[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[October 10, 1996]
[Pages 1807-1812]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in Louisville, Kentucky
October 10, 1996

    The President. Thank you. Hello, Louisville!
    Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
    The President. Thank you very much. Thank you. Folks, thank you for 
this magnificent crowd. Thank you for your great spirit. Thank you for 
this Louisville Slugger. You know, I've got one more debate, and from 
what I've heard, I may need this. You know, I was listening to all these 
folks talk--and you elect people that know how to talk--and they speak 
in a language I can understand, with no accent. [Laughter] And I am 
delighted to be here.
    I want to thank Governor Paul Patton for his strong leadership and 
his support and for being so forthright and strong and standing up for 
what we're trying to do together. I want to thank my good friend Wendell 
Ford for his

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advice, his counsel, his support. If we had a hundred people in Congress 
like Wendell Ford we'd have about half as many problems as we do today. 
He is a great leader.
    I want to thank your Congressman, Mike Ward. And I want you to know 
it is rare--it is rare for a first-term Member of Congress to have the 
kind of influence and make the kind of impact that Mike Ward has made. 
He works hard for you. He is outspoken, and I told him if I had to hear 
about Naval ordnance one more time I thought I would scream. He never 
gives up. I finally said, ``Mike, just tell me what you want to do. We 
will do it. Let's just talk about something else. Take care of the 
people of Louisville, and let's go on into the future.''
    And I want you to know that I am grateful that Wendell Ford and your 
former Congressman, Rom Mazzoli, voted in 1993 for an economic plan that 
got this country moving again, and I'm grateful that Mike Ward stood up 
and said no when the other party got control of the Congress and shut 
the Government down to try to force the United States of America and the 
President to take a budget that was wrong for America and wrong for our 
future. Thank you.
    I want to thank Steve Beshear for being willing to run for the 
United States Senate and for making an outstanding candidate. You heard 
his speech tonight. He ought to inspire your confidence, and he 
justifies your support. He's a fine man. He'll be a fine United States 
Senator, voting for the interests of Kentucky, and I hope you will 
support him.
    I want to thank all of those that are up on this platform tonight: 
Lieutenant Governor Steve Henry and Speaker Jody Richards; State 
Representative Jesse Chisolm; my 1996 cochair, Betsey Hudson; State 
Democratic Party chairman Bob Babbage. And there's one person who is not 
here tonight, but I want to mention him because he's a great friend of 
mine, your Jefferson County judge and county executive, David Armstrong. 
We were born in the same little town in Arkansas a long time ago. He's a 
great friend, and he's away because of a family crisis, and I hope you 
all will support him. He's got a sick brother. Say a prayer for him 
tonight and support David Armstrong. He's a fine man, and I'm glad to be 
here.
    And finally, I want to thank the mayor. What a mayor you have. I 
thought I had energy till I met Jerry Abramson. I thought I was 
aggressive till I met Jerry Abramson. I thought I was exuberant till I 
met Jerry Abramson. And all those things he said to you that we did 
together for the people of this city, they're all true, but they 
couldn't have happened without the leadership of Jerry Abramson. I thank 
him very much.
    I'd like to thank the Kentucky Ramblers and the Rascals of Ragtime 
for providing our entertainment before I got here. I'm glad to be able 
to visit the Louisville Slugger factory. I'm sorry I couldn't be here in 
July when the museum opened. This is an amazing place with an amazing 
history that started the day Pete Browning broke his bat playing for 
Louisville's Eclipse team. Today, there are millions of bats made here, 
still made by hand. And I want you to know, since I was a little boy, 
I've had a lot of them but none I'll treasure any more than the one I 
got tonight. Thank you very, very much.
    Folks, 4 years ago I came to Louisville to talk to you about 
fighting for the ordinary Americans who make our country go, about 
turning the direction of our country around, about paving a good way for 
Americans to the 21st century. In the last two debates, the one that I 
had with my opponent on Sunday night and in the great performance the 
Vice President put in last night--I was so very proud of him, and I know 
you were--we saw two very different visions for America, two good people 
on the other side who love our country but just see things differently 
than we do. I believe that we've got an obligation to work together to 
help each other make the most of our own lives. I believe that the First 
Lady was right when she said it takes a village to raise our children 
and to build a country that's strong. And what you have to decide is 
whether you think we have to do this together or whether we're better 
off going into the 21st century on our own.
    Now, let's look at where we were. Four years ago when I came here we 
had high unemployment, stagnant wages, and rising frustration. I was 
determined to change the direction of America. I wanted to go into the 
21st century with the American dream alive and well for every person in 
this audience, without regard to your station in life, who's willing to 
work for it. I wanted our country to beat the odds in this modern world. 
I wanted to prove that we could come together amidst all of our reli-


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gious and racial and other diversity to prove that we can go forward 
together.
    In the rest of the world, people are bedeviled everywhere by their 
religious differences, their tribal differences, their racial 
differences, their ethnic differences. But here in America, we say, if 
you show up tomorrow and you're a law-abiding citizen who works hard and 
believes in this country, you're our kind of American. We don't need to 
know anything else about you. Come on, let's go on together. Let's go on 
together. And for 4 years now we've worked hard to create opportunity, 
to demand responsibility, and to build a sense of community where 
everybody's got a role to play and everybody has a place at the table.
    Four years ago, Kentucky helped me win reelection. I never will 
forget when Wendell Ford called me, and he said, ``You've got to come to 
Kentucky one more time. Go to western Kentucky. You haven't been over 
there.'' In the middle of the night, seems like we were in western 
Kentucky. And the people of Kentucky voted for Bill Clinton and Al Gore. 
Now, Wendell still takes credit for it. He said if we hadn't come back 
that one last time, it would have never happened. [Laughter] And he may 
be right, but I'm glad you did. You took us on faith.
    The American people don't have to take us on faith anymore. Now 
there's a record. You know whether we were right or wrong. We have 10\1/
2\ million new jobs in this country. Unemployment in this State has 
dropped nearly a third. We have record numbers of new small businesses. 
Every one of them has been eligible now and been made eligible for a tax 
cut if they invest more to grow their businesses. Every one of them 
now--it's been easier for them to take out pensions for themselves and 
their employees and for people to take those pensions from job to job. 
That's better than it was 4 years ago.
    It's easier now for self-employed people to take out health 
insurance because they can deduct more of it from their taxes. That's 
better than it was 4 years ago. Median income--that's the people in the 
middle; that's not the average with all of us at the top; that's the 
people in the middle--have gone up almost $1,600 after inflation since 
Rom Mazzoli and Wendell Ford voted for the economic plan that we didn't 
get a single, solitary vote from, from the other side. We're moving in 
the right direction, folks. We're on the right track to the 21st 
century.
    We've had the largest drop in child poverty in 20 years. Now all 
economic groups that are working are participating in our economic 
growth. We've had the biggest drop in inequality among working people in 
27 years. We've got the lowest rates of inflation and unemployment in 
home mortgages in 28 years. And last week we learned that the poverty 
rate among elderly Americans has dropped to its lowest level ever 
recorded. We are moving in the right direction. We are going to the 21st 
century.
    We're getting back to our basic values. The crime rate has dropped 
for 4 years in a row. There are one million fewer crime victims this 
year. We made 12 million families eligible to take a little time off 
from work when a baby is born or a parent or a spouse or a child is 
sick. The welfare rolls are down by 1.9 million. Child support 
collections are up almost 50 percent, nearly $4 billion. We're moving in 
the right direction toward the 21st century.
    And yes, while we brought the deficit down, we knew there was a 
right way and a wrong way to do it. And I am proud that we stopped the 
other party's budget from becoming law, because it would have broken up 
the Medicare system. It would have cut too much and cost innocent 
elderly people too much. It would have ended the guarantee that Medicare 
gives and has given for three decades to the elderly people in nursing 
homes, so their children can go on and live their own lives and know 
their parents are going to be all right. It would have ended the 
guarantee we give to working class families who have people with 
disabilities in them, so they don't have to go into bankruptcy to take 
care of their loved ones.
    I think we did the right thing. It would have devastated 
environmental protection, environmental cleanup, and for the first time 
ever would have cut education funding by $30 billion, ending the 
AmeriCorps national service program, weakening the college loan program 
we worked so hard to improve, cutting back on Head Start, and generally 
dividing the country and taking it in the wrong direction.
    Instead, we said no. We like more jobs, better education, a cleaner 
environment, and a brighter future. We're going to keep on the right 
track to the 21st century.
    And just in the last few days of this Congress, because of you--not 
because of me but because

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of you--because you sent a clear signal that you wanted our country to 
go forward, we passed a lot of our initiatives. We passed the minimum 
wage bill. We passed a bill that says to 25 million Americans, you can't 
lose your health insurance anymore just because you changed jobs or 
somebody in your family's been sick. We said to mothers and their 
newborn babies, you cannot be kicked out of the hospital anymore after a 
day, no more drive-by deliveries. We're going to help people with mental 
health problems to get more insurance. At long last, we said to Vietnam 
veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange and whose children have spina 
bifida, finally, finally, we said, we're going to give you and your 
families and your children some help for medical help and for disability 
payments. It's about time. We're moving in the right direction.
    That's why every major law enforcement organization has endorsed 
Bill Clinton and Al Gore. That's never happened for anyone on our side 
before. That's why just the day after our debate in Hartford, 2,500 
business leaders, including a very large number of them who never voted 
for a Democrat for President, endorsed our campaign, because they know 
that it's good for America for us to move forward together. And I want 
you to help me finish building that bridge to the 21st century.
    And so that's the decision now before the American people: Are we 
going to back where we were, or are we going to keep going forward? Are 
we going to go forward together, or are we going to say, ``You're on 
your own''? I think I know what you want to say. We cut the deficit by 
60 percent; let's keep interest rates down and grow the economy by 
balancing the budget while we protect Medicare, Medicaid, education, and 
the environment.
    Let's have a tax cut for working families and middle class families, 
targeted to childrearing, to education, to health care, to buying that 
first home and paying no taxes on your home when you sell it, but let's 
pay for it in a balanced budget plan. Let's don't have that risky tax 
scheme that the other side offers: $550 billion, no idea how they're 
going to pay for it. I'll tell you what it means: It means bigger cuts 
in Medicare and Medicaid, education and the environment than I vetoed. 
Their plan would raise taxes on 9 million of the hardest pressed working 
families, and it would blow a hole in the deficit a mile wide.
    Folks, when I became President, we had quadrupled the debt of the 
country in 4 years, the deficit was $290 billion, people could not 
borrow money to buy a home. We now have the highest rate of 
homeownership in 15 years. I just came from Dayton, Ohio, and a 40-year-
old man came up to me and said, ``Mr. President, I just bought my first 
home because we got interest rates down and a healthy economy.'' Let's 
don't go back, folks, let's go forward. Say no to their plan and yes to 
ours.
    We passed that Family and Medical Leave Act. We passed the V-chip to 
give families the ability to control what their children see on 
television. We got 3 hours of educational television coming back on 
primetime for families so their kids will have something good to see. 
The entertainment industry's agreed to rate their TV programs. We're 
moving forward in the right direction.
    Now we ought to expand family leave and say people should get a 
little time off to take their children to a parent-teacher conference or 
their parents to the doctor. People that earn overtime, if they need it, 
ought to be able to take the overtime in time with their kids or in 
cash, at their discretion. Will you help me build that kind of bridge to 
the 21st century? [Applause]
    We made a good start on health care reform. Our balanced budget plan 
says, now we ought to help people who are between jobs. When you lose 
your job, you ought to be able to hold on to your health insurance and 
take care of your kids. Our plan would help people keep their health 
insurance for 6 more months when they're between jobs. It's all paid 
for. It would help families with parents with Alzheimer's to care for 
them. It would help do other things to prevent illness, and it would 
continue our ground-breaking work in medical research.
    In the last 4 years, we've found two genes that cause breast cancer. 
Now we may be able to find out not only how to treat it but how to 
prevent it. Just in the last few weeks, for the first time in history--
for the first time in history in the last few weeks, we saw laboratory 
animals with their spines completely severed regain movement in their 
lower limbs because of nerve transplants to their spine. Who knows what 
we can do if we keep on working for health care reform. Will you help us 
build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]

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    We did pass the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban. And in 
places like Kentucky, our opponents, they made hay while the Sun shown. 
Oh, they said, ``Oh, they're going to take all their guns away.'' You 
know something? It'll soon be deer season, won't it? I'll give $100 to 
the first hunter in Kentucky who tells me he can't go out into the deer 
woods because he lost his rifle. Not a single person has lost a hunting 
weapon, but 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers could not get 
handguns because of the Brady bill. And now people who beat up their 
spouses and children won't be able to get it either. We were right about 
that, and this is a safer country because of it.
    And yes, we are putting 100,000 police on the street. But our 
friends on the other side, they all voted against it. Then they tried to 
stop us in their budget that I vetoed, then they tried to stop us again.
    Now, just talk to the mayor or talk to the local chief of police or 
talk to anybody in law enforcement. I don't understand why anybody would 
be against that, but they are. One good argument for Steve Beshear and 
Mike Ward is that they know that what we have to do is give power back 
to people in the local communities to work with the community crime 
watch programs, like the one that Carolyn MacLuton has worked so hard 
for all of these years. God bless you, ma'am. We love you, and thank you 
for what you're doing.
    We're trying to get a million more people like her and finish 
putting 100,000 police on the street. We've only funded half of them. 
These elections are important. If you want us to finish the job so we 
can have 8 years of declining crime rates instead of 4, you've got to 
help us. Will you help us build that bridge to the 21st century? 
[Applause]
    We reduced the welfare rolls by 1.9 million. We passed the welfare 
reform bill. But it's just the beginning. Let me tell you what that 
welfare reform bill does. It says this: The National Government will 
continue to guarantee--they'll fix that in a minute, don't you all worry 
about it--the National Government will continue to guarantee health care 
and nutrition to poor families. And if someone goes to work there will 
be more money for child care than ever before. But what used to come 
from Washington in the form of a welfare check with State money will now 
go to Governor Patton. And States and communities will have 2 years to 
figure out how to turn that welfare check into a paycheck, because able-
bodied people who can work, have to work. That's good, but we have to 
create the jobs. I've got a plan to help the communities create another 
million jobs to move those people from welfare to work. Will you help me 
create those jobs and build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    We've made the water cleaner. We've made the air cleaner and freer 
of chemicals. We've raised the standards for food safety. We've cleaned 
up more toxic waste dumps in 3 years than the other side did in 12. 
We're cleaning up the environment, but there are still 10 million kids 
in this country who live within 4 miles of a toxic waste dump. Our plan 
would clean up 500 more, so I can look at the children of America and 
say they're growing up next to parks, not poison. Will you help us build 
that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    Finally, and most important, will you help us make education the top 
priority of America for the next 4 years? [Applause] Will you help us do 
that? For every child and every adult in America, we have a plan that 
deals with the major challenges of education. Number one, a lot of 
adults need to go back to school. Under our plan, we'll create a ``GI 
bill'' for America's workers. When someone loses their job, they'll get 
a skill grant worth up to $2,500 a year to take to the local community 
college, to take to another training program, to put people back to work 
at higher wages, not lower wages.
    Number two, we know that 8-year-olds have to be able to read in 
order to learn for the rest of their lives. But 40 percent of our 8-
year-olds can't read on their own. We've got a plan to put 30,000 
volunteers out there, working with schools and parents, so that every 8-
year-old can pick up a book and say, ``I can read this all by myself.'' 
Will you help us build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    I have offered the first plan ever to help schools that are trying 
to help themselves get more funds to build and modernize their schools. 
We've got more kids in school today than ever before, and it's time we 
helped them.
    And finally, for the schools, today I said again I want to hook up 
every classroom and every library in this country to the information 
superhighway so that all our kids--for the first time in American 
history, all our kids can have access to the same information in the 
same time in the same quality, rich, poor, middle class, all

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of them together. Will you help us do that? [Applause]
    And will you help us open the doors of college education to all 
Americans? [Applause] I want to make 2 years of education after high 
school just as universal as a high school diploma is today by letting 
you deduct dollar for dollar off your taxes, up to $1,500 a year, the 
typical cost of a community college tuition. I want to let every family 
deduct up to $10,000 a year for the cost of any college tuition. And I 
want to let people who save in an IRA withdraw from it to pay for 
college. Will you help us build that bridge to the 21st century? 
[Applause]
    Folks, this is a clear choice: hope against fear, the future against 
the failed policies of the past, a village working together against 
``you're on your own.'' I want to build a bridge to tomorrow that every 
single child and every single adult in the State of Kentucky and in our 
beloved United States can walk across to the best days America has ever 
known. In the next 26 days, will you help us by talking to your friends 
and neighbors to build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    Thank you. God bless you, and good night. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 8:50 p.m. at the Louisville Slugger Museum. 
In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Paul E. Patton and Lt. Gov. Steven 
Henry of Kentucky; State Representative Jesse Crenshaw; Mayor Jerry E. 
Abramson of Louisville; Betsey Hudson, cochair, Kentucky Clinton/Gore 
'96; and Carolyn MacLuton, past president, Community Oriented Policing 
Board, Fourth Police District.