[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[November 4, 1996]
[Pages 2058-2062]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in Cleveland, Ohio
November 4, 1996

    The President. Thank you.
    Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
    The President. Thank you. Are you ready for tomorrow? Will you be 
there? [Applause] Wow! Well, I do not know what the Vice President ate 
for breakfast this morning--[laughter]--but if he'd had two more bites 
of it he would have blown the roof clear off of this thing.
    But he told you the truth. I want to say, here on this last day of 
this campaign, how profoundly grateful I am and how profoundly grateful 
I know that Hillary is to have had the partnership we have enjoyed with 
Al and Tipper Gore. He is clearly the finest Vice President in the 
history of the United States. I want to say, in ways that you can never 
know, they have represented our country with honor and distinction and 
made America a better place.
    I thank Mayor White for his leadership of this great city, a city 
that is moving in the right direction. I thank Senator John Glenn for 
his campaigning with me all across Ohio and for his campaigning and 
standing with me in Washington. Thank you, Congressman Lou Stokes, for 
your great, great leadership for the city of

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Cleveland. Thank you, Congressman Sherrod Brown. Thank you, Jane 
Campbell. I hope you'll help her tomorrow. The State party chair, David 
Leland, and our U.S. Treasurer, your former treasurer, Mary Ellen 
Withrow, thank you for coming home to Ohio to help us today.
    I, too, want to thank Joe Walsh and the James Gang. It's about time 
they got back together. And that's what we're about, bringing people 
back together, and I think we did it today. And I want to say a special 
word of thanks to Dennis Kucinich and Tom Coyne for running for the 
Congress, to give it back to you, to the people of Ohio and the people 
of America. Stand up, guys. Give them a hand. [Applause]
    Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard all the issues debated. You've 
heard all of the specifics argued. But you know from what the Vice 
President has said, you know from your own experience that the choice 
you make tomorrow for the last President of the 20th century and the 
first President of a new century and a new millennium is a choice about 
how we will go forward into the 21st century.
    All the young people who are here, I especially thank you for coming 
because this is about your future. You know what this choice is about. 
It's about whether we're going to go forward on our own or whether we're 
going to go forward together. It's about whether we're going to say, 
``There's a future out there and it's a long way out there and you've 
got to ford a big river and go down a big, deep valley and climb a high 
mountain; we sure hope you make it; call or write when you get there''--
[laughter]--or whether we think we'll do better, all of us, if we work 
together to give everyone the tools they need, the chance--not a 
guarantee but a chance--to make the most of our own lives and build that 
bridge to the 21st century together.
    Now, we have talked a lot in this campaign about my responsibilities 
to create more opportunity, to reinforce responsible conduct among young 
people and families and communities, to bring us together in an American 
community. Today I want to talk about your responsibility, for in this 
great country of ours you are the boss and we are your servants. And our 
contract is coming due.
    It is up to you to decide whether we're going to keep building that 
bridge to the future or build a bridge to the past; up to you to decide 
whether we'll be left on our own or whether we'll go forward together; 
up to you to decide whether all these signs here that say Irish-
Americans, Hungarian-Americans, Greek-Americans, the African-Americans, 
the Hispanic-Americans, the Asian-Americans, the Middle Arab-Americans--
all the people that are in this audience, whether we are part of one 
America going forward together. You must seize the day to say this is 
our country, this is our future, and we're going to build it together. 
Will you do that tomorrow? [Applause]
    You know that 4 years ago when Ohio put us over the top on election 
night, when they showed that map of America and then the Ohio map 
started blinking and my heart started palpitating and they said, ``Ohio 
has gone for Clinton and Gore. They have the votes they need to win the 
White House''--you remember that. You took us on faith then, but now you 
don't have to. You know whether their approach or our approach works. 
This State is better off compared to 4 years ago in every way: more 
jobs, higher incomes, more businesses, a lower crime rate, lower welfare 
reform--rates. We are moving in the right direction. Do you want to keep 
going, and will you be there tomorrow to keep it going? [Applause]
    Your vote will decide what kind of future we build. Will you say--
will every one of you personally say, ``For my children, for their 
future, for our country, this is my responsibility. And I will seize 
tomorrow to build America's 21st century bridge''? Will you do it? 
[Applause]
    Folks, now let me tell you----

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

    The President. Wait a minute. We've got a few folks from the other 
side in the audience, but don't boo them. It only encourages them. Make 
them welcome. Make them feel welcome. Make them feel welcome. Make them 
feel welcome. We're not like they are. Even they are part of our 
America. We're not running anybody off. We're glad to have you here. 
Make them feel welcome.
    And besides, I want to thank Senator Dole for something. He made a 
great speech for my reelection the other day. You know, we had a report 
we were at 10\1/2\ million new jobs in the last 4 years. And then last 
week it came out that we had another 210,000 new jobs, for 10.7 million 
jobs--faster job growth than any Republican administration since the 
1920's. And

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when that happened, when that happened Senator Dole said we had the 
worst economy in 20 years. Now, why is that a speech? Because just 2 
weeks before, he said we had the worst economy in 100 years. Now, who 
else do you know who could make up 80 years in 2 weeks? We're moving in 
the right direction. We're going to the 21st century. We need to bear 
down and go on. We're going.
    I agree with everything the Vice President said except one. The 
first decision you make is whether we continue our historic efforts in 
reducing the debt and bringing down interest rates and growing the 
economy by balancing the budget of the United States in a way that 
protects our investments in education, the environment, technology, and 
protects the people on Medicare and Medicaid and gives a targeted tax 
cut we can afford for education, childrearing, buying a first home, and 
health care--that's our plan--or whether we'll go back to their plan, 
the one that led to our veto. Their new version is even worse: a bigger 
deficit, bigger cuts, and tax increases on 8 million hard-working 
Americans. You have to decide.
    Now, you heard the Vice President say they joined hands and jumped 
off the cliff together in that last Congress. That's not what they did; 
they joined hands and tried to push you off the cliff together. But with 
the help of John Glenn and Lou Stokes and Sherrod Brown, we reached out 
a lifeline. We said, ``You can shut the Government down if you want.'' 
They said, ``We'll bring the President to his knees. We will shut the 
Government down.'' And I said, ``I would far rather see the American 
people hurt for 30 days than hurt for 30 years. You shut her down. 
You're not going to force that budget down our throat.''
    But now, folks, I have done all I can do. It's in your corner now, 
and you must seize the day. You'll decide whether we balance the budget 
and protect our priorities and invest in our future, or whether we adopt 
their risky scheme and wreck our economy. You will decide whether they 
were right or I was right when I signed the family and medical leave law 
and they, Mr. Dole and Mr. Gingrich, led the fight against it. They said 
when I signed it, this is a terrible thing, this will hurt the economy. 
Well, we know now, 12 million people got to take a little time off from 
work when a baby was born or a family member was sick. We've had record 
new businesses, record exports, 10.7 million new jobs, incomes going up 
$1,600 in the last 2 years alone. Family leave made us a stronger 
economy by helping people be happy at work because they knew their kids 
were all right at home. We did the right thing, and they were wrong.
    So you have to decide. I want to expand it because I think you ought 
to be able to take a little time off to go see your children's teachers 
twice a year and take your kids to the doctor. But they don't. Your vote 
will decide. Will you seize the day tomorrow and help us expand family 
leave? [Applause] Will you seize the day and help us balance the budget? 
[Applause]
    Your vote will decide whether we continue to reform health care. 
There along toward the end of the Congress, finally some of the reforms 
we had been advocating passed because they knew they were coming home to 
face you. And so now we can say, finally you can't lose your health 
insurance just because you change jobs or someone in your family has 
been sick. Finally insurance companies can't kick mothers and their 
newborn babies out of the hospital after 24 hours. But in our budget--in 
our budget, our balanced budget, we give health insurance to another 
million children, free mammograms to women on Medicare, respite care for 
the nearly 2 million families that are heroically caring for a family 
member with Alzheimer's, struggling against all the odds. We do all that 
and give families who lose their jobs 6 months more of health insurance 
while they're between jobs. We still balance the budget. They don't, we 
do. That's why they're screaming. You've got to seize the day and help 
us reform health care. You've got to seize the day.
    You have to decide. We had a huge fight over crime. We had an 
approach on crime which Senator Glenn and Congressman Stokes and 
Congressman Brown supported. We said, we can bring the crime rate down 
if we put more police on the streets, get tougher with repeat offenders, 
give our kids something to say yes to, and get guns and gangs and drugs 
off the streets. That's our strategy. We'll work.
    We passed a crime bill to put 100,000 police on the street, take 
assault weapons off the streets, double the funds for safe and drug-free 
schools so our kids will get the message early that drugs are illegal 
and wrong and can kill you. And guess what? Four years of declining 
crime, the lowest crime rate in 10 years. They're still trying to stop 
us from putting the police

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on the street. Will you help us finish the job of putting those 100,000 
police on the street? [Applause]
    Will you say to them with your vote, ``You rolled through Ohio and 
all these States in 1994 telling innocent people who were good, God-
fearing Americans that we were going to take their guns away for hunting 
and sporting purposes. And now we know. After 2 years not a single 
hunter or sports person in Ohio has lost a gun, but 60,000 felons, 
fugitives, and stalkers cannot get handguns because of the Brady bill. 
You were wrong.'' Will you seize the day and stand up for a safe 
America? Will you help us finish the job? [Applause]
    We have worked hard to protect our children with the safe and drug-
free schools program, with a V-chip in televisions so that parents can 
control what their young children see on television, and with the first 
initiative ever by our National Government to say to the big tobacco 
companies, ``You've got to stop marketing, advertising, and selling 
cigarettes to kids; it's illegal, and too many of them are going to die 
because of it.'' In all three of those initiatives, the safe and drug-
free schools initiative, the V-chip, the antitobacco initiative--they're 
all in process now; none are finished; they can all be reversed--they 
disagree with us. You have to decide. Will you seize the day for your 
children's future, their health care, the integrity of their lives, and 
the fact that every child in this country deserves to grow up in an 
atmosphere free of drugs and gangs and violence and tobacco? Will you 
help us do that? Will you? [Applause]
    We have moved 2 million people nearly from welfare to work over 4 
years of hard work. Child support collections are up 50 percent; $4 
billion a year is going to children who need it. We passed a $5,000 tax 
credit to encourage families to adopt children. There are so many of 
them who need homes out there. Will you help us finish the job on 
welfare reform? The law says if you're able-bodied, within 2 years you 
have to turn the welfare check into a paycheck. But you cannot require 
people to go to work unless there is work for them to have. We have a 
plan to create another million jobs to move people from welfare to work. 
Will you help us? Will you seize the day to do that? [Applause]
    And most important of all, your vote is going to decide what we're 
going to do as a country about education and whether education will 
continue to be the great unifying force of opportunity and progress it 
has always been, or whether we're going to let it drift away into a 
force that divides us between those who have it and those who do not. 
Our plan recognizes that too many 8-year-olds in this country still 
can't read. And I propose to mobilize a million volunteers, including 
100,000 college students we pay work-study funds to, to teach every 8-
year-old in the country to read independently by the third grade in the 
year 2000. Will you help us do that? [Applause]
    And for the first time, I want to hook up every classroom and 
library in America to the information superhighway, the Internet, the 
World Wide Web. That means for the first time in the whole history of 
America, children in the smallest rural school in Ohio, children in the 
poorest inner-city district in Ohio will have access in the same way at 
the same time to the same information as students in the wealthiest 
districts in America do. It will revolutionize the education of our 
children. Will you seize the day tomorrow to do that for your children? 
[Applause]
    And will you help us open the doors of college education to every 
single American who is willing to go and work for that opportunity? 
[Applause] Folks, when I became President, we improved the college loan 
program to lower its cost and say you could pay the money back as a 
percentage of your income so no young person would ever have to fear 
running up a big debt and be bankrupted. We just signed the biggest 
increase in Pell grants in 20 years. Seventy thousand young people 
earned their way to college through service in the community in the 
AmeriCorps program. And they fought us on AmeriCorps; they fought us on 
college loans; they fought us on Head Start. Now, their program for the 
future is, abolish the Department of Education.
    Audience members. Boo-o-o!
    The President. Think of it. Think of it. We would go into the 21st 
century as the only country in the world with no one sitting at the 
table of the head of state, no one at the President's Cabinet to speak 
up for the education of our children. My program is, let's make 2 years 
of education after high school as universal in 4 years as a high school 
diploma is today. Let's give every American--let every American deduct 
from their tax bill, dollar for dollar, the cost of a typical community 
college tuition, and we'll

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get that done. Let every American deduct up to $10,000 a year for the 
cost of any college tuition, undergraduate or graduate, no matter what 
the age of the student. Will you help us do that? Will you seize the 
opportunity tomorrow to do that? [Applause]
    Now, this election is about more than personalities and more than 
parties, it is about the future of America. And you have to decide. You 
have to decide whether in the end it will be an election of your hopes 
or your fears, whether it will be an election that will bring us closer 
together or drive us further apart. I have done everything I could. The 
responsibility now shifts to you, my fellow Americans. It is your 
country, your children, your future.
    I thank you for giving me the chance to serve. I ask you to think 
tonight before you go to bed about what you want this great country to 
look like. We are better off than we were 4 years ago. When we cross the 
bridge into the 21st century, if we stay on this course, we'll be better 
off still. And we will do it together. Look at your children; think of 
your future. Seize the day to keep your country moving in the right 
direction.
    Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 1:05 p.m. in the Convocation Center at 
Cleveland State University. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Michael 
R. White of Cleveland; Jane Campbell, Ohio State representative; 
musician Joe Walsh; and Dennis Kucinich and Thomas J. Coyne, Jr., 
candidates for Ohio's 10th and 19th Congressional Districts, 
respectively.