[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[November 1, 1996]
[Pages 2013-2017]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in El Paso, Texas
November 1, 1996

    Thank you. Hello, El Paso! Can you hear us in the back? Can you hear 
us behind the press back there? I always wanted to come back to El Paso. 
Congressman Coleman asked me to come back to El Paso before he left 
office. He didn't tell me if I came back the whole town would come out 
to see me, but I'm glad to see you. Thank you.
    Thank you, Ron Coleman, for the great service you have rendered to 
this district, to Texas, and to your country. We'll miss you. Thank you, 
Governor Briscoe, for your speech, your work, the power of your example, 
your faith, and your energy. I too believe, like you, if we all show up 
on Tuesday, the result will be good and we will win and move this 
country forward into the right direction.
    Thank you, Judge Mattox, Texas Democratic Chair Bill White, LULAC 
President Beline Robles. Ambassador Talles is here somewhere. Where are 
you, sir? Raise your hand. Hello, it's good to see you. Thank you for 
being here. State Senator-nominee Eliot Shapleigh; thank you, Victor 
Morales, for your long, courageous effort to prove that an ordinary 
American citizen's voice can still be heard in the 1990's. Thank you. 
Give him a hand. [Applause]
    Thank you, Silvestre Reyes, first, for the boots; I'll wear them, 
both pairs, with great pride and great memories of this day. Thank

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you for your career in the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Thank 
you for proving that America can protect its borders and still be an 
honorable nation of immigrants. Thank you, Silvestre Reyes.
    I want to thank all the bands that came out today: Hanks High 
School, Bowie High School, Austin High School, Parkland, Riverside, 
Socorro, Del Valle. I thank the dance groups, the mariachis, La 
Differentia, the Shiloh Baptist Church, all those who performed before I 
came. It sounds like you had half the fun before I showed up.
    I am so glad to be here. We are about to elect the last President of 
the 20th century and the first President of the 21st century. I 
especially am glad to see so many young people here today, for this 
election is about your future. We are not just ending a century and 
beginning a new one. You all know that in every place in America we are 
changing the way we work and live, the way we relate to each other and 
to the rest of the world.
    This is a time full of promise and hope and a time full of 
challenge. This is an election of enormous moment, one with great 
consequences and, thankfully, one with clear choices: Will we build a 
bridge to the future or a bridge to the past? Do you believe, along with 
our friends on the other side, that we're all on our own, or do you 
believe, as the person closest to me once said, it does take a village 
to raise our children and build our future, and we have to do it 
together?
    That is the choice. Four years ago, I came to Texas and all across 
the country, along with the Vice President, to say that we wanted to 
create an America in the 21st century where every person, without regard 
to race or religion or gender or background or where you start out in 
life, would have a chance to live up to their God-given abilities if 
they were responsible enough to work for it; that we wanted an America 
involved with the world, leading the world for peace and freedom and 
prosperity; and we wanted an America where all of us, regardless of our 
backgrounds, have a place at the table and a part in America's 
community; that we're going to be growing together, not growing apart, 
as we move into the 21st century.
    Four years ago, the American people took us on faith. But now there 
is a record, and the record is clear. Compared to 4 years ago, we have 
10.7 million new jobs in America; homeownership is at a 15-year high; 
unemployment, inflation, and home mortgages together at a 27-year low. 
We had the biggest drop in child poverty in 20 years. We are moving in 
the right direction, and we need to keep on going all the way to the 
21st century.
    In our country the crime rate has come down for 4 years in a row and 
is at its lowest level in 10 years. The welfare rolls have been reduced 
by nearly 2 million. Child support is up by 50 percent, $4 billion a 
year. We have improved college loans, lowering the costs and making the 
repayments easier. We have more children in Head Start. We just added 
200,000 work-study positions so more children can go on to college and 
pay their way through. We raised the minimum wage for 10 million 
Americans. We made 25 million Americans eligible to keep their health 
insurance because now it's illegal to take it away when you change jobs 
or just because someone in your family gets sick. We have stopped the 
practice of insurance companies all across this country in kicking 
mothers and their newborn babies out of the hospital after only 24 
hours. We are moving in the right direction.
    It is interesting to me that my opponent says that the country is in 
terrible shape. Let me ask you this, folks. If a Republican had been 
President and had reduced the size of the Federal Government to its 
smallest size since President Kennedy, eliminated more regulations and 
programs than his 2 predecessors in 12 years, reduced the deficit in all 
4 years of his term for the first time in the 20th century, and helped 
to create an economy in which there were 10.7 million new jobs, do you 
really believe they would be saying that the sky is falling? The sky is 
not falling; the sky is the limit for America if we keep on going the 
way we're going.
    I ask each of you to do what you can between now and Tuesday to 
reach all your friends, to talk to them about the consequences and the 
choice. We have so much more to do. We must decide, are we going to 
follow the path that I have laid out and balance the budget while 
protecting Medicare and Medicaid and education and the environment for 
our seniors, for families with members with disabilities, for our 
children and their future, to prove that we can preserve our natural 
heritage? Are we going to keep going forward together or adopt that 
risky tax scheme that would blow a hole in the deficit, weaken the Texas 
economy, require bigger cuts

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than the ones I vetoed last year when they shut the Government down? I 
think you want to keep America going in the right direction. Will you 
help us do that? [Applause]
    We must decide whether we're going to meet perhaps the biggest 
challenge of this new age for ordinary families. Everywhere I go, people 
of all income groups, even well-to-do people with children, tell me that 
they're spending more hours at work than ever before and they're 
concerned about whether they can also be good parents. I hear it 
everywhere. We have worked hard for the family and medical leave law, 
and 12 million people took a little time off from work when a baby was 
born or a family member was sick, without losing their jobs. I think we 
did the right thing. They believe we did the wrong thing. You have to 
decide.
    I believe our country is better off when people are happy at work 
because they know their children are doing well at home and in school. I 
want to expand family leave so that people can go see their children's 
teachers twice a year. I think that would make us a stronger country. I 
want to say that people ought to be able to take just a little time off 
from work to take their parents or their children to regular doctor's 
appointments. I want to say that we ought to give more parents help to 
raise their children. That's why we've doubled funding for the safe and 
drug-free schools program, so we'd have those D.A.R.E. officers and 
others in our schools telling our kids that drugs are dangerous, they're 
illegal, they can kill you. Let's start. They tried to cut that program 
in half. I think we were right, and they were wrong.
    That's why we have worked to stop the tobacco companies from 
advertising and selling tobacco illegally to our young children, because 
3,000 a day start smoking, and 1,000 will die sooner because of it. It 
is wrong. They disagree with me. I think I'm right. You have to decide. 
I want to see it through to make every child's future as healthy as 
possible. Will you help us? [Applause]
    You already heard what Congressman Coleman said. When we passed the 
crime bill in 1994 to put 100,000 police on our streets, to give our 
young children something to say yes to and constructive activities, to 
say that when people commit three serious crimes in a row they ought not 
to ever be paroled, to say that we were going to have a program to 
promote efforts to prevent violence against women and children, to pass 
the Brady bill, to pass the assault weapons ban, those friends on the 
other side in the other party, they led the fight against it. My 
opponent led the fight against it.
    They told everybody--they went all over Texas telling people, ``The 
Democrats have lost their mind; that President is going to come take 
your gun away.'' Now, I grew up in a State where half the people have a 
hunting or a fishing license or both. And I saw people in my own State 
wondering if they were telling the truth. And they won a lot of 
elections in 1994 with that line--a lot--maybe why they have the House 
now. They may have made Mr. Gingrich the Speaker of the House telling 
people we're going to take their guns away. But you know, we've had 2 
years now, and now we know the truth. In all the State of Texas, as vast 
and wide as it is, not a single law-abiding hunter or sports person has 
lost a weapon. But over 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers did not 
get handguns because of the Brady bill. And now people who beat up their 
children and their spouses can't get them either. And I think we were 
right. You have to decide.
    We've got the crime rate coming down for 4 years in a row, the 
lowest crime rate in 10 years. But you and I know there's still too much 
violence in our country. We have to do more. We have only funded half of 
those police officers. We have only done part of what we're trying to do 
with our children in the schools. But they keep trying to stop us from 
putting 100,000 police on the street. You have to decide.
    There's a reason why the Vice President and I were the first team in 
our party ever to get the endorsement of every major law enforcement 
group in the entire United States, because we are for the safety of our 
children. We think every street, every school, every neighborhood should 
be safe. I think we're right and they're wrong, and I want you to decide 
and help us build a safe bridge to the 21st century.
    There are many other issues I would like to talk about. But when I 
look at this group today I know that they are important to you. I have a 
plan to move a million people from welfare to work. We passed a welfare 
reform law that says people who are able-bodied have to go to work 
within 2 years. But if they're going to go to work, there have to be 
jobs there. I have a plan to create them. I want you to help me create 
those jobs. Will you do it? [Applause]

[[Page 2016]]

    For 4 years, I have asked the Congress to reform the laws of 
campaign finance. Today again I called for a bipartisan approach to 
reduce the influence of special interests in politics and give more 
ordinary citizens like Victor Morales a fighting chance to be heard by 
the people and elected by the people. Will you help us pass campaign 
finance reform? [Applause]
    But most important of all is whether we are committed to giving our 
people a world-class education, not just some children but all children 
and all adults who need it. Will you help us do that? [Applause]
    I have offered the American people a proposal to mobilize one 
million volunteers to go all across America to work with parents and 
teachers to make sure that by the year 2000 every single 8-year-old in 
America can pick up a book and say, ``I can read this all by myself.'' 
Will you help us do it? [Applause]
    I've asked 100,000 of the new work-study programs for college 
students be dedicated to young people who will go into our schools and 
help our children learn to read. Will the young people in this audience 
pledge to help us do this? Will you help us teach our children to read? 
[Applause]
    I want to hook up every classroom and every library and every school 
in El Paso and every other community in America to the information 
superhighway, to the Internet, to the World Wide Web, to make sure that 
these children, for the very first time in the history of America, will 
all be able to get the same information in the same way at the same 
time. It will revolutionize learning in America. Will you help me do 
that by the year 2000? [Applause]
    And finally, will you help us open the doors of college education to 
all Americans? [Applause] Let me tell you, folks, there is no clearer 
example than learning of what we should be doing together and why our 
approach is right and theirs is wrong. We are pushing the frontiers of 
knowledge as never before. In the last 4 years, we discovered two genes 
that cause breast cancer. It is a matter of time before we're able to 
detect it early enough to save the life of every woman who is afflicted 
by it. In the last few months, for the first time ever, laboratory 
animals with their spines completely severed have recovered movement in 
their legs because of nerve transplants; it's just a matter of time 
until we can do that for people. And America should lead the way with 
learning, and you should support it.
    But it's not just the scientists, it's everyone. We all need that. I 
want to open the doors of college education to all Americans by doing 
three things. Number one, in 4 years we ought to make a community 
college degree, at least 2 years after high school, as universal as a 
high school diploma is today. And here's how we're going to do it. I 
want to let people simply deduct from their taxes, dollar for dollar, 
the cost of a typical community college tuition. It will help everyone 
get what they need. I want to let you save in a retirement account but 
withdraw from it without any penalty if you use the money for a college 
education or for homebuying or health care costs. And I want every 
family in this country to be able to deduct up to $10,000 a year for the 
cost of any kind of college tuition. Let's open the doors to all 
Americans. Will you help us do that? [Applause] Will you help us in the 
back? [Applause] Will you help us? [Applause]
    My fellow Americans, in these political campaigns, very often the 
closer you get to the election, the hotter the words get. And there has 
developed a tendency in the last few years for people to try to say that 
they don't just disagree with their opponents but their opponents are no 
good, there's something wrong with them. I personally believe that's a 
bad development in America. Most of the people, I believe, in this 
country, of both parties, love our country and only want the best for 
it. I don't have to say that I dislike the people I'm running against to 
say I disagree with them honorably.
    But let me tell you, to me this election is about big, big things. 
The world is changing. I can't take credit for that. I can't take credit 
for all the good things that have happened in America. But I do say, we 
have gone now in the right direction, and together we are making it 
better. And that's the big question before us today.
    Just in the last couple of days, I was in Denver, Colorado, at a 
rally like this--although it was considerably smaller. At the end of the 
day, I went through the crowd shaking hands as I always do, and let me 
tell you what I found: I found a young woman who had been a victim of 
domestic violence, who thanked me for the efforts we were now making 
with our hotline to help people like her out. I found three women 
together who had been victimized by

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breast cancer, who knew that we had broken new ground in medical 
research. I found a young man who had dropped out but had gone back to 
college because we've changed the college loan program to make it more 
affordable. I found a young woman who was a law enforcement officer, 
thanking me because we have put five more police officers in her 
community and she felt safer on the beat and thought their children 
would be safer because of it. Everywhere I go I find this. I found a man 
who thanked me because he and his wife had just adopted a child and they 
were able to take a little time off to get used to that baby because of 
the family and medical leave law.
    This is what elections are about: How will we change the face of 
America for the better? How will we make America better? The only thing 
that matters is what our country will look like when we go into the 21st 
century.
    Now, you look around this vast crowd today--I say to you again, we 
must do this together. So much of the time I have spent as your 
President in dealing with the problems of the world has been involved 
with people who hate each other because they are of different religions 
or races or tribes or ethnic groups. I have seen the people of Bosnia, 
who are biologically indistinguishable, actually prepared to kill each 
other and their children. In Ireland, where my people come from, there 
are still Protestants and Catholics fighting over things that happened 
hundreds of years ago while the children long for peace and a better 
future. In Africa today we see again hundreds of thousands of people 
dislodged because of tribal hatreds that are senseless. None of them 
have enough to do what they need to do for their children as it is. If 
they would simply join hands, they could make a bigger, brighter future 
for everyone, instead of shrinking the future for everyone. I see it 
everywhere.
    But America has been different, and America must be different. 
That's why when people started expressing their hatred of the Federal 
Government, I stood up for the Federal employees and reminded people 
they're our friends and neighbors; they're people like Silvestre. 
They're our neighbors and friends. That's why we stood up to the church 
burnings and to the people who would deface the mosques and the Muslim 
centers. We are all in this, and I say you know this instinctively 
because of where you live and who you are and what your experience is. 
El Paso, this is, as much as anything else, an election of the heart.
    And so I say, I want you all to be there. I want you all to be there 
because you must know the fundamental truth of America: Our best days 
are still ahead if we do the right things.
    I want to build a bridge big enough and wide enough for every single 
one of us to walk across together. Will you help me do it? [Applause] 
Will you help me? [Applause] Will you do it for your children? 
[Applause] Will you do it for our future? [Applause]
    Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 4:05 p.m. at El Paso International Airport. 
In his remarks, he referred to Dolph Briscoe, former Governor of Texas; 
Charles (Chuck) Mattox, El Paso County judge; Raymond Talles, former 
U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica; Texas senatorial candidate Victor 
Morales; and Silvestre Reyes, candidate for Texas' 16th Congressional 
District.