[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 36 (Monday, September 9, 1996)]
[Pages 1652-1659]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in Sunrise, Florida

August 5, 1996

    Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I tell you, I just hope 
you're having as good a time as I am this afternoon. Thank you. Thank 
you for making me feel so welcome. Thank you, Congressman Deutsch, for 
your remarks today and for being a steadfast ally for the people of 
Florida and for our administration the last 2 years. Thank you, Governor 
Lawton Chiles, for your lifetime of service to the people of Florida and 
the people of the United States and for your brilliant service as 
Governor.
    I'm delighted to be here with your attorney general, Bob 
Butterworth; your State insurance commissioner, Bill Nelson; State 
Senator Ken Jenne; State Senator Peter Weinstein; Mayor Effman of 
Sunrise; Mayor Graham of West Palm Beach; Gloria Jackson, the chair of 
the Broward County Democratic Party; Sheriff Ron Cochran. And I'd like 
to say a special word of thanks to my friend Gerry McEntee, back here, 
the president of

[[Page 1653]]

the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and a 
great supporter of Medicare. And I'd like to thank the Boyles who own 
the theater here for welcoming us. But most of all I'd like to thank 
Sallie and her mother, her daughter, and her granddaughter. Didn't she 
do a good job? Let's give her another hand. I thought she was great. 
[Applause] Thank you.
    Today I want to talk to you about how all of us, regardless of our 
ages, grandchildren, children, parents, grandparents, great-
grandparents, great-grandchildren--how we can move forward together to 
build that bridge to the 21st century I talked about in Chicago last 
Thursday night.
    I especially want to talk a little more about health security 
because I know that one of the keys to enabling our families to succeed 
at home and at work is finding a way for hard-working people to have 
that health security, to provide the best possible care for people. And 
I'd like to talk a little bit about those who get their care from 
specific health care plans that have certain requirements and standards 
that may lower the costs but may also raise some questions.
    You know, we have had a remarkable week and a half. I took that 
train from West Virginia to the convention in Chicago, and I stopped 
along the way in places that hadn't seen a passenger train in a long 
time, and there were thousands and tens of thousands of people all along 
the route. It was terribly moving.
    And then, of course, we had a good convention. And then Hillary and 
I and Al and Tipper Gore set out on our bus tour, and we made another 
five States. And I figure we saw in our

talks about a quarter of a million people, and another 200,000 just along 
the road and the rails. I never saw so many crowds, people coming out, 
believing in America again, knowing that we're on the track, knowing that 
we're on the right track and the right road to the 21st century. And it was 
very moving.

    Thanks to the support I have received from others in the Congress 
and in the administration, we have worked very hard to move this country 
forward. And compared to 4 years ago, we have 10 million more jobs, 
almost 4\1/2\ million more homeowners, another 10 million homeowners who 
refinanced their mortgages at lower mortgage rates. Wages are going up 
for the first time in a decade. We've had record numbers of new 
businesses in each of the last 4 years, and businesses are growing now, 
coming into existence at the fastest rate since John Kennedy was 
President. We have record--[applause] we're selling more of our products 
around the world than ever before. The combined rates of unemployment, 
inflation, and home mortgages are the lowest in 28 years. I am proud of 
these things, and you should be too, as Americans.
    For 4 years in a row, the crime rate has gone down. In Tampa, the 
crime rate fell 20 percent in 1995, just for example. I just came from 
there, so I asked for the numbers on Tampa, and I thought it was an 
amazing drop. There are 1.8 million fewer people on welfare than there 
were the day I took office. In Florida, there are over 135,000 fewer on 
welfare in the State of Florida alone. Child support collections are up 
40 percent in the Nation; in Florida--thank you, Governor Chiles--
they're up 48 percent in the last 4 years.
    Just about 2 weeks ago, maybe 3 now--time has been flying the last 
few days--I signed a minimum wage bill which raised the minimum wage for 
10 million hard-working Americans. It also made the employees and the 
owners of small businesses all across America--made it easier for them 
to take out retirement plans and to keep those retirement plans when 
they move from job to job.
    Most of our new jobs are being created in small businesses. More and 
more businesses are coming into existence, going out of existence in 
this new, dynamic economy. We have to make it possible for people to 
save for their retirement even if they're in small businesses and even 
if they change jobs a lot of times. And I'm proud of the fact that we've 
got legislation now which will make that much, much easier and safer.
    Another interesting provision that Governor Chiles and I were 
talking about with his daughter up in Tampa that was in the minimum wage 
bill is that we provided a $5,000 tax credit to people who will adopt 
children. There are tens of thousands of chil- 

[[Page 1654]]

dren out there who need a home, and I hope this will help more of them 
find it.
    In late 1994--there's one other thing I want to mention here that 
was done that didn't achieve a lot of notice because it was a part of a 
big trade bill. But we passed a provision to strengthen the protection 
for pensions that protected the integrity of 40 million Americans' 
pension, people already retired and people saving for their retirement, 
to make sure that these funds are not raided.
    And one of the things that I vetoed in that budget that Congressman 
Deutsch talked about, in addition to the cuts in Medicare and Medicaid 
and education and the environment, was a provision which would have 
allowed $15 billion to be taken out of existing pension funds and put to 
other purposes. And I thought that was wrong. I think we ought to keep 
the integrity of our pensions systems in this country.
    And let me say to a lot of you who may have grown up in an earlier 
time when we thought more about balancing our books except when there 
was an emergency, I'm very proud of the fact that our administration is 
the first administration since the 1840's, before the Civil War, to have 
the deficit go down in each of the 4 years of its term. It's been cut by 
60 percent.
    So compared to 4 years ago, we're in better shape. But as I said 
last week and I say again, there are many things we need to do to build 
a bridge to the 21st century that keeps the American dream alive for all 
of us, that enables people to succeed in their family lives and at work, 
that brings us together across all the lines that divide us, that keeps 
us the strongest country in the world for peace, freedom, and 
prosperity.
    Earlier today when I was in Tampa, I had a chance to go to a 
wonderful high school and speak to over 2,000 students there about our 
goals for education in the next 4 years. I want to mobilize an army of 
reading tutors so that instead of having 40 percent of our 8-year-olds 
who cannot read on their own, in 4 years every single 8-year-old will be 
able to read a book on his or her own.
    I want to make sure that every young child in America in school, 
without regard to their race, their income, where they have to live, 
from the poorest urban school districts to the most remote mountain 
school districts, will for the first time in the history of America have 
access to the same information in the same time, the same quality, as 
the children in the wealthiest districts do, by hooking all the 
classrooms up to the Internet, to the information superhighway, with 
adequate computers and trained teachers. We can do it for the first time 
in history.
    And I want to make sure that we put a college education within reach 
of every family. In the last 4 years, we have worked hard to increase 
scholarship funds for needy students. We have worked hard to reform the 
student loan program so that now it works faster and costs less than 
ever before.
    I remember Governor Chiles and the legislative leaders invited me to 
speak to the Florida Legislature up in Tallahassee. I had a very moving 
experience with a young couple there who had both graduated from medical 
school and who were doing their residency. And you know doctors don't 
make any money when they're residents, and they owed well over $100,000 
on their education. And because we had changed the law which said that 
young people could pay back their loans as a percentage of their income 
and never be required to pay back more than that in any given year, 
these young people were able to avoid literally having half of their 
income go to their college loan repayment, and they wouldn't have had 
enough left to live on. We should never have anyone drop out of any 
level of education because of that burden. And I want to do more.
    A lot of you can empathize with this: It's no longer possible for 
people to say they're through with education when they graduate from 
college. And now we know when people graduate from high school, chances 
are better than 50-50 they will not be able to find a job with a growing 
income. So what I want to do in the next 4 years, within 4 years, is to 
make 2 more years of education, the equivalent of at least a community 
college degree, just as universal as a high school diploma is today by 
giving a tax credit for the price of the tuition to the families of this 
country, so we can

pay for it dollar for dollar through tax cuts, and everybody can at least

[[Page 1655]]

get a community college education. I think that's very important.

    I'm well aware that the largest community college in the United 
States is not very far from here. But nearly every American--nearly 
every American--is within driving distance of a community college. And 
more and more, the people you see at our community colleges are older 
students, non-traditional students. The average age at a lot of our 
community colleges is bumping 30 now. And they have people in their 
fifties there and their sixties there, people who have lost their jobs 
and have to go back and get new education and training.
    So I say to you we ought to have that tax credit for the cost of a 
typical tuition at a community college. And I believe we should have a 
tax deduction worth up to $10,000 a year for any tuition cost at any 
post-high school education in the country to help people educate 
themselves. It will make our country stronger.
    So I hope you'll help me build that bridge to the future for the 
younger part of the families that are here. But we also have to keep 
this economy going strong. You know, whenever we argue about, well, how 
are we going to pay for Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security or 
whatever part of it, always assume certain things about the strength of 
the American economy: what will the unemployment rate be, what will the 
incomes be, what will the growth be. We have to keep this economy going 
strong, and we can grow it even faster. But if we're going to do that, 
we have to keep investing in the things that make us strong, like 
education, research, environmental technology, and we have to keep 
bringing this deficit down.
    Every time I leave Washington for the last 4 months, some expert has 
said, ``Now, Mr. President, don't go down there and talk about the 
deficit. People really cared about the deficit when the economy was bad, 
but nobody really understands it very well, and so they don't care about 
it once the economy gets better. It's boring to them. Don't talk to them 
about that.''
    Well, I don't believe that. I think you do care about whether your 
country is spending itself into debt. Let me just briefly say why 
everyone should care about it. Because as our Republican friends said 
last year--they put out a paper on this, not me, but I agree with them--
they said if we were not on a plan to a balanced budget, if we went back 
to permanent high deficit spending the way we did in the 12 years before 
I came here, interest rates would go up 2 percent. Why? Because the 
Government would be borrowing money and you would be borrowing money, 
and we would both be trying to borrow the same money so the price would 
go up.
    Now, what that means is, 2 percent on a home mortgage, on a car 
payment, on a credit card payment every month, it means 2 percent more 
for business borrowing, which undermines the ability of businesses to 
borrow money and invest, to be more productive, to give their workers 
raises and hire more people. It's harder to borrow money to start a new 
business.
    This is a big deal, folks. We have got to keep this economy growing 
and going strong, and every tax cut I talked about is paid for, dime by 
dime, line by line. We don't want to go back to the old days where 
someone says, ``Hey, I'm running for office, and I'll give you a big tax 
cut. No, I can't pay for it and yes, it will increase the deficit, and, 
oh, by the way, I'll have to cut Medicare and Medicaid and education and 
the environment even more than last time.'' That's what their proposal 
is; this across-the-board thing.
    Don't go for that. We went down that road before. We would have a 
surplus in the budget today and could have a bigger tax cut or extend 
the life of Medicare with no sweat for another several years, a surplus 
today if it weren't for the interest we're paying on the debt run up in 
just the 12 years before I became the President. We don't want to make 
that mistake again. We dare not make that mistake again, and I don't 
think you want to make that mistake again.
    Every time I come to Florida, someone talks to me about personal 
security. I'm proud of the fact that the crime rate has come down for 4 
years in a row. I want it to keep coming down. And that means we have to 
finish the work of putting 100,000 police on the street. It means we 
ought to pass a law that expands the Brady bill, which now covers 
anybody who has been convicted of a felon or is a fugitive or a stalker, 
can't

[[Page 1656]]

get a handgun. I think that should extend to anyone who has beaten up a 
child or a spouse at home. I don't believe people who are involved in 
domestic violence should do that.
    And I believe that we should ban those terrible cop-killer bullets. 
They have no purpose other than to shoot police officers. If the police 
officers are willing to protect us, we ought to be willing to protect 
them. It's a simple thing, and it has nothing to do with hunting or 
sporting.
    I believe that we have to build a bridge to the 21st century that 
works on building even stronger families. That's why I've said that the 
family leave law that I signed, the first bill I signed, has made it 
possible for 12 million American families, intergenerationally, just 
like these fine women up here--12 million families, where someone in the 
family could take some time off without losing their jobs for the birth 
of a baby or the illness of a parent. It's been a great thing for 
America, and it has not hurt the economy. And I would like to see it 
extended in a narrow way to say you can also take a little time off to 
take your child to the parent-teacher conference at school or your 
parent to a regular doctor's appointment as well, in case there are 
serious problems that can't be dealt with.
    I want to see us stand up for the environment and prove we can grow 
the economy and protect the environment more in the 21st century. You 
know, I talked about this the other night, but I want to say it again. 
It's appalling to me--it's appalling to me that we still have 10 million 
American children living within 4 miles of toxic waste sites. Now, we've 
cleaned up more of those in 3 years than the previous administrations 
did in 12. But we're not doing enough; we have to do more. And so I 
propose just in the next 4 years to clean up 500 more, the two-thirds 
worst of those sites, so that we can say that our children are going to 
grow up next to parks, not poison. And I hope you'll help me with that.
    And here in Florida, I can say I'm very proud of the fact that in 
the first 4 years we saved national parks from the ill-advised scheme to 
sell some of them off. We negotiated an end to a proposed gold mine at 
Yellowstone National Park, the crown jewel of America's whole natural 
history. We created the largest national park south of Alaska in the 
Mojave Desert in California. And I hope in the next 4 years we will 
complete the work of saving the Florida Everglades. And I hope you will 
help us do that. [Applause] Thank you.
    Now, let's talk about health care. There are few issues that tie 
people together as closely as health care--all across the ages. The 
other night when the First Lady spoke at the Democratic Convention and 
said that we strongly supported a bill that

says that you cannot kick a mother and her newborn child out of a hospital 
sooner than 48 hours. I believe that the grandmothers and the great-
grandmothers and the great-grandfathers and the grandfathers were among 
those cheering the loudest in America. Of course these hospitals have to 
save money. Of course we want to cut unnecessary costs. Of course some 
people are healthy and fine, and there's no problem. But it ought to be a 
decision that the doctor can make based on what is best for the mother and 
the baby, and people should not be put on the street if they're not ready.

    When we launched a remarkable effort to dramatically increase the 
rate of immunizations of children up to the age of 2 so that more of 
them would live and live healthy lives, I think the grandparents were 
among those who cared the most about it. And when I was saying, look, we 
don't want to balance the budget in a way that not only cuts too much 
out of Medicare and Medicaid, but fundamentally changes the system, that 
was as big a problem--that creates a two-tier system of Medicare where 
if you happen to be older or poorer or sicker at the time the changes 
are made, the chances of your falling into second-class health care are 
overwhelming; or that changes the whole system under Medicaid so that 
there is no longer a guarantee for people who have middle class 
lifestyles to get some help for their parents in nursing homes; or 
people who have middle class lifestyles who have children with 
disabilities to get some help with those children so they can keep them 
at home and still keep their jobs and not go broke. I don't believe

[[Page 1657]]

that's an age-specific area. I think that we all care about that.
    On the other hand, I don't agree that you can't do anything to try 
to save money in these programs to save them. Everybody wants us to save 
Medicare. Everybody knows that we're all living longer and staying 
healthier. And that's good, isn't it? I mean, I think that's pretty 
good.
    So when somebody tells me, Mr. President, we got this terrible 
problem with Medicare, since the inflation per person is not going up, 
it's just that people are living longer and the longer you live the more 
health care you use--to me, that's a high-class problem. I mean, I don't 
understand all this hand-wringing. That's a high-class problem if we got 
people living longer and being healthier and hanging around and doing 
things. I think that's a pretty high-class problem. I don't understand 
why everybody is going around like Chicken Little, ``Oh, the sky is 
falling. We have problems in Medicare because everybody is living.'' 
[Laughter]
    I thought that was the object. [Laughter] I thought that was the 
point of the deal. Do you know, if you live in the United States--this 
is very interesting--in 1985, because of Social Security and SSI, for 
the first time in the history of our country, people over 65 had a lower 
poverty rate than people under 65. And because of Medicare and Medicaid, 
because of the things you can buy into with them, now if you live to be 
65 in the United States, we have the highest life expectancy of any 
country in the world among people who live to be 65 going forward.
    Our overall life expectancy is slightly lower, unfortunately, 
because we have higher rates of violence that take out too many of our 
children, because our maternal care programs are not as good as they 
should be, and because we have a disproportionate number of people 
compared to a lot of other countries with very serious illnesses. But if 
you live to be 65, you are in the country with the highest life 
expectancy for seniors in the entire world. Now, we know what did that. 
I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that's a good thing. This is a 
high-class problem, this Medicare problem.
    So I proposed, and I told everybody--all the advocates for the 
senior groups came in; we worked with them--we proposed larger savings, 
substantive savings over a 6-year period in Medicare and Medicaid than 
any President ever had. The only problem was, I was trying to save the 
programs. I was trying to be fair. I wasn't trying to balance the budget 
on your back or make you pay for somebody else's tax cut or do something 
that would give us an excuse to walk away from our commitments under 
Medicare and Medicaid.
    So I say to you, the first thing we ought to do in going forward is 
to remember what the Hippocratic oath says: First, do no harm. Let's not 
do something we don't have to do. Let's do as much as we have to do to 
save the programs. But let's not do something we don't have to do that 
would make it unfair to those who depend upon them.
    We can--I'll say again, just like Congressman Deutsch said--we can 
clearly balance the budget and dramatically extend the life of the 
Medicare Trust Fund without the level of cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, 
education, and the environment in the budget that I vetoed last year.
    My door is still open to the Congress, even as they meet now in 
September to try to reach an agreement on that. But I will not do 
anything that will cause us to harm people who have justifiably depended 
on this when this program is working and the problem we have is the very 
problem we've been trying to create for 30 years, ever since we created 
it, which is we hoped people would live longer and be healthier and be 
stronger. We can fix it, but we don't want to destroy it.
    The second thing I want to say is, as we provide people more options 
in Medicare and more options in Medicaid, and take steps that will 
further slow the rate of inflation and give people attractive options to 
be in managed care programs of various kinds, we ought to do it, again, 
in a way that really creates a win-win situation. And we can do that. 
I'm prepared to give Governor Chiles and all the other Governors in the 
country greater flexibility in how they administer the Medicaid program, 
but I don't think we should walk away from the populations, pregnant 
women and their poor young children, families with disabilities, and the 
seniors. I don't think we

[[Page 1658]]

should do that. I think we should stay in there and serve those 
populations.
    In our balanced budget program, we actually also proposed to do some 
things that we think will be very good for the economy. A lot of 
parents--a lot of families, for example, are caring for parents with 
Alzheimer's. It's a painful, difficult thing. It's also a great labor of 
love. If a family is doing that and saving the system money by doing it, 
I think we ought to provide some way for them to get some respite care 
for those who are caring for Alzheimer's people in their own home. And 
that's an example of something that I think would be a good thing to do 
that will actually save money to the larger health care system and 
enable families again to make it at work and to make it at home, and to 
keep that close-knit bond that we all value so much.
    I think we are going to have to crack down even harder on those who 
rip the Medicare system off. We have--I will say this--I hear more about 
it in Florida than anyplace else, I guess, because more of you know 
about it, but you should know that we've saved more than $15 billion in 
3 years. We have strengthened the requirements and our tools for dealing 
with it, and Governor Chiles has done a better job of dealing with it 
than any other Governor in the country, in my opinion. So we're doing 
our best.
    Two weeks ago, I had the great privilege, as has already been said 
in my introduction, of signing the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, which is the 
most significant health care reform in a generation. The bill guarantees 
that working people can keep their health insurance if they change jobs, 
it gives self-employed business people a better tax break to buy 
insurance just like those who work for big firms. It means you don't 
lose your health insurance if you or somebody in your family gets sick. 
What it means is that up to 25 million Americans might be able to get or 
keep health insurance now when they couldn't do it before. It is a very 
good bill.
    But we have to do more. You don't want to say to some people we have 
created a right for you, and it's like saying we've all got a right to 
go buy a Jaguar. So my next proposal is--and this, again, is paid for in 
my balanced budget--that we help workers and their families who are in 
between jobs to keep their health insurance for up to 6 months so they 
don't lose it while they're changing jobs.
    This could help to bring peace of mind to 3 million Americans a 
year, including 700,000 children. It is paid for in my balanced budget, 
and it's long overdue. I also think we have to do more to give our 
people the assurance that they'll get the quality they are paying for 
and that they deserve. That's why I'm supporting the legislation I 
mentioned, dealing with not forcing new mothers and their newborns out 
of the hospital.
    And that's why I believe we should extend consumer protections to 
the 140 million Americans who are now enrolled in managed care health 
plans. These plans--let me talk a little bit about--these plans, on 
balance, have given most people who are in them high quality care with 
more choices at lower costs, because they are, in various ways, managed 
care plans, the HMO's, the PPO's, and the others. But we have to make 
sure that the changes that are being made do not lead to a decline in 
the quality of health care.
    Now, I can tell you, I've spent years studying this now as a 
Governor and as President, and I am convinced that the right kind of 
managed care can really be the best of all worlds, can give more choices 
to consumers, can give people more chances to make decisions that are 
right for them, can keep the costs of health care down and still 
maintain very high quality.
    I am also convinced that if they're not the right kind of plans, 
some bad things can happen, especially by not giving managed care 
customers all of the information they need. Too often, too many health 
care plans are literally gagging their doctors, their nurses, and other 
professionals by stopping them from telling patients about all their 
treatment options, because some of those options that may be best for 
the patients may be more expensive for the plan since the patient has 
already paid the flat rate.
    So I want to say to you that I think this has to stop, and this is 
my announcement for the day. But there is a bipartisan bill, a 
bipartisan bill that's been introduced in the Congress, sponsored by 
Representative Ed Markey, a Democrat, and Representative Greg Ganske, a 
Republican, that will help

[[Page 1659]]

to protect doctors, nurses, and patients. It's called the ``Patient 
Right To Know Act,'' and it says that the professionals cannot be gagged 
from giving you the information you're entitled to and cannot be 
punished if they give it to you, so that we'll have the best of all 
worlds, managed care plus consumer protection. And I want--will you help 
me pass that bill? [Applause] Thank you.
    Again, I want to be clear: There are an awful lot of HMO's, PPO's, 
and other health care plans that give patients very good care at good 
value, even better value with more choices and less inflation in the 
health care premiums. But we have to

make sure that we don't give up the quality of care. Doctors just must not 
face discrimination when they uphold their oath to give patients the best 
care. Patients should feel safe in the knowledge that they have been given 
the full story of what all their treatment options are and what are best 
for them. They should be told about the best treatment, whether it's the 
cheapest or not.

    There is also more to do. There are millions of Americans who are 
affected by the changes in our health system which ought to feel 
comfortable about the health care they receive. I have asked our 
Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, and our Labor 
Secretary, Bob Reich, to form an advisory commission about the quality 
of care for health care consumers with health care providers, health 
plans, consumers, business people--all on a bipartisan basis, everybody 
having their story heard, but to evaluate the ways that health plans can 
best serve their customers over the long run so that we can have a 
health care system we can afford and one we can be proud of because it 
keeps life expectancy going up and it keeps the health of our people 
improving.
    The Vice President I have asked to review this report because he has 
done such great work in other areas where we have tried to reinvent our 
Government and improve things. And what we're trying to do is to 
understand how these changes in the health care system are going to 
affect America's families, all generations of families, yours, mine, 
everyone else's; what are the financial implications; what are the 
health care implications; what else should we do.
    But I am confident that being for a consumer's right to know is the 
right thing to do here. And I am confident--I will say again--I am 
confident that we can find a way to preserve the Medicare program in a 
way that gives you more options, keeps it affordable, and doesn't divide 
it into a two-tier system where the elderly in our country who happen to 
be the oldest or the poorest or the sickest wind up getting the short 
end of the health care stick. I don't think any one of you want that, 
and I`m going to do my best to avoid that. We can do what we need to do.
    All of this is a way of building a bridge to the future. I believe 
that we have to make it possible--let me say again--for families across 
the generations to succeed at home and at work, to honor the obligations 
to parents and children and still be successful in the workplace and as 
citizens. I believe we can do that. I believe we can do it if we build 
the right kind of bridge to the future, including the health care 
reforms I have discussed today. And I hope that every one of you will 
help me and yourselves and your children to build that bridge.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 3:20 p.m. at the Sunrise Musical Theater. 
In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Steve Effman of Sunrise; Mayor 
Nancy Graham of West Palm Beach; Sheriff Ron Cochran of Broward County; 
Jack and Janet Boyle, owners, Sunrise Musical Theater; and Sallie A. 
Richardville, secretary-treasurer, Broward AFL-CIO, who introduced the 
President, her mother, Edith B. Tuten, her daughter, Mary K. Leake, and 
her granddaughter, Nicole ``Nikki'' Washburn.