    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [April 9, 1998]
    [Pages 542-546]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at Carroll County High School in Carrollton
    April 9, 1998

        Thank you very much. Now, Jackie was a
    little nervous before she came up, but I think she did a great job,
    don't you? [Applause] She mentioned your other two classmates,
    Marissa and Josh, who
    were over at the other meeting in the warehouse, and they were also
    very, very good, and you could have been very proud of them.
        I could have done without Jackie
    reminding me that Kentucky beat Arkansas not once, not twice, but 3
    times this year. But I cheered for you anyway in the tournament.
    [Laughter]
        And let me say, I'm delighted to be here with my good friends
    Governor Patton and Senator Ford, and I thank them for their leadership for you and
    for all of Kentucky. I thank Secretary of Agriculture Dan
    Glickman for coming down here with me today,
    and for being here last week and for his tireless work for the farmers
    of America.
        I thank Congressman Scotty Baesler for
    flying down here with me today and also bending my ear about the needs
    of farmers and the communities; and Lieutenant Governor Henry; your auditor, Edward Hatchett; Senator Saunders; Senator
    Blevins; Speaker Jody Richards and Mayor Welty and Judge
    McCurry. I thank all of them for being here
    with me.
        I thank your superintendent and your
    principal for welcoming me to your school. And
    I'd also like to thank the people, in addition to the students who were
    mentioned, who met with me over at the tobacco warehouse a few moments
    ago to discuss both this community's desire to prevent teenagers from
    smoking and to preserve the way of life for the tobacco farmers and
    their families. And I'd just like to acknowledge them--they're over
    here--Melvin Lyons, the owner of the
    Kentuckiana Tobacco Warehouse; Rod Kuegel, the
    president of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative; Amy
    Barkley, the director of the Coalition for
    Health and Agricultural Development; Mattie Mack, a tobacco farmer who has raised 4 children and 38
    foster children on her tobacco farm; Bill Sprague, the president of the Kentucky Farm

    [[Page 543]]

    Bureau; Dr. Wilbert Goatley, the pastor of
    the First Baptist Church of Eminence, Kentucky; and Marissa, Josh--you all stand
    up, all of you. Thank you very much for being here for us today. Thank
    you.
        I'd also like to say a special word of appreciation to the vice
    chairman of Humana, David Jones, who was part of
    the Presidents' Summit on Citizen Service last April in Philadelphia and
    has committed $2 million and 50,000 community service hours to help stop
    tobacco use by children. Thank you very much.
        Ladies and gentlemen, before I get into my speech, I need to say a
    few words about the terrible losses suffered by our neighbors in Alabama
    and Georgia as a result of the tornadoes that swept through there last
    night. If you've been looking at the television, you've seen how awful
    it has been. Today I am declaring a major disaster in three Alabama
    counties, Jefferson, St. Clair, and Tuscaloosa; adding to the number of
    counties already declared in the State of Georgia; and ordering more
    Federal aid to those areas. I have spoken to our FEMA director, James
    Lee Witt, and I've asked Mr. Witt and our
    Vice President, Al Gore, to go down to
    Alabama and Georgia tomorrow to look at the damage.
        But if you have been seeing it on television, it's quite amazing,
    and I hope you'll all say a prayer for those folks tonight and join with
    them in spirit as they begin to rebuild.
        Speaking of rebuilding, it's good to see how you have recovered from
    the flood of '97, when Eagle Creek and the Kentucky River were spilling
    out all over this county. It's a great moment of resilience for Kentucky
    and a golden moment for our country. Communities all across America are
    thriving. We have the strongest economy in a generation, the lowest
    unemployment rate in 25 years, the lowest inflation in 30 years, the
    highest rate of homeownership in the entire history of America. We have
    the lowest crime rate in 24 years, and crime has gone down 5 years in a
    row for the first time since the 1950's, when even I was younger than
    most of you in this audience. We have the lowest welfare rolls in 27
    years. Things are going in a good direction in this country.
        We've tried to open the doors of college to all Americans. Now, all
    of you students, your families can get a $1,500-a-year tax credit for
    the first 2 years of college tuition and tax credits for the junior and
    senior year, for graduate school, for adults who have to go back to
    school; a better student loan program; more work-study grants; more Pell
    grants.
        I think it's really possible for us to say to every young person in
    America, for the first time in the history of this country if you will
    work hard and make your grades and you want to go to college, money
    should now not keep you from going. We have opened the doors of college
    to all Americans.
        I understand that the chemical and steel industries here in Carroll
    County are booming and virtually guaranteeing jobs to students who are
    involved in your remarkable work-study program and getting the essential
    math, science, and technical skills you need.
        Today, as all of you know, I came here to talk about the urgent
    national need to deal with the problem of more and more of our young
    people beginning to smoke, even though it's illegal to sell cigarettes
    to minors in every State in the country, and to talk about how that
    could impact the future of tobacco: tobacco farmers and tobacco
    communities.
        I know there has been a lot of discussion in this area and, indeed,
    all over Kentucky about what this tobacco legislation in Congress
    involves and where we are in the process. So today I came here, first,
    to listen to the concerns of the people that I introduced over there who
    were trying to speak in a way for all of you and, second, to tell you
    where I think we're going with this.
        But let me begin by making three points. First, we have a historic
    opportunity to pass bipartisan legislation this year which both contains
    the elements necessary to reduce teen smoking in America and provides
    adequate protection for tobacco communities. And I'm going to do
    everything I can to put politics aside and pass legislation that will
    achieve that objective.
        Second, the legislation we seek is not about politics or money or
    Senator Ford seeking revenge on the tobacco industry. I don't want to
    put the tobacco companies out of business. I do want to put them out of
    the business of selling cigarettes to teenagers.
        Third, it is important not to abandon the tobacco farmers, the
    warehouses, the communities, who have not done anything wrong, who have
    not marketed cigarettes to teenagers, who have worked hard to grow and
    sell a legal crop and been good, honest, taxpaying citizens. I will not
    support any legislation in this area that does

    [[Page 544]]

    not contain adequate protection for your farmers and your communities.
        You know, when the flood waters were rising out of control here, not
    only you but all of your fellow citizens all across America just took it
    as a given that we had a national responsibility to help you deal with
    the flood and its aftermath and get back to normal.
        When the terrible earthquake hit California, and you saw pictures of
    our representatives going to California to try to help those folks
    restore normal life and spending a lot of money to rebuild their
    highways and rebuild one great university out there, I'll bet you hardly
    anybody in Kentucky resented the fact that the National Government was
    helping them.
        When the Mississippi River overflowed its banks a few years ago and
    we had a 500-year flood, most people in Kentucky, I bet anything, did
    not object to the work we did to try to help the people in Iowa and
    Missouri.
        Last year, when that town in North Dakota, that beautiful little
    town, was both flooded and burned at the same time, I bet all of us were
    pulling for the mayor up there and the
    citizens and glad to help.
        When we have big economic upheavals, we must do the same thing. So
    if we succeed in reducing--here's the bottom line--if we succeed in
    reducing teen smoking, then sooner or later we will reduce the overall
    demand for tobacco. Can we do that and still do right by the families
    who grow tobacco, by the warehouses, by the communities? I think the
    answer to that is yes. And that's what the legislation has to do, so let
    me describe it, because otherwise, you can't say, ``Oh, I'm for reducing
    teen smoking, but I don't want you to do anything about it.''
        By definition, if you reduce teen smoking, the volume will go down.
    Let's not pretend, just because I'm in Kentucky, that this is an easy
    problem. There's no point in pretending something is true that isn't. If
    you reduce teenage smoking, as is the right thing to do morally and from
    a health point of view and the law requires, it will reduce, sooner or
    later, the overall volume of tobacco required. How can you do that and
    be fair to the tobacco farmers and their communities? That is the issue
    here.
        Now, I think we can do it. But first of all, you have to decide if
    you think it's important. Everybody says it, but do you believe that?
    Just last week, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta released a
    disturbing report that found that more than 40 percent of American
    teenagers now smoke or chew tobacco. Now, the law says that tobacco
    companies can't advertise tobacco products on television or radio, but
    the ads are everywhere else, in magazines, sport arenas, billboards, toy
    race cars, something not many adults buy. Not long ago, a national
    survey showed more young children recognized Joe Camel than Mickey
    Mouse. Today and every day, about 3,000 young people begin to smoke, and
    the evidence is conclusive that 1,000 of the 3,000 will have their lives
    shortened as a result.
        Now, one of the things that has poisoned the political atmosphere is
    that the tobacco companies--nobody has any animosity against the
    farmers--but for years and years and years, the companies denied that
    they were marketing to children until all these lawsuits were filed and
    the information was drug out. And now every month, there's a new set of
    information which shows that not only were they knowingly advertising in
    a way that was especially appealing to children but that there were
    direct-marketing campaigns designed to get people involved before they
    were 18 to keep the number of cigarette smokers high. Now, that has come
    out. It wasn't volunteered; it wasn't told; it's been pulled out. And
    that has created this climate that exists in Washington and has resulted
    in all these lawsuits being filed.
        What I want to do is to say, look, what's past is past, but what we
    want to do is to do all the things necessary to stop advertising and
    marketing tobacco to kids; to do things that will actually reduce teen
    smoking so more of you will live longer, better, healthier lives; and to
    do it in a way that protects the tobacco farmers and the communities,
    and again I say, doesn't put the tobacco companies out of business, just
    gets them out of the business of selling to children.
        Now, last week, a key Senate committee on which Senator Ford sits approved by 19 to 1 a bill sponsored by John
    McCain, a Republican, and Senator Fritz
    Hollings of South Carolina, a Democrat,
    that we believe would cut teen smoking by half over the next decade. And
    thanks to Senator Ford's leadership, it contained provisions which will
    do what I said we have to do and also protects tobacco farmers and their
    communities. It recognizes that a lot of what people have been saying to
    tobacco farmers for years is just unrealistic, ``Well, why don't

    [[Page 545]]

    you just go grow some other crop on the land?'' There is no other crop
    that has anything like the same return per acre that tobacco does, and
    most tobacco farmers have small plots of tobacco, earning quite a high
    yield per acre.
        What does it do? It offers, first of all, a very generous buyout for
    people that want to stop producing now--very generous--so that they can
    have more than enough money to spend the investment doing something else
    to generate income.
        Secondly, it says that if, over time, there is further reduction in
    demand, it provides more funds to help warehouses, communities, and
    provide very generous education benefits to people who are involved in
    the work.
        And the third thing it does is to preserve the existing program for
    people who stay in it so that there will finally be some certainty
    instead of all the uncertainty that's been hanging over the families and
    communities like this one for so many years. The president of your State
    farm bureau said the most important thing we need now is to have
    legislation passed this year that will reduce teen smoking but will give
    these farmers and their families and their communities some certainty.
    That is what we want to do.
        Yesterday, for whatever reasons, some of the tobacco executives
    indicated that they might not participate anymore in negotiating this
    bill, either because they think the bill that passed out of the Senate
    committee was too hard or because they're afraid it'll get worse. I
    don't know exactly what. I will say this, we have to have some financial
    incentives on them to in fact reduce the rate of teen smoking; otherwise
    we will have done all this for nothing. I'm not just trying to raise a
    bunch of money to raise money or to raise the price of cigarettes. The
    goal is to make America's children healthier.
        And so I hope they will reconsider, because I'm determined to get
    this done this year. I heard today that the people here in this county
    do not want any more uncertainty. They want us to act. It would be
    better if we could act with the tobacco companies at the table too, so
    we're all talking together, so we're all sharing our information, so we
    all at least agree on the facts if we don't agree on the solutions. So I
    hope they'll reconsider and become a part of this. But we're going to do
    this, this year. If I can control the outcome, we will actually act this
    year.
        I don't think this is a time for threats by anybody. This is a time
    to put the past behind us, look ahead to the future, and achieve all
    these objectives. If we move forward with the legislation in the Senate
    and it does what it's supposed to do, it will stop about 60,000 children
    a year in Kentucky from beginning to use tobacco over the next 5 years.
    That means that 20,000 children a year in this State will live longer,
    healthier, fuller lives. I think that's worth the effort.
        Let me also say, Mattie Mack, the farmer I
    mentioned who raised her own children and 38 foster children, gave me a
    pretty good little lecture about the responsibility of the people who
    buy or receive tobacco products and their parents and that we shouldn't
    put all this on the sellers. And so I say to all of you students, I hope
    that you are taking responsibility for your own future, and if you
    haven't started smoking, I hope you won't. I don't believe that the
    Wildcats could have left all of their opponents gasping for breath,
    could have come from behind repeatedly to win the tournament, if their
    lungs had been incapacitated. And I don't think you do either.
        Again, I want to encourage you also to work with each other. I have
    a young friend here who's from another community in Kentucky who has
    become a pen-pal of mine. Her name is Meghan Johnson. Stand up, Meghan. She's a seventh grader from Madison
    County, Kentucky. And she's been writing me very interesting letters for
    the last few years. And so now, when one of Meghan's letters comes in,
    everybody in the office clamors to read it because she always says
    something rather unconventional and interesting. Like so many of you, in
    her youth she is brutally honest about whatever it is she's writing
    about.
        She's taken a big stand against tobacco
    in her community. After seeing two people close to her stricken with
    cancer, she and some of her friends decided to produce a video and a
    poster to help convince every student in her middle school--understand
    the dangers of smoking.
        And Meghan and all of you young people
    here today are the future of your State and our Nation. If you want to
    do this and do it right, we can do it. We don't have to wreck the fabric
    of life in your community. We don't have to rob honest people of their
    way of life. But even in tobacco country, we can't deny what

    [[Page 546]]

    the scientists have told us or what has been done to market tobacco to
    children in ways that compromise their future. To me, no company's
    bottom line is important compared to America's bottom line. America's
    bottom line should be your life, your future, your health. And for me,
    that's what it is.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:14 p.m. in the gymnasium. In his remarks,
    he referred to Carroll County High School students Jacqueline Jones, who
    introduced the President, Marissa Vaught, and Josh Coombs, and principal
    Randy Marcum; Gov. Paul E. Patton, Lt. Gov. Stephen L. Henry, and State
    Auditor Edward B. Hatchett, Jr. of Kentucky; Senator Larry Saunders,
    president, and Senator Walter Blevins, Jr., president pro tempore,
    Kentucky Senate; Representative Jody Richards, speaker, Kentucky House
    of Representatives; Mayor Bill Welty of Carrollton; Gene McMurry,
    Carroll County judge; Robert Biggin, Jr., superintendent, Carroll County
    public schools; Mayor Patricia Owens of Grand Forks, ND; and Bill
    Sprague, president, Kentucky Farm Bureau.