now we know. Two 
hunting seasons have come and gone. It turns out that I was telling the 
truth. When we took the 19 assault weapons off the street we protected 
650 kinds of hunting weapons. So 2 years later not a single hunter in 
Texas has lost their rifle. But 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers 
could not get handguns because of the Brady bill.

[[Page 1691]]

    So the crime rate went down. The welfare rolls are down by nearly 2 
million in America. Child support collections are up by almost 50 
percent--nearly $4 billion a year more in child support collections. 
That's helping to move people off welfare and give families dignity and 
reinforce the responsibility of everyone to support their children. We 
are moving in the right direction.
    And you know, when I ran for President--and I liked what Martha 
said. You know, she literally reinvented government. She consolidated 
her job. I heard our friends in the other party, they always said the 
Federal Government is a terrible thing. It's nothing but waste. It would 
mess up a one-car parade. And they made a living--they owned the White 
House for decades, you know, just kicking the Federal Government around. 
They hated it so much, but they couldn't bear to be outside of it. It 
kind of tickled me. But they never did anything about it. They bad-
mouthed it. They said how bad the Government was. They said we Democrats 
were nothing but Government lovers and we would defend every program.
    Well, guess what? Now we know. Our administration reduced the size 
of the Federal Government by 250,000. It's the size it was now when John 
Kennedy was President. As a percentage of our work force it's the 
smallest it's been since Franklin Roosevelt first took the oath of 
office in 1933. That's what we did to reinvent this Government. We're 
still serving you, but it is smaller.
    We have reduced the burden of Federal regulations more. We have 
eliminated more unnecessary programs. We've given more authority back to 
State and local government. We've shared more authority with the private 
sector than they ever did when they had the White House. The only 
difference is we're doing it because we think it will help to create the 
conditions and give you the tools to make the most of your own lives. So 
we still believe we ought to balance the budget, but we don't believe we 
ought to wreck the Medicare program or the Medicaid program or undermine 
education or the environment. That's the difference.
    Folks, you know, I spent the last 12 years of my life before I moved 
to Washington a lot closer to Longview than to Washington. And I was in 
Washington at a dinner last night, and Senator Dodd, the chairman of our 
party, said that he sort of felt sorry for me when I showed up. I'd 
never been in the House. I'd never been in the Senate. I'd never served 
in anybody's administration. I'd just been a Governor. I didn't 
understand how Washington worked, and it was more about talk than 
action.

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

    The President. You need some help? Where's my doctor? I've got my 
medical team. We've got somebody here who fainted. We're coming. We'll 
bring it right there. Somebody hold your hand up, and we'll find you. 
They'll be right there. Here they are. There's nothing else we can do. 
You all just--let's go on with the show here; they're going to take good 
care of him.
    Now, listen, when we came there the thing that bothered me about 
Washington was that there was a lot of talk and very little action. 
Everybody spent all their time trying to get their 30 seconds on the 
evening news, seeing who they could blame for America's problems. And I 
said, we are going to change the way Washington works. We're going to 
stop asking, ``Who is to blame'' and start asking, ``What are we going 
to do to get this country moving again and help people?''
    So I tell you today, we are better off than we were 4 years ago. But 
we've got a lot to do. And we're going to be better off still. And I 
came here to ask the people of Longview and east Texas and this great 
State to help and join in in building that bridge to the 21st century.
    Now, you know this approach is right; we are better off than we were 
4 years ago. We don't need a U-turn. We need to bear down and go right 
on into that future. And I want to ask you to help us. I want you to 
help me balance that Federal budget. We've already taken the deficit 
down 4 years in a row for the first time since before the Civil War. 
They talked about it; we did something about it. But we've got to 
balance the budget in a way that is fair to everybody. We can protect 
education and the environment and research and technology, we can 
protect Medicare and Medicaid, and we can afford a targeted tax cut tied 
to childrearing and education.
    I am very proud of the fact that on October 1st 10 million Americans 
will get an increase in their minimum wage. You may not know there is 
also in that bill tax cuts to help small business if they invest more, 
tax cuts to help

[[Page 1692]]

small businesses--self-employed people that have to buy their own health 
insurance policy. And there is also a $5,000 tax credit for any family 
that will adopt a child. That's pro-family, pro-work, and pro-business.
    What I want to see us do now is to give the American people tax 
credits for childrearing. I want to see tax cuts for education. I want 
to see tax cuts for homebuying. I want to see tax cuts for medical care. 
And I want to explain in a minute how all that works, but the main thing 
I want to say to you is we can afford the right kind of tax cut. But we 
should not have a tax cut that is a big, across-the-board tax cut that 
goes to people like me who don't need it and that will increase the 
deficit again.
    Now, every time I get on a plane and leave Washington, they say, 
``Now, Mr. President, the economy is going well now; don't go down to 
someplace like Longview and talk about the deficit. It bores people to 
death. They don't want to hear about it, and nobody cares about it 
except when times are tough.'' Well, let me tell you what it means. You 
go home tonight and you think about this. Because we cut the deficit by 
60 percent, we're not borrowing as much money. That leaves more for you. 
That means interest rates are lower.
    Now, last year our Republican friends put out a report that I agree 
with--I agreed with them last year, and I wish they hadn't changed their 
position--last year they said, ``If we get off of this plan to balance 
the budget, interest rates will go up by 2 percent.'' Now, when you go 
home tonight, you think about what that would mean. If your car payment, 
your credit card payment, and your house payment went up by 2 percent, 
that would take your tax cut away right quick, wouldn't it? Think what 
it would mean.
    Even worse, if all the little businesses up and down this street 
here and every other business in this country had to pay 2 percent more 
for a business loan, then small business would have a harder time 
expanding and growing and hiring new people. So I say, yes, cut taxes, 
but pay for every dime of it and still balance the budget. That's my 
plan. Help people educate their kids, help people build their families, 
but do it right.
    The second thing I want to say is, we've got to build a bridge to 
the 21st century where every single person has a chance to get a world-
class education. And I could keep you here until tomorrow at this time 
talking about the schools and education. But let me just tell you two of 
the things I want to do.
    Number one, I want to see every classroom in this country and every 
library and every school in America hooked up not only with computers 
but hooked up to the information superhighway, to the Internet, to the 
World Wide Web. And let me say what that means--let me tell you what 
that means. If you're like me and you're sort of out of the computer 
generation and it gives you a headache to think about all this, here's 
what it means in simple terms. If we can hook up every classroom in 
Longview to the World Wide Web, to the Internet, to all these other 
networks of information and we did that in New York City and we did that 
in the remotest place in North Dakota, for the first time in history the 
kids in the poorest school districts, the kids in the most remote school 
districts would have access to the same information at the same level of 
quality and the same time as the kids in the richest public and private 
schools in America. It has never happened before. We could revolutionize 
education, and we ought to do it.
    The second thing we ought to do is to make a college education 
available to every single person who needs it of any age. And here's my 
plan to do that in three little ideas. Number one, let more families 
save in an IRA, an individual retirement account, for their retirement, 
but let them withdraw from it tax-free if they're using it pay for a 
college education, a health emergency, to buy a first home. Number two, 
make a community college education as universal in America in 4 years as 
a high school diploma is today. Make 2 years of education as universal 
by giving families a tax credit, dollar for dollar, off their tax bill 
for the cost of tuition at the typical community college in America 
today. Number three, give the families of this country a $10,000 
deduction for the cost of any college tuition, any vocational tuition, 
up to $10,000 a year every year the kids are in college or their parents 
are in college. We ought to make this available to America, and we can 
pay for it and balance the budget. Will you help me build that bridge to 
the 21st century? [Applause]
    I want to build a bridge to the 21st century where the crime rate 
goes down for 4 more years. If we take it down 8 years in a row it might 
be low enough for us to stand it. And I have some specific ideas. First 
of all, we've

[[Page 1693]]

got to finish the job of putting those 100,000 police on the street. For 
reasons that absolutely amaze me, the Congress--this Congress--is still 
trying to stop us from putting police on the street, even though it is 
lowering the crime rate and preventing crime and helping kids to stay 
out of trouble.
    Number two, we ought to do more drug testing of people who are out 
on parole. Sixty percent of the cocaine and heroin consumed in the 
United States today is consumed by people who are already in the 
criminal justice system in some way. You should not be on parole if you 
go back to drugs. That will make us a safer country.
    Number three, we ought to fully fund our safe and drug-free schools 
act. We ought to have a D.A.R.E. officer in every grade school classroom 
that needs it in America, out there helping these kids to stay off drugs 
and stay out of trouble. For reasons I do not understand, this Congress 
has tried to cut that program in half.
    I want to do more. We have got to convince our young people not to 
get in trouble in the first place. We're not going to jail our way out 
of their problems, we've got to keep them on a good path to the future. 
We've got to keep them on that bridge to the 21st century. And we need 
to do what we can to help you folks, the parents, the religious leaders, 
and the people in law enforcement who are willing to go into these 
schools and help our kids. We need to support them in every way we can. 
We've got a program to do it, and I want to finish that job. And I want 
you to help me build that bridge to the 21st century.
    I want to build a bridge to the 21st century where we have stronger 
families. And what's the biggest problem I hear from families all over 
this country? Everywhere I go they say, ``We're having trouble doing our 
job as parents and doing our jobs. We're working harder than ever 
before, but our kids need us more than ever before.'' That's why I'm 
proud that the first bill I signed was the family leave law. It's given 
12 million families--12 million of them--the chance to take a little 
time off from work if they have a baby born or a sick child or a sick 
parent, without losing their jobs. And we're a better country because of 
that. It's been good for our economy. I believe we ought to expand it 
and say you can get a little time off from work to go to a parent-
teacher conference or a regular doctor appointment with your child, too.
    We do not weaken America's economy when we make it possible for 
people to do right by their children. We weaken America's economy when 
there are millions of workers at work all over America worried sick 
about their kids while they're trying to do their job. I want to create 
a country where everybody who wants to work can work, where everybody 
has to work who can work, but where every worker can be a good parent, 
because that's our first and most important job. That is what I'm trying 
to do, and I want you to help me build that bridge to the 21st century.
    And finally, let me say that I believe almost every American now 
understands that we can't build a bridge to the 21st century unless we 
find a way to improve our environment as we grow our economy. I'm really 
proud of the fact that we passed a safe drinking water law; we passed a 
pesticide protection act supported by all the farm groups and all the 
consumer groups, to improve the quality of our food; that we are working 
hard to clean up toxic waste dumps and we cleaned up more in 3 years 
than our predecessors did in 12. But I am concerned about the continuing 
environmental challenges we have, and I want to leave you with just one.
    As you look at all these kids in the audience today, there are still 
10 million American children--10 million American children--living 
within 4 miles of a toxic waste site. If you will give us 4 more years, 
we'll clean up the 500 worst sites so we can say America's children are 
growing up next to parks, not poison. And that's a part of our bridge to 
the 21st century.
    Now, folks, you have a clear choice in 39 days. Are we going to 
build a bridge to the past or a bridge to the future? Do we really think 
it's better to say ``you're on your own,'' or was my wonderful wife 
right, it does take a village like Longview to raise our kids and build 
our businesses and build our future? Are we going to build a bridge 
that's big enough and broad enough and strong enough for us to all walk 
across and that will be strong enough for our children and grandchildren 
to walk across?
    You know, I want to ask every one of you to go out and talk to the 
people you know who aren't here today--it doesn't matter what their 
party is--and just ask them this, say, you

[[Page 1694]]

know, the century only changes once every 100 years, and this country is 
changing dramatically, the way we work, the way we live, the way we 
relate to the rest of the world. It is changing. And ask people, what do 
you want America to look like when we go into that new century? What do 
you want America to look like when our children are our age? In 100 
years what do you want people to say that we did at this moment in time 
with our responsibility?
    If what we do is to create opportunity for everybody who is willing 
to work for it, if we prove that unlike all these other countries that 
are torn apart by their differences, we can be a country of different 
races, different religions, different points of view, bound together by 
our fidelity to the American system and American values, that we can 
lead the world--that's what I want the story to be. If those are the 
questions people ask before the election in November, 39 days from now, 
I believe I know what the answers will be. You go out and reach out to 
other citizens so that we can go forward and build that bridge to the 
21st century.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 8:55 a.m. at Tyler and Center Streets. In 
his remarks, he referred to Martha Whitehead, former mayor of Longview; 
Ann Richards, former Governor of Texas; Texas Land Commissioner Garry 
Mauro; State Supreme Court judicial candidate Frank Maloney; and Texas 
senatorial candidate Victor Morales.