[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[November 1, 1996]
[Pages 2007-2013]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 2007]]


Remarks in Santa Barbara, California
November 1, 1996

    The President. Good morning. Thank you very much. Thank you. Can it 
really be November? [Laughter] Thank you so much, Mayor Miller, County 
Superintendent Naomi Schwartz, President MacDougall, Senator O'Connell. 
And an alumna of this school, your State Superintendent of Schools, 
Delaine Eastin, thank you for being here.
    I am delighted to be back here. As all of you know, I think, our 
family came here on a little vacation after the '92 election. I hope 
this will bring us good luck in the next 4 days. I'm glad to be here.
    I want to thank Walter Capps for running again for Congress after 
1994. As some of you may know, I have more than a passing interest in 
this race because his daughter, Laura, works for us at the White House. 
And if there were a popularity contest among White House employees, she 
would probably win it. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I know 
from her that he should be elected, quite apart from everything he has 
done. Let me say, Walter Capps lost a very close race in 1994, about 
1,000 votes. It would have been easy to walk away from a disappointment 
like that, but he came back. He had a serious accident. It would have 
been easy to walk away and say, ``Well, someone else should take up this 
battle,'' but he came back. That's the kind of commitment and courage 
and fortitude this country needs in the United States Congress.
    And last year, when his opponent joined the Gingrich-Dole 
revolution----
    Audience members. Boo-o-o!
    The President. ----and voted for an almost unbelievably destructive 
budget for America, one that would have cut environmental enforcement 
drastically, made it more difficult for us to take further actions to 
protect our environment, the first cut in education in modern history, 
including student loans and Head Start----
    Audience members. Boo-o-o!
    The President. ----repealed the guarantee of health care we had 
provided for 30 years to poor children; to middle class families with 
members with disabilities to allow them to care for their family 
members, let them live at home, and maintain their middle class 
lifestyles; to our seniors in nursing homes, even to repeal the very 
standards of care we impose to protect people in nursing homes.
    When that happened and I vetoed it, they shut the Government down. 
And they said, ``You have to accept everything in our budget, or we will 
just keep shutting the Government down.'' And the people who led the way 
were those first-year Members of Congress, like Mr. Capps' opponent. 
They said, ``We want everything.'' I said, ``Well, there's a provision 
in this budget which would allow corporation managers to raid their 
workers' pension funds. Don't we have any memory? Look what happened in 
the eighties to the pension funds.'' In 1994, finally I got through the 
last Congress a bill to protect the pensions of 40 million working 
Americans. I said, ``Are we going to go right back around and do this 
all over again?'' ``Yes, shut the Government down.''
    I said, ``Well, there's a provision in this bill, while it gives me 
a tax cut at my income level--which I don't need--until we balance the 
budget, this bill would actually raise taxes on 8 million of the hardest 
working Americans, people working for very modest wages--trying to raise 
their taxes? You're going to take away their present tax credits and 
raise their taxes? Can we take that out?'' ``No, shut the Government 
down.''
    Audience members. Boo-o-o!
    The President. Now there's an attempt to develop a little short-term 
amnesia among the electorate as we get closer to the elections: ``Please 
forget that; forget that.'' [Laughter]
    You have a big choice to make in this race. Walter Capps is a good 
man, a brave man. He shares your values; he shares your dreams. I hope 
you'll send him back to Congress.
    Ladies and gentlemen, in just 4 days we will elect the last 
President of the 20th century and we will choose the first President of 
the 21st century. As Walter Capps said, I do believe we're at one of 
those magic moments between hope and history, when we have the 
opportunity to both have unprecedented prosperity and discovery and 
adventure and move closer to the values and the ideals which we all say 
we believe

[[Page 2008]]

in. But it depends upon what vision we choose. And it depends on what 
strategy we choose.
    There are so many young people here in the audience, and I thank you 
for being here, because this is about you. And I want to ask you to do 
something tonight. Before you turn in when you go home, take just a 
couple of minutes and see if you can ask yourself and answer this 
question: What would I like my country to look like when we cross that 
great bridge into the 21st century? What would I like my country to be 
like when my children are my age?
    I know what I want. I want the American dream alive for every person 
who's willing to work for it. I want America to keep being the strongest 
force for peace and freedom and prosperity in the entire world, even if 
we have to make some controversial decisions to help end wars like 
Bosnia or throw dictators out of Haiti or continue to move forward in 
other areas. I know I've been criticized for some of the things I've 
tried to do, but I know that there are no Russian missiles pointed at 
the children of America for the first time since the dawn of the cold 
war. And I want an America that is coming together instead of being torn 
apart. All around the world people are being divided by race, by 
religion, by ethnicity, by tribe, killing each other and each other's 
children because they cannot get along. Look in this crowd today. In 
this crowd we say, you can be an American; it doesn't matter who you 
are, where you're from, anything else about you. You've just got to 
believe in our values, obey the law, and do a good job.
    Now, we have followed a simple strategy: opportunity for all, 
responsibility from all, an American community that includes all. Four 
years ago, the people of California, in very difficult conditions, took 
that strategy on faith. Today there is a record. You don't have to take 
our word for it when you see the differences in our vision, that we want 
to build a bridge to the 21st century; they want to build a bridge to 
the past. They want to say, you're on your own; we want to say, to use 
the words of my best friend and someone I'm reasonably close to, it does 
take a village to raise a child and to build a future.
    Now we know which side is right. Over the last 4 years, incomes have 
been rising, jobs have been coming in, the average family income has 
gone up $1,600 after inflation in the last 2 years alone. We've had the 
largest drop in child poverty in 20 years; the largest drop in 
inequality among working people in 27 years; the lowest rates of 
unemployment, inflation, and home mortgages in 27 years; the highest 
rates of homeownership in 15 years; record rates of new businesses 
formed every year, including new businesses owned by women and 
minorities. We are moving in the right direction.
    The crime rate has gone down for 4 years in a row and, in the Nation 
as a whole, is at a 10-year low. The welfare rolls have been reduced by 
1.9 million. Child support collections are up 50 percent, $4 billion a 
year for deserving children all across America. We are moving in the 
right direction.
    In the closing days of the last Congress, we raised the minimum wage 
for 10 million people. We said to 25 million people--25 million people--
you can't have your health insurance taken away from you anymore just 
because you changed jobs or someone in your family has been sick. We 
said that insurance companies can no longer force hospitals to kick 
mothers and newborn babies out of the hospitals in 24 hours.
    We gave more help to small businesses, every one in the country, 
making them eligible for tax cuts if they invest more in their 
businesses. We helped people get health insurance if they self-insure by 
giving them greater tax benefits for doing that. We helped people to 
take out pensions and to carry with them from job to job if they work 
for small businesses. We're moving in the right direction.
    We gave families who will adopt a child--and there are so many out 
there who need adoption--a $5,000 tax credit. We are moving this country 
in the right direction. And we had the biggest increase in Pell Grants 
in 20 years and added 200,000 work-study positions to the Federal 
Government's efforts to help people go to college.
    Just a few days ago, we learned that our annual growth is about 3 
percent; that real incomes are rising at about 5 percent, which is a 
very healthy rate after 20 years of virtual stagnation; that we have the 
highest rates of new investment in our country, almost 19 percent, since 
President Kennedy was President.
    We have protected the air, the water, the land. We set aside in the 
Mojave Desert the biggest natural reserves south of Alaska in the 
history of America with three national parks,

[[Page 2009]]

converted the Presidio to a national park, set aside 1.7 million acres 
in southern Utah in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, 
moved to save Yellowstone Park from a gold mine, and helped to protect 
the environment. And we stopped our friends on the other side when they 
tried to lift the ban on offshore drilling.
    Now, during this whole campaign, a lot of interesting things have 
happened. I told someone yesterday and the day before, my opponent, 
Senator Dole, said that we had the worst economy in America in 20 years, 
but just 2 weeks before that he said we had the worst economy in 100 
years. [Laughter] So I think he made the case for reelection; not 
everyone can make up 80 years in 2 weeks.
    Now, the truth is, back in February he admitted we had the best 
economy in America in 30 years. And you know California, while we've 
still got a long way to go, is way better off than it was 4 years ago. 
We are moving in the right direction.
    And today we got some more good news. Unemployment held steady at 
5.2 percent in the country, 210,000 new jobs in October. That makes 10.7 
million new jobs in America since I took the oath of office. We are 
moving in the right direction.
    It is time for my opponent and those on the other side to stop all 
this doom-and-gloom talk about America. In spite of what he wants you to 
think, when it comes to the economy, the sky is not falling. The sky is 
the limit, and we're going after it.
    But this election should be about what else we have to do to build 
our common bridge to the 21st century. And I'd like to ask you all to 
sort of ride along with me for a moment and let me discuss an issue that 
hasn't been discussed enough in this campaign, and that is whether we 
will reform our system of politics by finally passing meaningful 
campaign finance reform legislation.
    When I ran for President 4 years ago, I said I wanted to give our 
Government back to the people. I wanted a Government to represent the 
national interests, not narrow interests, a Government that would stand 
up for ordinary Americans. And I have worked hard to do that. When I 
became President, I barred top officials from ever representing foreign 
Governments when they leave our service. I barred top officials from 
lobbying their own agencies for 5 years after leaving office. The days 
of the revolving door, when top trade negotiators left to work for the 
very countries they were negotiating against, are over.
    We passed the most sweeping lobby reform legislation in 50 years. 
From now on, professional lobbyists must disclose for whom they work, 
what they are spending, and what bills they are trying to pass or kill--
for the first time ever. I challenged the Congress to ban gifts from 
lobbyists, and they did that.
    We passed a line item veto so Presidents can strip special-interest 
pork in general legislation. We passed the motor-voter law, which has 
enabled millions of people to register more easily and will add millions 
to the voting rolls next Tuesday. We passed the Congressional 
Accountability Act and then the White House accountability act to apply 
to Congress and the White House the same laws that we pass and impose on 
everyone else in America.
    All these actions will serve to make Washington work better for you. 
But there is still more to do, and special interests still have too much 
say. We have clearly one more big job to do: curbing the power that 
special interests have in our elections. Everybody knows the problems of 
campaign money today. There is too much of it. It takes too much time to 
raise. And it raises too many questions.
    The parties are engaged in an escalating arms race. In the past 2 
years--listen to this--in the past 2 years, the Democratic Party and its 
House and Senate campaign committees have raised $241 million. The 
Republican Party and its Senate and House campaign committees have 
raised $399 million. Raising that much money strains the political 
system. We have played by the rules, but I know and you know we need to 
change the rules.
    I proposed a tough campaign finance bill when I came into office, 
but the Congress would not pass it. The Republicans have been reluctant 
to give up their access to big money. Led by my opponent, they 
filibustered the bill I proposed to death. In fact, campaign finance 
reform has come before the Congress six Congresses in a row, and my 
opponent filibustered it five times. He blocked the last one right 
before he left office.
    In 1995, I met with Speaker Gingrich at a townhall meeting in New 
Hampshire. And when we were there a citizen asked us if we would create 
a bipartisan commission to come up with

[[Page 2010]]

a campaign finance reform proposal that we would then try to pass. We 
both agreed. I thought it offered a real chance for bipartisanship and 
action. And frankly, I was excited about it. I even appointed two 
distinguished citizens, John Gardner and Doris Kearns Goodwin, to help 
get it started. But the Republicans walked away. My opponent now says he 
would support such a commission. But when we had a real chance to 
succeed, he wouldn't help us start it.
    Now we have a chance--we had a chance to take bipartisan politics--
or partisan politics out of this issue this year as well. I supported a 
strong bipartisan bill introduced by one of my opponent's strongest 
supporters, Senator John McCain, and Senator Fred Thompson and 
Democratic Senator Russ Feingold from Wisconsin. They've got a good 
approach. It's based on principles I advocated back in 1992. We should 
curb the power of special interests by restricting political action 
committees and dramatically reducing the amount they can give to 
candidates. We should ban contributions from lobbyists to those who 
lobby. That's what I believe. We should end the big money contributions 
to political parties known today as soft money. We should ban 
corporations and unions from directly giving to parties to help Federal 
candidates they can no longer help directly. And for the first time 
ever, we should restrict the virtually unlimited amount of money 
individuals can now give to parties. We should set voluntary spending 
limits for candidates. And we should give free TV time so that all 
candidates who observe the voluntary limits--but only those who observe 
the voluntary limits--can talk directly to voters.
    And parenthetically, I might say we made a beginning on that 
approach this year, and I would like to thank those networks which 
offered Senator Dole and me the opportunity to speak directly to the 
voters at various times in 90-second or 2-minute messages. I thought 
that was a very good public service. It's the beginning of seeing how we 
might do it on a sustained, regular, disciplined basis, because we have 
to have access to the voters and if you have to purchase it all, it is 
extremely expensive. So the voluntary spending limits and the free time 
must work together.
    This is a good approach. It was endorsed by Common Cause and every 
other major reform group. It was bipartisan. It was tough. It was real 
reform. But my opponent opposed it. He refused to bring it to the floor 
for a vote. And after he left Congress to run for President, the 
Republican leaders finally allowed the legislation to come to a vote, 
and then they killed it.
    There is one more issue that reform must deal with. Today it is 
legal for both parties to receive contributions from corporations that 
are completely owned by foreign corporations or interests and from 
individuals who live in the United States legally but are not citizens. 
Many of them have lived here many years and have employees and interests 
in this country. The Democratic Party has raised money this way, and so 
has the Republican Party. In fact, the Republican Party has raised much 
more money in this way than the Democrats, but that's not the point. 
It's time to end this practice as well.
    Now, McCain-Feingold would end all corporate contributions, so it 
would take care of that part of the problem. But we should also end 
contributions to either party from individuals who are not citizens. 
There are many immigrants who play an important role in our country, and 
all of you in California know I have done my best to defend legal 
immigration and the rich contribution it makes to the United States of 
America. But if the essence of a democracy is its citizens decide, and 
only citizens can vote, then I believe only citizens should be able to 
contribute. That is not anti-immigrant, it is simply stating the fact: 
Those who vote should finance the elections that they vote in.
    There is no more excuse for waiting. I tried to form a commission, 
but now is not the time for a commission. This is a time for action. 
Once again, I call upon the Congress to enact real reform. Delay will 
only help those who don't want to change at all. When McCain and 
Feingold introduce their bill next year, I will introduce it with them. 
Real reform will mean a Government that is more representative, not 
less. And I ask you, every one of you, to help us to pass real, 
meaningful campaign finance reform in Washington. Will you do that? 
[Applause]
    Now, let me say one other thing. We should also understand that in a 
recent case the Supreme Court has made it impossible to enforce some of 
the strictest limits. And this bill will not solve all of our problems. 
Even as it establishes limits, it will still allow, because of the 
Supreme Court's decisions, a millionaire or a

[[Page 2011]]

billionaire to spend endless sums running for office. It may be that 
further measures are needed. But in the meantime, that's not an excuse 
to do what we can. We must act, and we must act now.
    Let me also say to you that your vote will decide a lot of things in 
this election. It's far bigger than President Clinton or Senator Dole, 
even bigger than Congressman Capps or Congresswoman Seastrand. This 
election is really about how we are going to proceed into the 21st 
century as a people. Your vote will decide, for example, whether we keep 
the economy growing by balancing the budget while protecting our 
investments in education, the environment, and research and technology 
and Medicare and Medicaid or whether we adopt an even more radical 
version of the budget I vetoed that will blow a hole in the deficit, 
raise taxes on 9 million people, and require bigger cuts than the ones 
that I vetoed last time.
    Your vote will decide what we do about helping families to balance 
the demands of work and childrearing, the biggest challenge many 
families face. I'm proud of the fact that we passed the Family and 
Medical Leave Act and let 12 million people take some time off from work 
when a baby was born or someone in their family was sick.
    Now, this is an honest difference between the two parties. My 
opponent led the opposition to it, said this year it was still a 
mistake. Well, we have some evidence now. Twelve million times it's been 
used, and during that time we've had record new business formation and 
10.7 million new jobs. The reason is, America is stronger economically 
with happy, productive people in the workplace who aren't worried sick 
about their children at home. That's why.
    I'd like to see us expand family leave. I think people ought to be 
able to take a little time off from work to go see their children's 
teachers twice a year or take their kids to regular doctor's 
appointments. I believe people who earn overtime and have problems in 
the family, a sick spouse, a sick child, a sick parent--I think people 
who earn overtime ought to have the right to decide whether to take the 
overtime in money or time with the family. We'll be a stronger country 
with a stronger economy when people feel better about fulfilling their 
responsibilities to their family members. And I want you to help me do 
that. Walter Capps will. Will you help us? [Applause]
    We passed the beginning of health care reform, but our balanced 
budget would help people who are between jobs keep health insurance for 
their families for 6 months. It would add another million people to the 
ranks of insured--children. It would work with States to add another 2 
million working families to the ranks of insured. There are still too 
many people without insurance. It would give free mammograms to women on 
Medicare. It would give help for respite care for the over 1\1/2\ 
million families that are struggling nobly and bravely and humanely to 
care for a family member with Alzheimer's. Our budget pays for it; 
theirs doesn't. Will you help us do that? [Applause]
    We passed the V-chip for new television sets, got a TV rating system 
voluntarily developed by the entertainment industry, secured an 
agreement for 3 more hours of educational television, doubled the amount 
of funds going into the safe and drug-free schools program, and for the 
first time ever took action to stop the big tobacco companies from 
advertising and marketing tobacco to children.
    Now, on the V-chip, on the safe and drug-free schools program which 
has helped so many children to stay away from drugs and trouble, and on 
the tobacco issue, my opponent disagrees. All these things can still be 
reversed. I think we need them as building blocks in our bridge. Will 
you help me keep them and do them into the 21st century? [Applause]
    We passed the Brady bill, the assault weapons ban, a bill to put 
100,000 police on the streets, ``three strikes and you're out.'' Our 
opponents, Senator Dole and the Speaker, they led the fight against that 
crime bill. And now they don't understand why every major law 
enforcement organization, for the first time ever, has endorsed the 
Clinton/Gore ticket for reelection.
    We know how to lower the crime rate. We've fought for the 100,000 
police; Senator Dole led the fight against it. When they won the 
Congress, they voted to abolish the program, even though the crime rate 
was going down. Then they tried to cut the program. We've only funded 
half of those police officers, and I'd like to finish the job, but you 
have to help me. Will you do it? [Applause] They actually tried to 
repeal the assault weapons ban, and Walter Capps' opponent voted to do 
that.
    Audience members. Boo-o-o!
    The President. Now, you know, 2 years ago, frankly, they were just 
paying a debt 2 years

[[Page 2012]]

ago. That's why a lot of them won. They went out in a lot of these rural 
districts in places like my home State, where half the people have a 
hunting or a fishing license or both, and they said, ``There they go 
again. They're going to take your guns away. That's what the Brady bill 
and the assault weapons ban mean.''
    Well, 2 years later, those same people who voted that way know the 
truth. Not a single hunter or sportsperson in America has lost a 
legitimate weapon, but over 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers can't 
get a handgun because of the Brady bill. And we just extended the Brady 
bill so that now people who've beat up their spouses and their children 
can't get it either. And now that we have fought off the attempt to 
repeal the assault weapons ban, we ought to make sure they don't come 
back with that. And we ought to ban bullets that are designed for one 
purpose only, to pierce the bulletproof vests of police officers. They 
are wrong, and we ought to get rid of them. Will you help us finish this 
job? [Applause]
    We moved a million nine hundred thousand people from welfare to work 
and passed historic welfare reform legislation that says we will 
guarantee to poor people, and to the children especially, health care, 
nutrition, and more child care than ever when people move from welfare 
to work. But able-bodied people must move within 2 years from welfare to 
work. But the law doesn't do anything. You can't require people to go to 
work unless there are jobs for them to take. I have a plan to create 
another million jobs to help move people from welfare to work. Will you 
help us implement that plan? [Applause]
    There is much more to do on the environment. A lot of these plans 
for these national parks and other preserves are just beginning. We have 
to finish the job. We cleaned up more toxic waste sites in 3 years than 
they did in 12. But we still have 10 million kids living within 4 miles 
of toxic sites. We'll clean up the 500 worst ones. We want to be able to 
say in the 21st century, all our children can grow up next to parks, not 
poison. Will you help us do that? [Applause]
    And most important of all, your vote will decide--as the president 
said here when we started--whether we put ourselves squarely on the line 
for giving every single American access to world-class education. I am 
proud of the fact that we have increased Head Start; passed the national 
service program; given schools all over California and the rest of the 
country opportunities to try new and exciting ways to achieve 
excellence, like the charter movement; that we passed a new college loan 
program which lowers the cost of college loans and gives young people a 
chance to repay them as a percentage of their income so people can never 
be bankrupted by borrowing the money to go to college. I'm proud of the 
increase in the Pell grants and 200,000 more work-study positions. But 
it is just a beginning. There is more we need to do. And I need your 
help.
    Forty percent of our 8-year-olds still cannot read independently by 
the third grade. Part of it is we're having a new wave of immigration. A 
lot of those children's first language is not English. But that will be 
cold comfort for them if they move through school unable to continue to 
learn. I have a proposal to mobilize AmeriCorps volunteers and 30,000 
other reading specialists to go around the country and get a million 
volunteers to teach our children to read. And I want 100,000 of those 
200,000 new work-study slots to go to young college students who say, 
``I'll go. I'll teach young people to read.'' Will you help us do that? 
Will you help us? [Applause]
    Schools all over America are bursting at the seams with the largest 
number of children in history. We have the first plan ever to help 
school districts to build new facilities and repair old ones so our kids 
have decent learning environments. We have a plan to hook up every 
classroom and every library in every school in America to the 
information superhighway by the year 2000. Will you help us do it? 
[Applause]
    We do want to say, in 4 years we can make at least 2 years of higher 
education as universal as a college diploma is today, simply by saying 
you can deduct from your taxes, dollar for dollar, the cost of the 
typical community college tuition if you go and make your grades and 
you're a good citizen. Will you help us do that? [Applause] I want to 
let families save in an IRA for their retirement but withdraw tax-free 
if the money's being used for education, health care, or first-time 
homebuying. Will you help us do that? [Applause] And I believe we should 
give families a tax deduction of up to $10,000 a year for the cost of 
any college tuition at any level for Americans of any age. Will you help 
us do that? [Applause] Now, that will build a bridge to the 21st 
century.

[[Page 2013]]

    And finally let me say, as you look around this vast sea of people 
today, I ask you to think again of how we are going to do this and 
whether we are going to practice the politics of division--what some 
gleefully call wedge issues--or are we going to say, ``We want to go 
forward together''?
    Think about how sad it is that in the Holy Land, the home of the 
world's three great monotheistic religions, people still cannot lay down 
their hatred of one another. Think how sad it is that in the home of my 
ancestors, Ireland, full of young, brilliant people bursting at the 
seams for new opportunity in Northern Ireland, people still cannot lay 
down their religious differences and their arguments about incidents 
that occurred centuries ago. Think about how sad it is that in Bosnia, 
people who are biologically indistinguishable killed one another's 
children with reckless abandon. Or in Rwanda, Burundi, the Hutus and the 
Tutsis--both of them with no money, really, to speak of to further their 
dreams and help their children--instead of cooperating, slaughter each 
other at record rates.
    In America we must fight against that. That's why we had to stand 
against what happened at Oklahoma City. That's why we had to stand 
against the church burnings and the defacement of synagogues and mosques 
and Islamic centers. And that's why we have to stand together for a 
different future.
    If you want all these things I talked about, in the end it will to 
some extent be an affair of the American heart. We must be willing to 
say, I tell you again, that in this country all we need to know about 
you is whether you embrace our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our 
Declaration of Independence; whether you are willing to show up for work 
or school tomorrow; whether you are willing to give your neighbors the 
elbow room to pursue their personal lives and their freedom; whether you 
are willing to treat people, even those with whom you dramatically 
disagree, with genuine respect if they are law-abiding, hard-working 
citizens. And we ought to say, if you're that way, we don't need to know 
anything else about you. You're part of our America, and we're going to 
build a bridge together to the 21st century.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 9:44 a.m. at Santa Barbara City College. In 
his remarks, he referred to Mayor Harriet Miller of Santa Barbara; Naomi 
Schwartz, superintendent, Santa Barbara County schools; Peter 
MacDougall, president, Santa Barbara City College; State Senator Jack 
O'Connell; Delaine Eastin, State superintendent of schools; and Walter 
Capps, candidate for California's 22d Congressional District.