[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[September 28, 1996]
[Pages 1718-1721]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in Fall River, Massachusetts
September 28, 1996

    The President. Thank you.
    Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
    The President. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Fall River! Mr. Mayor, 
thank you for making me feel so welcome. Senator Kennedy pointed out I 
have been all over the world. This is my first trip here. If I had know 
what I was missing, I'd have been here sooner, I can tell you that. 
Thank you very much. Thank you.
    Are there any Portuguese-Americans here? [Applause] Obrigado [Thank 
you], Fall River. I'm glad to be here. I'm delighted to be here with all 
of you. I thank Joan Menard for starting us off and for the good work 
she has done. I want to thank Jim McGovern for presenting himself as a 
candidate for Congress, and I hope you'll make him a Congressman. He'd 
be a good one. I want to thank my good friend Congressman Barney Frank 
who's here, who used to represent you in the legislature. Thank you, 
Barney. And I want to thank his sister, Ann Lewis, who is the 
spokesperson for my Presidential campaign. You may have seen her on 
television taking up for me. She's going to wind up getting her name 
recognition up as high as her brother's, and that's a pretty good thing. 
And I want to thank their proud mother, Elsie Frank, who is here 
somewhere today. I saw her. Thank you, dear.
    I am delighted to be here with all of you. But I want to say a 
special word of thanks, as an old musician, to Our Lady of Light Band 
and the Mike Moran Band. Thank you both for providing the music for us.
    Thank you, Senator Ted Kennedy. And Vicki, thank you for being here. 
You know, I wish I had as much energy as Ted Kennedy does. I just left 
Providence, where I was with Congressman Patrick Kennedy, and he was the 
bounciest person on that stage. Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot imagine 
the phenomenal impact that Ted Kennedy had on this Congress. After they 
passed their radical budget and I vetoed it and you made clear--you and 
people like you all across America, in all 50 States, Democrats, 
Republicans, and independents, too--that you basically agreed with me 
and us and not them, it was just amazing what Ted Kennedy was able to do 
in this Congress.
    The Kennedy-Kassebaum health care reform bill will make 25 million 
Americans eligible to keep their health insurance when they change jobs 
and say they can't lose it if somebody in their family gets sick--25 
million. And this Congress, which just a year ago was out there trying

[[Page 1719]]

to raise income taxes on the lowest income working American families, 
trying to lower the income of the working people with the lowest incomes 
in the country--thanks to the leadership of Ted Kennedy, on October 1st, 
which I think is Tuesday, 10 million Americans will get a pay raise when 
their minimum wage goes up. Thank you, Senator, thank you.
    And I might add that bill will also make it easier for people in 
small businesses to take out retirement plans and for employees in small 
businesses to keep those retirement plans when they move from business 
to business. So it's good for workers and good for business. It also has 
a $5,000 tax credit for families who adopt children who need a home, and 
I hope more of them will get a home now. Thank you for that bill. It's a 
good bill for America.
    I'm delighted to be here with my friend Senator John Kerry and with 
Teresa. And I want to tell you, folks, I know that John Kerry has a 
vigorous and spirited race. But every one of you here in Fall River 
knows what's really at stake. We're going through a period of great 
change in this country in how we work, how we live, how we relate to the 
rest of the world, what it will take for us to see that every American 
lives up to the fullest of his or her God-given potential.
    When I put forward my economic plan in 1993, the other side said it 
would cause a recession and increase unemployment and increase the 
deficit. Well, now we know. We've got 10\1/2\ million jobs, and the 
deficit has gone down 4 years in a row for the first time since before 
the Civil War. John Kerry was right. He's on the right side of history.
    When we tried to get past 6 years of talking tough on crime but 
nothing happening--rhetoric and rhetoric and rhetoric and no action--to 
put 100,000 police on the street, to ban deadly assault weapons, to pass 
the Brady bill, the other side, they led the fight against it. But John 
Kerry helped us pass the toughest, smartest, best crime bill this 
country has seen in many a day, and the crime rate has gone down for 4 
years in a row. John Kerry was on the right side of history, and 
Massachusetts should stay with him.
    And when we were expanding Head Start and passing that school-to-
work program Senator Kennedy talked about to help young people who don't 
go to 4-year colleges get good training and good jobs, when we improved 
the college loan program by cutting the cost and improving the repayment 
terms, when we did these things, the other guys, they tried to stop us. 
But John Kerry helped us pass it. He's on the right side of history. And 
he's on the right side of history in making college available to all 
Americans. We'll do it if you give us 4 more years and if you give us 
John Kerry back to the United States Senate.
    And finally, let me thank Sheila Levesque. Could every one of you 
get up here and do what she did?
    Audience members. No-o-o!
    The President. A single mom, a nurse, worked all night long on her 
shift, hadn't had any sleep--I said, ``Sheila, did you get any sleep 
last night?'' She said maybe an hour or two since she got off work--
stood up here in front of this vast crowd and told you the story of her 
life. The reason we wanted her to do that is that this election is not 
about the politicians on this stage. This election is about whether the 
decisions we make connect and improve and advance the lives and the 
values of people like Sheila Levesque all over this country. That's what 
this election is about. That's what it's about.
    When I was in Providence, I was introduced by a woman who got a Pell 
grant to go back to the community college to try to do right by her 
family. And there was another young woman there in Providence that I 
featured in my book and that spoke at the Democratic Convention, a 
Puerto Rican immigrant girl, a high school dropout, worked several jobs, 
joined AmeriCorps, our national service program, and then got herself--
after dropping out of high school and becoming a leader in AmeriCorps--
got herself into Brown University, where she just started her second 
year. That's what this is all about, helping people to make the most of 
their own lives.
    Yesterday I was in the great State of Texas. And people tell me, 
``Well, that's a Republican State; what did you go down there for?'' 
I'll tell you why I went. There were 13,000 people in the small town of 
Longview, Texas, at about 8:30 yesterday morning. And after I spoke, as 
is my custom, I went out into the crowd and I started shaking hands. I 
met the following three people in 5 minutes. I met a 34-year-old single 
mother with two kids who joined AmeriCorps and had gotten herself some 
money

[[Page 1720]]

helping the local community and was going back to the junior college 
there.
    Then I met a woman who said, ``Mr. President, if it hadn't been for 
the Family and Medical Leave Act, I don't know what I would have done. 
My husband had cancer, but I got to take some time off and be with him 
when he was so desperately ill without losing my job and wrecking our 
family.'' You know, the other side, their leaders fought against the 
family and medical leave law. But John Kerry and Barney Frank and Ted 
Kennedy, they were on the right side of history, helping people succeed 
at home and at work. It was the right thing to do.
    And then I met a man who had a camouflage jacket on, obviously a 
veteran. He was a Vietnam veteran standing there with his wife. His 
little daughter was in a wheelchair. She'd had 12 operations because her 
father served our country in Vietnam, was exposed to Agent Orange, and 
like far too many children of veterans, his child got spina bifida. But 
finally last week in a bill that I signed, we finally at long last gave 
help in the form of disability payments and extra medical support to the 
children of Vietnam veterans born with spina bifida--who were exposed--
and it's high time. That's what this election is all about. That's what 
this is all about.
    My fellow Americans, you were very good to me in 1992, but you took 
me on faith and the word of others. When I said to you that we could 
create an America in the 21st century with opportunity for everyone 
responsible enough to work for it, where we were coming together and 
respecting our diversity instead of being torn apart by it, where we 
were still leading the world toward peace and freedom and prosperity, 
you took me on faith. But after 4 years of working for opportunity, 
responsibility, and a stronger community, you don't have to do that 
anymore. The evidence is in, and now we know. Now we know.
    With 10\1/2\ million more jobs, a record number of new small 
businesses, and the census report last week telling us--I almost wept 
when I read it. Who ever heard of crying over a dry Government report? 
But every year they tell us how we did the year before. So the census 
report for 1995 said, compared to the year before, that typical American 
families had $900 more after inflation; that we had the biggest drop in 
childhood poverty in 20 years; the biggest drop in poverty in female 
households in 30 years, female-headed households; the biggest drop in 
the number of people living in poverty in 27 years; and the biggest drop 
in the inequality of working families in 27 years. We are on the right 
track to the 21st century, and we need to keep going. We need to keep 
going.
    We have more to do. We have more to do to build that bridge to the 
21st century. Yes, we made a lot of progress these last 3 months because 
you made your voices heard. But you have to say again on election day, 
what is the direction of this country? And in all candor, friends, I'm 
tired of the meanness and the personal attacks that have dominated our 
politics for too long. There are honest differences between us. We can 
share them with respect.
    And the ideas here at issue that will determine whether we're on the 
right side of the future are the following: Do you believe that we have 
to build a bridge to the 21st century big enough for all of us to go 
across, or can we try to reach back and build a bridge to the past? You 
know we have to build a bridge to the future.
    Do you believe, as my opponent said in all honesty in his speech to 
the Republican Convention--he was being absolutely honest and candid, 
and he said, frankly, he did not agree with the First Lady that it took 
a village; he thought families and individuals would be better off being 
left alone, that they could do better on their own. You know something? 
I think Hillary was right. I think it does take a village to raise our 
children and build our communities and build our future. But you have to 
decide. You have to decide.
    I'm glad that a little of my--a precious little of my income as a 
tax-paying citizen went to help to give Sheila Levesque a chance to be a 
better mother, a more productive citizen, and build a better future. And 
you know what? I think I'm better off because of that, and I think you 
are, too.
    For every young person in this audience, I believe it is a good 
thing for us to enact the educational program for the 21st century that 
Senator Kerry outlined. Why shouldn't we say we're going to make 2 years 
of community college education as universal as a high school diploma is 
in the next 4 years? We need to do it. Why shouldn't we do it? Let 
people take the money off their taxes for the cost of a typical tuition. 
Why shouldn't we give people a $10,000 tax deduction for the cost of 
tuition after high

[[Page 1721]]

school, any kind of college tuition, people of any age? Why shouldn't we 
do it? We can pay for it. I'm for that.
    And I'm for balancing the budget, too, because that will lower your 
interest rates on your student loans, your car payments, your house 
payments, on your credit card payments. It will lower your interest 
rates. It will keep interest rates down for business loans so that we 
can keep creating new jobs and build on the economic record of the last 
4 years. But I am not for doing it and using that as an excuse to wreck 
Medicaid, which has given our commitment, our solemn commitment of 
health care to poor children, to the elderly in nursing homes, most of 
them themselves the parents of middle class families. I don't want to 
see us walk away from middle class working families who because of 
Medicaid have had family members with disabilities who could live in 
dignity without driving their families into poverty. We don't have to do 
that to balance the budget, and I won't do it.
    We don't have to cut back on education or environmental protection. 
And we have to continue investing in research and technology. Yesterday, 
folks, I was in Houston, and I welcomed home that magnificent astronaut 
Shannon Lucid when she came home after 6 months. A lot of you saw her 
come home. When she was a little girl, she told an adult she wanted to 
be a rocket scientist when she grew up. And she was told, there is no 
such thing, and if there were it wouldn't be a girl. [Laughter] Well, 
guess what? There are a lot of them now, and a lot of them are women. 
And the young girls of America and the young women liked seeing Shannon 
Lucid up there.
    What is the point of that? President Kennedy believed we could go 
into space and make a success of the space program, and he fought for 
it. I'm glad he did. I'm glad he supported it. I'm glad I have supported 
it. And I'm glad we've still got it. And I think those who thought it 
shouldn't be done were wrong. We have to continue to invest in research 
to build a better future. I want the young people here to be able to do 
those jobs of the future. We are today building a supercomputer with IBM 
that will do more calculations in one second than you can do on a hand-
held calculator in 30,000 years. And we have to do that.
    We are today seeing experiments with laboratory animals whose spines 
have been severed, who have movement in their lower limbs again because 
of nerve transplants. We have doubled the life expectancy of people with 
HIV and AIDS in only 4 years. We have to keep going and investing, and 
we're better off when we do that, building a better future, being on the 
right side of history, building that bridge.
    So here's what I want to know from you. For 38 days, for 38 days, 
will you help us build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause] Will 
you talk to your friends and your neighbors, your coworkers, people in 
Massachusetts and your friends beyond in other States and say, we have 
got to keep building that bridge to the 21st century, and we've got to 
go across it together? We cannot be divided by race, by gender, by 
religion, by ethnic group. We are a great, great country, and our best 
days are still ahead if we are committed to going across that bridge 
together. Will you do it?
    Audience members. Yes!
    The President. Then we'll prevail. Thank you, and God bless you all. 
Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:04 p.m. at Kennedy Park. In his remarks, 
he referred to Mayor Edward Lambart, Jr., of Fall River; State 
Representative Joan Menard; Senator Edward Kennedy's wife, Vicki; 
Senator John Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz; and Sheila Levesque, who 
introduced the President.