[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[October 7, 1996]
[Pages 1784-1788]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in Manchester, New Hampshire
October 7, 1996

    Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, 5 years ago today, on 
October 7th, 1991, I came to New Hampshire. I am told that I am the only 
sitting President since your own Franklin Pierce to actually come to New 
Hampshire every single year of my Presidency. I can tell you that on 
this gorgeous fall day, looking out at all of you and seeing so many of 
you who have been my friends now through good times and bad, there may 
be someone in America

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right now who's happier than I am, but I have no idea who it would be. I 
am glad to be here. Thank you, and God bless you all.
    It's great to be back in Manchester. I want to thank the mayor and 
all those who came out to the airport to greet me. I want to thank the 
two football teams who changed their schedule so we could all be here, 
the Central High JV and the Concord High JV. Let's give them a hand. 
[Applause] Where are they? There they are back here and back there. 
Thanks. I want to thank the bands, the Central High School and the 
Spalding High School Marching Bands over here. Give them a hand; they 
did a great job. [Applause]
    I want to tell you how very proud I am to be up here with these fine 
candidates. I was listening to Arnie Arnesen speak, and I thought, she 
could double the energy in the House of Representatives all by herself. 
We need that kind of vigor in this country.
    And I heard Joe Keefe and I remembered how I employed him in the 
dark days to stay on as the chairman of the Democratic Party in New 
Hampshire, and he said he would, and what a difference a year and a half 
makes. Thank you, Joe Keefe, for fighting for New Hampshire, for 
America, and for the future of this country.
    I looked at Dick Swett and I thought of the times when we talked in 
quiet places without big crowds about this country and its future. I 
remembered when he was for a law to require Congress to live under the 
same laws it imposes on the rest of us before it was popular, before 
anybody knew anything about it. And it's the law of the land today. And 
I campaigned on it in 1992 in the State of New Hampshire because of the 
work that Dick Swett did. And he can do better work if you'll send him 
to the United States Senate where we can move forward and stop the 
negative forces and build the positive forces of America.
    And I was thinking of the first time I ever met Jeanne Shaheen and 
what a terrific Governor she would be for any State and especially for 
New Hampshire. Jeanne, I thank you.
    And I thank you, Dick, for what you said about the debate last 
night. I enjoyed that debate, and I thank Senator Dole for joining me, 
and I believe that the American people got a pretty good feel for the 
differences between us, the differences in our views. And we just proved 
you can still do it and be civilized and decent and humane. And that's 
the way we ought to conduct our public affairs in this country.
    Four years ago when I came here, the issue was how we could get our 
economy going again, how we could pierce the rising tide of cynicism in 
our electorate, how we could pull this country back together again. 
Today, the issue is what path will we take to the 21st century? Are we 
on the right path or should we turn back to another path?
    If you look at where we are now compared to where we were 4 years 
ago, just think back to then and what it was like in New Hampshire, a 
time of high unemployment, bankruptcies, rising frustration and anger. I 
said then and I repeat to you today: I want this country to go into the 
21st century with the American dream alive for every single child in 
America, with our American community coming together instead of coming 
apart.
    Think how many places in the world today are crippled and face 
destruction because people who come from different religions or races or 
ethnic groups simply cannot get along. In America, we can all get along 
if we share the same values and we honor our system and we show up for 
work.
    And I was determined to see this country continue to lead the world 
for peace and freedom. But 4 years ago you took me on faith. You don't 
have to do that anymore. Now there's a record: 10\1/2\ million jobs, 
record numbers of new businesses, record exports of American products, 
4\1/2\ million new homeowners, 10 million homeowners who refinanced 
their homes at lower interest rates, 4 years of declining crime rates, 
child support up 50 percent, welfare rolls down 2 million, out-of-
wedlock births dropping for the first time in 20 years. This country is 
on the right track to the 21st century.
    Four years ago we doubted whether ordinary Americans would ever 
benefit even from an improving economy. But now we know we can turn that 
around. Since the passage of our economic plan, the average income for 
families, the typical family in America, has gone up more than $1,600 
after inflation. Last year we had the biggest drop in poverty in 27 
years, the lowest poverty rate among senior citizens ever recorded. And 
all people, all working people, were finally beginning to benefit from 
our endeavors. We had the biggest drop in inequality of working people's 
incomes in 27 years. We are on the right track to the 21st century.

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    And so I say to you, I hope that you in one month and one day, and 
all the American people like you all over this country, will make a 
decision to stay on that track, to plow new ground, to think new 
thoughts, to come up with new ideas, to leave behind the old debates, 
the old policies, and the things that got us in so much trouble because 
they were long out of date.
    Just think how far we have come and where we can go. We have cut the 
deficit by 60 percent. It's gone down in all 4 years for the first time 
since the Second World War. Truth is, it's gone down in 4 years for the 
first time since before the Civil War. But we had a surplus in some of 
those other years.
    But now we have to finish the job. People tell me--people tell me in 
Washington, ``Now, don't go anywhere and talk about balancing the budget 
because it bores people now, and it requires tough decisions.'' But it's 
important. Why? Because these declining deficits have meant as the 
Government borrows less money, it's easier for you to borrow money. 
That's why interest rates are lower for home mortgages, credit card 
rates, car payments, student loan payments, and business loans. That's 
why they're lower, because we're bringing the deficit down. So I say to 
you, now we have to finish the job of balancing the budget in a way that 
enables us to continue to invest in education and research and protect 
the environment and the health care of our seniors and our families in 
need. Will you help me build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    We cut taxes for 15 million working families and made every small 
business in America eligible for a substantial tax cut when they invest 
more in their business. Now we have to cut taxes to help families raise 
their children and educate them, to pay for buying a home, not to pay 
taxes when you sell a home, to deal with a medical emergency. Will you 
help me build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    We passed the Family and Medical Leave Act. We just passed a bill to 
stop what I call drive-by deliveries, requiring--letting insurance 
companies force mothers and their newborn babies out of the hospital 
within a day. That's over now. We ended that. We finally gave some 
recognition to the needs of mental health in health insurance policies. 
And finally, after a long, long time, we made the children of Vietnam 
veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange, who contracted spina bifida 
as a result, finally we made those families eligible for health care and 
disability payments that we should have done long ago. We're moving in 
the right direction.
    Now we ought to expand family leave to say you can take a little 
time off from work without losing your job to take your parents or your 
children to regular doctor's appointments or to go to that conference 
with a teacher at your child's school. We ought to give our families the 
opportunity if they earn overtime at work to decide whether to spend 
that overtime--to get that overtime in more money or more time if their 
children or their sick parents need it. We ought to do that as well.
    We made 25 million Americans more likely to keep their health 
insurance with the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill by saying no one can take your 
insurance away from you now just because you change jobs or because 
someone in your family has been sick. Now we need to finish the job and 
cover people when they're between jobs. That is also in my balanced 
budget plan. Will you help me build that bridge for families to the 21st 
century? [Applause]
    We passed the toughest crime bill in history and are bringing the 
crime rate down 4 years in a row. We need now to take on the tough 
problem of juvenile gangs, and we need to finish the job until we get 
all those 100,000 police out there like the ones I saw here in 
Manchester helping you to recover your neighborhoods. Will you help me 
build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    We worked with States all over this country to move nearly 2 million 
people from welfare to work. And then I signed a historic welfare reform 
bill that says we will continue to provide to poor families health care 
and nutrition, and when the parent goes to work there will be more for 
child care than ever before. But now every State and community in the 
country has to take what used to be the welfare check, and if the adult, 
the parent, is able-bodied, that welfare check has to become a paycheck 
within 2 years. Will you help me create the jobs to put people to work 
and end the cycle of dependency in America and build that bridge to the 
21st century? [Applause]
    We've worked hard to improve our environment, to take chemicals out 
of the air, to make our drinking water safe, to improve the standards of 
health for our food. We've cleaned up

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more toxic waste dumps in 3 years than the previous administrations did 
in 12. We fought their attempts and we beat back their attempts to cut 
environmental protection, toxic waste cleanups by a third, to take over 
some of the national parks and let them be privatized. We've protected 
our national parks, but we have to continue to enhance America's 
environment and to clean up the worst toxic waste dumps in this country 
so our children are growing up next to parks, not poison. Will you help 
me build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    And above all, will you help me make education our number one 
priority so that all of our people can create, compete, and win? 
[Applause]
    My fellow Americans, the young people in this audience, within just 
a few years--let's hear it for them--[applause]--the young people in 
this audience, many of you will be doing jobs that have not even been 
created yet. Many of you, in fact, will be doing work that has not been 
imagined yet.
    We are pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, creating new 
activities, and coming together across national boundaries all across 
the world as never before. In just 4 years, medical research has more 
than doubled the life expectancy of people with HIV infections--in just 
4 years.
    We are--within a few years, every time a young mother comes home 
from the hospital, the mother and father will be able to get a genetic 
map which tells you what your child's health care profile will be like 
for a lifetime. People will know how to raise their children, what kind 
of exercise they most need, what kind of diet they most need, what kind 
of medical care they most need. We will extend life and make it more 
abundant because of what we are doing in research. But we have to have 
people educated to do it.
    We are doing a joint project now--research with IBM to build in a 
matter of a couple of years a supercomputer that will do more 
calculations in one second than you can do on your hand-held calculator 
in 30,000 years.
    We have got to invest in education and make America the education 
capital of the entire world. Will you help me build that bridge to the 
21st century? [Applause]
    Will you help me mobilize an army of volunteer literacy tutors, 
AmeriCorps volunteers, and others so that we can make sure that by the 
year 2000 every single 8-year-old in America can read independently? 
[Applause]
    Will you help me prove that we were right and those who opposed us 
were wrong, that the Goals 2000 program allows local schools to set 
their own grassroots reforms to achieve excellence? It's not a national 
standard of uniformity on the schools of New Hampshire; it's an 
empowerment tool to challenge every State to set national standards and 
international standards of excellence and cut the schools loose to 
achieve them. Will you help me do that? [Applause]
    Will you help us hook up every classroom in America to the 
information superhighway so that all of our students, no matter whether 
they are poor, rich, or middle class, can have access to the same 
learning at the same level of quality in the same time for the very 
first time in the entire history of the United States of America? Will 
you help me do that? [Applause]
    And finally, will you help me open the doors of college education to 
every single person in America of any age who needs to go? [Applause] 
Will you help me pass a tax credit so that people can deduct dollar for 
dollar the cost of tuition at the typical community college or 
vocational training school so that everybody can get 2 years of 
education after high school? [Applause] Will you help me pass that 
deduction of up to $10,000 a year for the cost of any college tuition so 
that every family can afford to go? [Applause]
    My fellow Americans, it feels a lot different in New Hampshire than 
it did 4 years ago. But the faces are the same; the spirit is the same. 
You embody the character and hope and promise of America. I can never 
thank you all for what you have done for me and for Hillary, for our 
family, our campaign, and our administration. If it weren't for you, I 
wouldn't be here tonight, and you know it.
    New Hampshire, you gave me the chance to serve you for 4 years. You 
know now that what you took on faith has been justified by the record. 
The American people saw last night the stark choices before us. Our best 
days are still ahead. Will you help me build a bridge to the 21st 
century? [Applause]
    Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:18 p.m. at Gill Stadium. In his remarks, 
he referred to Mayor Raymond J. Wieczorek of Manchester; Deborah (Arnie) 
Arnesen and Joseph F. Keefe, candidates

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for New Hampshire's Second and First Congressional Districts, 
respectively; Dick Swett, New Hampshire senatorial candidate; and Jeanne 
Shaheen, New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate.