[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[October 21, 1996]
[Pages 1878-1880]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at Cuyahoga Community College in Parma, Ohio
October 21, 1996

    Thank you very much. Good morning. I won't let the rain bother me if 
you don't let it bother you; how's that? Thank you so much, all of you, 
for being here. I'm going to put on my raincoat. I cheat a little bit.
    First let me thank Dr. Jerry Sue Thornton and all the people here at 
this wonderful community college for hosting us. Thank you, Senator 
Glenn. Thank you, Mayor Gerald Boldt. I'm glad to be back in Parma. 
Thank you, sir. I'm the only President in history who has ever come to 
Parma twice just to eat pierogies, but I'm--[laughter]. We're going to 
do a little work today.
    Thank you, Cleveland Mayor Mike White. Thank you, Dennis Kucinich, 
for that great speech. He sounded like a Congressman to me. Thank you, 
Mayor Tom Coyne, for running for Congress. Thank you, Congressmen Tom 
Sawyer and Sherrod Brown, for being here. Thank you, Representative Jane 
Campbell, David Leland. Thank you, Mayor Dimora, for being here.
    And let me say a special thanks to the Valley Forge High School Band 
for being here. I am not so old that I do not remember what it's like to 
try to play one of those instruments in the rain. It's not easy, and 
let's give them another hand. Come on. [Applause] I also want to thank 
all the other students who are here. There is a group of students back 
here--[applause]--there is a group of students in the back over there 
with a sign that says they got out of school and I have to sign their 
permission slip. So I will do that for the ones in the back.
    Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for being here. Thanks for that 
``Ohio Republicans for Clinton/Gore'' sign. That looks good to me. I am 
delighted to be back here.
    Let me say, all of you know that 4 years ago when I ran for 
President we had a time of high unemployment and rising frustration. And 
all of you know that compared to 4 years ago, we are better off. We have 
10\1/2\ million more jobs. The unemployment rate in Ohio has gone from 7 
percent to 4.8 percent. Average family income in the last 2 years is up 
$1,600 after inflation, after being stagnant for a decade. We are moving 
in the right direction. The crime rate has come down for 4 years in a 
row. The welfare rolls have dropped. Child support collections are up 
almost 50 percent. We're moving in the right direction.
    This election will determine what direction we take into the 21st 
century. That is the decision before all of you. Will you help me build 
a bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    If you compare the work we've done in the last month since you had 
your voices heard, compared to the last 2 years, when I vetoed a budget 
that would have cut education for the first time in American history, 
weakened environmental protection, undermined the commitments of 
Medicare and Medicaid--and you stood by me and made your voices heard. 
Now, in the last month, we raised the minimum wage

[[Page 1879]]

for 10 million working Americans. We passed the Kennedy-Kassebaum health 
care reform bill that says you cannot lose your health insurance anymore 
because somebody in your family has been sick or because you changed 
jobs. We gave a $5,000 tax credit to families that would adopt some of 
these hundreds of thousands of children out there who need a home and 
support of a family. And we made it easier for small-business people to 
take out pensions for themselves and their employees. We are moving in 
the right direction.
    But now you have to make a decision in about 2 weeks. Your vote will 
decide whether we balance our budget and protect Medicare and Medicaid, 
education and the environment, and give targeted tax cuts to families to 
help them raise their children and educate them, to help them save for 
that first-time home or deal with medical costs, or whether we blow a 
hole in the deficit with a risky tax scheme that will raise taxes on the 
9 million working people, increase the deficit, and cut education again. 
I think the answer is clear.
    Your vote will decide whether we continue to support families, 
whether we continue to fight crime, whether we really finish the job of 
reforming welfare. Yes, we passed a bill that says people on welfare 
have 2 years to turn that welfare check into a paycheck. Now we have to 
make sure the jobs are there so that they can take the jobs and build 
good families.
    Your vote will decide whether we continue to clean up the 
environment or give in to those who say we have to weaken our 
environment to grow our economy. You know better than that. I want to 
clean up 500 more toxic waste dumps in this country so every American 
child will be growing up next to parks, not poison, and I think you do, 
too.
    Most of all, your vote will decide whether we continue our struggle 
for world-class education for the schoolchildren who are here, whether 
we continue to expand Head Start, whether we continue to raise 
standards, whether we hook up every single classroom in the United 
States of America to the information superhighway--the Internet, the 
World Wide Web--by the year 2000, so that for the first time in history 
every child in America, in a private, parochial, or a public school, 
whether in a rich, a middle class, or a very poor district--for the 
first time ever we'll have every child able to hook into the same amount 
of learning in the same time in the same way from all over the world. It 
will revolutionize opportunity for every child in the United States.
    And above all, your vote will decide whether we make the 
opportunities you enjoy here available to all Americans. In the last 4 
years we've had the biggest increase in Pell grant scholarships in 20 
years. We had a huge increase in work-study in just the last month 
approved. We created the AmeriCorps program, which has helped 69,000 
young people to serve their community and work their way through 
college. We have created the school-to-work program for young people who 
don't go to 4-year colleges, and that includes the Cuyahoga Community 
College's Tech Prep program right here. That's the kind of thing we have 
tried to do.
    Now, what I want to tell you is we have more to do. One of the 
things we did that you heard your president talk about is pass the 
direct loan program. It made it quicker and cheaper for young people to 
get college loans. Sixteen hundred schools now participate in that 
program, including Cuyahoga Community College and 69 others in Ohio. And 
what that has meant is that 10 million Americans have saved an average 
of $190 each on their college loan. And even more important, it means 
you can borrow money to go to college without worrying about how you're 
going to pay it back, because you cannot be required to pay more than a 
certain percentage of your income every year. That means every young 
person in this program can afford to borrow the money to go to college. 
But there is more to do. I propose the following three things. It's a 
big part of your decision on November 5th.
    Number one, look around you here. I want to make 2 years of 
education after high school as universal in America by the year 2000 as 
a high school diploma is today. And there's a simple way to do it. I 
propose to give every family a $1,500 tax credit--that's the cost of a 
typical community college tuition--a dollar-for-dollar reduction on 
their tax bill if they're going to a community college or another 2-year 
institution. Will you help me do that? [Applause]
    And I propose to give every family a tax deduction of up to $10,000 
a year for the cost of any college tuition, undergraduate, graduate, you 
name it. Will you help me do that? [Applause]
    Finally, I propose to let families save more in IRA's and withdraw 
from them without any

[[Page 1880]]

penalty if the money is being used for a college education or for health 
care or to buy a first home. Will you help me build that bridge to the 
21st century? [Applause]
    Folks, even in the rain we know that the key to our future is 
investing in the minds of our people. This decision, more than anything 
else, will determine whether we together as a nation recommit ourselves 
to the proposition that in the 21st century if we want every American to 
live up to the fullest of his or her God-given ability, we must 
guarantee every American a world-class education, and I need your help 
to do that. Will you help? [Applause] Will you support that? [Applause]
    The program that I have outlined altogether will make sure that the 
money saved by a middle class family for college need never be taxed, 
that we are going to invest together in a college education.
    Now, as all of you know, my opponent has a different view. He 
opposed the creation of the Department of Education, and now he says 
that he and Speaker Gingrich will eliminate it. I believe they're wrong 
and we're right. We need a Department of Education. Just imagine what it 
would be like in the United States, alone of all the great nations, to 
start the 21st century with no one in the President's Cabinet to speak 
up for the education of our children. I say let's keep it, let's make it 
better, let's expand educational opportunity for all of our children.
    Thirty-one years ago, my opponent voted against the creation of the 
student loan program in the first place. Three years ago, he opposed the 
direct lending program, which your president just praised and which you 
know has improved college loans right here at Cuyahoga Community 
College. He's tried to cut it back and cripple it ever since.
    And the budget I vetoed last year would have cut Pell grant 
scholarships for hundreds of thousands of students for the first time 
ever. Instead, we fought them back and we got the biggest increase in 
Pell grants in 20 years. Will you support the direction we are taking 
for education for all Americans? [Applause]
    I want you to be clear about that. Your vote is going to decide 
whether we continue to expand access to college and student loans or 
whether we eliminate the Department of Education, cut college aid, and 
tell our young people to fend for themselves. I don't know what all the 
family circumstances of all those young people in the band are over 
there, but I know one thing: All of us will be better off if every 
single one of them, without regard to their family income, can get a 
college education. And I want you to help me do that.
    I want you to help me make sure we have an America in 4 years at the 
dawn of a new century where every 8-year-old can read, every 12-year-old 
can log on to the Internet, and every 18-year-old in America can go on 
to college. We just have 2 weeks and a day. Will you help me for 2 weeks 
and a day build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:20 a.m. on the Campus Green. In his 
remarks, he referred to Jerry Sue Thornton, president, Cuyahoga 
Community College; Mayor Gerald M. Boldt of Parma; Dennis Kucinich, 
candidate for Ohio's 10th Congressional District; Mayor Thomas J. Coyne, 
Jr., of Brookpark, OH, candidate for Ohio's 19th Congressional District; 
State Representative Jane L. Campbell; David Leland, chair, Ohio 
Democratic Party; and Mayor Jimmy Dimora of Bedford Heights, OH.