[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 34 (Monday, August 26, 1996)]
[Pages 1471-1472]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the Community in Jackson, Tennessee

August 19, 1996

    Thank you very much. Thank you for the ``Happy Birthday.'' I have 
had a very happy birthday in west Tennessee, and I thank all of you for 
that. I thank you for coming out here. This is a vast crowd; we never 
had any idea there would be this kind of crowd here. They said, ``Well, 
Mr. President, we've got to go. We need to be at the airport because 
we're going to have to shake hands with a few people who will be there 
before we leave''--a few thousand people, or maybe not even a few 
thousand people, several thousand people. I thank you all for coming, 
very much.
    Hillary and Chelsea and I have had a wonderful time with Al and 
Tipper and Karenna and Sarah and Albert. We did go out and work on the 
church rebuilding today, to give us something to do to remind ourselves 
that, as the Scripture says, ``To those to whom much is given, much is 
expected.'' And all of us have a responsibility now as Americans to say 
we don't want our country to be like other countries, where people fight 
with each other because of their differences over race or religion or 
ethnic group or tribal groups. There's too much of that in the world. 
America is going in the other direction. We're going to draw strength 
from our differences and our shared values, and one of those is the 
freedom of religion, and we respect that, and we're going to keep 
fighting for it all the way.
    Let me also tell you that I am very grateful to the State of 
Tennessee for being so good to me and to our administration. I thank 
Governor McWherter and Congressman Tanner and Mr. Purcell, all the 
others that are here, Lois DeBerry, the other leaders of the legislature 
and local government, people that have been involved in our campaigns. 
But I cannot thank you enough for the gift of friendship and service 
that Al and Tipper Gore have been to the United States while I've been 
President. You have no idea, even in Tennessee, how much difference 
they've made for America and for the future.
    There are many things I could say, but just one thing I'd like to 
emphasize: Every year the Gores have come back to Nashville to have a 
family conference, to try to stand up for the things that I've cared 
about a long time and that Hillary has worked for for more than 25 
years. And out of those family conferences have come some very 
impressive things. We now have a family and medical leave law that 12 
million American families have been able to take advantage of, to take a 
little time off from work without losing their job when there's a baby 
born or a sick parent, and that's a good thing. And we want to build on 
it.
    We now have a law which says that we're going to put a V-chip in new 
televisions so that parents can help to control the programming their 
children see and now an agreement to 3 more hours of quality educational 
television for our children on the networks of America. And I thank them 
for that.
    The other thing I'd like to say is back in the election in 1992, Al 
Gore used to give a little speech. I don't know if you remember

[[Page 1472]]

it, but he said, ``The problem in this country is that everything that 
ought to be up is down, and everything that ought to be down is up.'' Do 
you remember when he said that? America was laughing with him and 
rocking with him. But I'll tell you something, he's got to change his 
speech this time, because everything that ought to be down is down, and 
the things that ought to be up are up.
    And I just want to tell you that for all of you who have given us a 
chance to serve, you should feel that you were a part of putting in 
place a strategy that has cut the deficit by 60 percent, that has given 
us record exports, that has continued to invest in education, in 
technology, and the future, that has brought this deficit down, and that 
will balance the budget without destroying our commitments to our senior 
citizens, to our children, to families with disabilities through 
Medicare and Medicaid and without requiring cuts in education and 
protecting the environment. We are going to go into a future with a 
strong economy, where there are more good jobs and where we're growing 
together in the 21st century because of the policies that you have 
supported.
    And I just want to ask you in the weeks and months ahead to go out 
and be a good citizen, talk to your friends and neighbors and ask them, 
what do you want America to look like when we reach the 21st century--
it's just 4 years away--what do you want America to look like when your 
children are your age? It's not that far away. We've got to build an 
America where every single solitary person, every boy and girl, without 
regard to their race, their income, their station in life, has a chance 
to live out their dreams. We've got to build an America strong enough to 
protect ourselves and to lead the world for peace and freedom. And as we 
saw at those churches today--one white, one black, both burned and 
brought together--we have got to build an America where we're coming 
together, not being driven apart the way so many other countries are. 
That's the way to go into the future, and that's what we're going to do.
    Thank you, God bless you, and thank you for a happy birthday. Thank 
you.

Note: The President spoke at 6:12 p.m. at McKellar-Sipes Airport. In his 
remarks, he referred to Bill Purcell, majority leader, and Lois DeBerry, 
speaker pro tempore, of the Tennessee House of Representatives.