[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[October 20, 1996]
[Pages 1872-1875]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Brunch for Representative Robert Torricelli in Teaneck, New 
Jersey
October 20, 1996

    The President. Thank you so very much.

[At this point, there was a disturbance in the audience.]

    Audience members. Boo-o-o!
    The President. Thank you. Wait, wait, wait a minute, wait. Okay, 
wait, we've heard--we've got your message now. Do you believe in free 
speech?
    Audience member. [Inaudible]--of Cuba or your blockade of Iraq.
    Audience member. You were the one responsible and--[inaudible]----
    Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
    The President. Thank you. Wait, wait, we've heard from you. Now it's 
my turn. It's my turn. Free speech. Have you ever noticed--it's very 
interesting; a lot of people want free speech for themselves but don't 
believe in it for anyone else. All right, it's my turn.
    Audience member. Let the President speak.

[The disturbance continued.]

    The President. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll tell you what I'm going to 
do. I'm going to talk, and you can pay attention to her or you can pay 
attention to me. Now, let me, first of all, say----

[The disturbance continued.]

    Audience member. Let's hear from the President.
    The President. Let's talk about what she--number one, we have not 
killed a million people with our blockade of Iraq. The Iraqis--Saddam 
Hussein could have had food and medicine for his children 3 years ago, 
and he refused to take it. That's one of the biggest lies I ever heard. 
Saddam Hussein is oppressing his people, we're not. Secondly, Fidel 
Castro had Americans murdered illegally, and that was wrong, too. And 
I'm proud that we have a blockade against people who kill innocent 
Americans.
    Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is a private event. Whoever is 
hosting it can let these people talk, or you can let me talk. You can do 
whatever you want to do. I want to ask----

[The disturbance continued.]

    Audience member. Get her out of here!
    The President. Wait, wait. Hey, wait, this might be interesting. She 
talked about the war on the poor. Facts are inconvenient. We had the 
biggest drop in child poverty last year in 20 years. Second fact: We had 
the biggest drop in poverty in households headed by women in 30 years. 
We had the biggest decrease in inequality among working people in 27 
years. What else should we talk about? I like this. This is good.

[[Page 1873]]

    Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
    The President. Bye. Goodbye.

[The demonstrators left the room.]

    The President. I have to tell you, folks, I don't mind people coming 
to our crowds to demonstrate; I just think that free speech should be a 
two-way street. I think it's fine if they come here and say whatever 
they want to say.
    Let me thank Governor Florio and Congressman Payne for being here. 
Where's Donald Payne? I know he's here somewhere. He came in with us. 
Thank you, Don, for being here. Let me also say that we have, I believe, 
three other candidates for Congress here: Steve Rothman, Bill Pascrell, 
Chris Evangel. Thank you three for being here. I want to thank Senator 
Lautenberg for what he said and for what he's done and for helping me to 
stand against the onslaught of the last 2 years and particularly in his 
work to protect the environment. And I want to thank Bob Torricelli for 
his remarks. I was thinking, now would I say that for him if you just 
have one vote to give? [Laughter] Split it--[laughter]--vote twice.
    What I would like to say to you is something similar, but I think 
the issue here is not one of party so much as country. And the question 
is what the direction of the country should be. And we are fortunate, 
really, all the voters in this country are fortunate in that there is a 
clear difference, so that people have a real choice. And what remains is 
for people to understand the choice, understand the practical 
consequences of it, and then to act on it. And that is really what must 
be done between now and November 5th.
    All of you by coming here and expressing your support for Bob and 
for others who are running have helped to make that choice clearer for 
the people of New Jersey. I hope you will also do what you can between 
now and the election to talk to family members, friends, coworkers, 
people you know here and in other States as well, because this choice 
that we face is very profound and should have the input of every single 
American who is registered to vote.
    One of the things that concerns me about campaigns when they become 
too negative is that a lot of people can then just get kind of turned 
off and say, ``Well, maybe this doesn't have anything to do with me.'' 
And what I tried to do in that debate in San Diego was to keep going 
back and answering the questions the people were asking so they would 
see it does have something to do with them and with you.
    And I have to tell you, I was very proud of our country when I met 
those 123 people in San Diego. I thought they did a terrific job. They 
were all undecided voters, and I thought they did a very good job of 
asking questions. I only wish that they had had a chance to ask 20 more, 
because they did a good job. And I bet if we'd had 120 people from New 
Jersey they would have asked similar questions. And that's the great 
thing about this country and the great thing about this process.
    And I just want to say, there may be very little more I can say to 
all of you. This is Sunday, and in our church we used to call this 
preaching to the saved. I guess that's what we're doing here today. 
[Laughter] But I would like for you to just think about, again, the fact 
that there are some very big ideas which have huge practical 
consequences to people at issue in this election. I said that I wanted 
to create a country in which there was opportunity for everyone 
responsible enough to work for it and in which people were coming 
together instead of being divided by their differences, that I want to 
build a bridge to the future that's wide enough and strong enough for 
all of us to walk across.
    The other side says they trust the people and we trust the 
Government. And what they want you to believe is that anybody who is 
elected to office becomes part of the Government and automatically sort 
of takes leave of their senses, their sensibility, their ability to 
listen to you. If that's what they think, why do they try so hard to 
stay in the Government? I don't understand that. [Laughter]
    But this has enormous consequences. My view is that the Government 
is simply a partner, one partner in America's great mosaic. But there 
are some things that we can do better as a nation if we do them together 
than we can if we're left to do them by ourselves, if you believe, as I 
do, we should build a bridge to the future that all of us have a chance 
to walk across. That is the only question.
    The fact is that, with the support of Senator Lautenberg and 
Congressman Torricelli, we reduced the size of the bureaucracy, the 
number of regulations, more than the two previous administrations did. 
We eliminated more programs, altogether, outright than the two previous 
administrations did. But we felt that we still

[[Page 1874]]

had some responsibilities together, which included protecting the 
environment; giving people a chance to get an education; investing in 
our common economic future, including research and technology; and 
growing this country together. And the choices are stark. You can see 
the choices we have made by working together.
    Now, if you compare that to the budget that I vetoed, even when they 
shut the Government down, it's very interesting. Their idea of moving 
toward the 21st century, a time when learning is more important than 
ever before, was to enact the first budget that ever cut education--$31 
billion--cut student loans, cut 50,000 people out of Head Start. We beat 
that and just added 50,000 people to the Head Start program. Big 
difference, huge consequences.
    Their idea on the environment was to cut back on environmental 
enforcement and also to abandon the idea that the polluter should pay 
for the pollution that he or she caused, let the taxpayers pick up that 
bill while we cut back on further cleanups and further environmental 
protection. That's a huge difference. Our idea has been safer drinking 
water, higher standards for food, get chemicals out of air, give 
communities more right to know, clean up more toxic waste sites in 3 
years than they did in 12. And we want to clean up 500 more in the next 
4 years so our kids will all be growing up next to parks, not next to 
poison. That's a very great difference, and I think I know which side 
you're on.
    On Medicare, you know, now they accuse of us being Medi-scare. Let 
me just remind you of what happened. When we realized we had to make 
some savings in the Medicare program to extend the life of the Medicare 
Trust Fund, the trustees of the fund made a certain recommendation. This 
happens every 4 or 5 years. We adopted it and went a little beyond it. 
And we said, ``Okay, we'll protect Medicare for a decade.'' They said, 
``We want to cut 2\1/2\ times that much.'' All the hospital associations 
in the country said we could put 700 hospitals in dire straits if you do 
that.
    Now, those are the facts. When they had a chance, that was their 
approach. They said, ``We're going to repeal 30 years of a commitment 
the National Government made to families with children with 
disabilities, to help those families stay in the middle class, keep 
working, and maintain their children at home. We're going to repeal the 
national nursing home standards. We're going to walk away from the help 
we're giving to middle class families whose parents have to go into 
nursing homes at an average cost of $38,000 a year.''
    Let's not forget what the real choices were here. Now, that was 
their preferred policy option. So it wasn't that we weren't willing to 
do the responsible thing; we have done the responsible thing; we will do 
the responsible thing. But I will never preside over a country, if I can 
stop it, that walks away from our common commitment to help people who 
are working hard to build strong families, do decent work, maintain 
their middle class lifestyles, even if they have a parent that needs to 
be in a nursing home or a child with a disability. I will never do that. 
And you shouldn't do that either.
    So my message to you is simple: We tried our approach, and we're 
better off. We have more jobs, more new businesses, lower unemployment, 
higher homeownership than we've had in 15 years, 4 years of declining 
crime rates, declining gun violence rates. We're moving in the right 
direction.
    The last thing we need to do is to go back to an approach which 
tells people they're on their own. Should we abandon the safe and drug-
free schools program or the National Government support for it? I don't 
think so. Did we make a mistake to pass the Brady bill and the assault 
weapons ban and to expand the Brady bill's prohibition on handgun buying 
from felons to people who beat up their spouses and their kids? I don't 
think so. I think we did the right thing. Should we keep going? I think 
we should.
    And so I want all of you to think about that and to think about what 
else you can do for Bob Torricelli, not because of Bob Torricelli but 
because of you and because of the people you care about and because of 
those little kids I shook hands with outside who couldn't get in here 
today. Some of them may never be able to go to a fundraiser, but they do 
deserve a right to get a good education, live in a clean environment, 
have a decent job, live on a safe street, and have a good future. That's 
what they deserve.
    And we are changing dramatically in the way we work and live and 
relate to the rest of the world. That's going to happen regardless. We 
have to decide how we're going to respond to those changes. I want to 
respond to those

[[Page 1875]]

changes in a way that builds a bridge we can all walk across and that 
keeps us coming together around our differences.
    So much of the world today is being torn apart because people can't 
get along because of their racial, their religious, their ethnic, their 
tribal differences. We have more diversity in the United States than any 
great democracy in the world. And it is our meal ticket to the future.
    This is another example in life when by doing the morally right 
thing, we will all grow wealthier, we will all grow happier, we will all 
be rewarded by just doing what's right. And we can only do what's right 
if we're willing to give everybody an opportunity, if we're willing to 
rebuild communities and willing to give every family a chance to 
succeed. That's what's at issue in this election.
    So I ask you again, when you think about us, do you think about all 
the efforts that have been made? Some of you have been coming to these 
events now all year long, and you're probably on your last leg. 
[Laughter] I can tell you this: There is a very high principle at stake 
here because even a lot of the good things that are happening in the 
world today are dividing people. Computers and technology and high 
levels of education, unless they are broadly shared, can help societies 
to become even more divided even as they become more prosperous. And I 
am determined to see America take advantage of these changes in a way 
that makes the whole country stronger and more coherent.
    We were just over at the New Hope Baptist Church, Bob and I were, 
and we're sort of in a good humor now. [Laughter] And we've got our 
minds right. And I was just reminded walking up there--I don't know why 
I haven't thought about it in a long time--about the magnificent poem by 
John Donne, who said, ``No man is an island entire of himself. Each is a 
part of the--a piece of the whole, a part of the main. Every person's 
death diminishes me. And therefore, send not to know for whom the bell 
tolls; it tolls for thee.'' If you believe that, you should side with us 
because we believe we're in this together.
    So I'd like to celebrate, scream, and shout, but it's not over yet. 
It's a long way from over. So I ask you again--I thank you for coming 
here; I promise we'll make it a good investment. We'll do the very best 
we can. But every one of you still has someone else in this State or in 
another State to whom you can talk between now and the election. Every 
one of you has someone who is on the margin of voting--``should I or 
should I not''--who needs to understand that there are huge, practical 
consequences to their lives in the outcome of these elections and that 
they need to show up and be counted.
    So I ask you, if you want to help us build that bridge to the 21st 
century, build it every day between now and election day by finding 
somebody else who will be there, and be there for people who care about 
them and their future.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 2 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the 
Marriott at Glen Pointe Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to President 
Saddam Hussein of Iraq; President Fidel Castro of Cuba; and James J. 
Florio, former Governor of New Jersey.