[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 43 (Monday, October 28, 1996)]
[Pages 2123-2126]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at Cuyahoga Community College in Parma, Ohio

October 21, 1996

    Thank you very much. Good morning. I won't let the rain bother me if 
you don't let it bother you; how's that? Thank you so much, all of you, 
for being here. I'm going to put on my raincoat. I cheat a little bit.
    First let me thank Dr. Jerry Sue Thornton and all the people here at 
this wonderful community college for hosting us. Thank you, Senator 
Glenn. Thank you, Mayor Gerald Boldt. I'm glad to be back in Parma. 
Thank you, sir. I'm the only President in history who has ever come to 
Parma twice just to eat pierogies, but I'm--[laughter]. We're going to 
do a little work today.
    Thank you, Cleveland Mayor Mike White. Thank you, Dennis Kucinich, 
for that great speech. He sounded like a Congressman to me. Thank you, 
Mayor Tom Coyne, for run- 

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ning for Congress. Thank you, Congressmen Tom Sawyer and Sherrod Brown, 
for being here. Thank you, Representative Jane Campbell, David Leland. 
Thank you, Mayor Dimora, for being here.
    And let me say a special thanks to the Valley Forge High School Band 
for being here. I am not so old that I do not remember what it's like to 
try to play one of those instruments in the rain. It's not easy, and 
let's give them another hand. Come on. [Applause] I also want to thank 
all the other students who are here. There is a group of students back 
here--[applause]--there is a group of students in the back over there 
with a sign that says they got out of school and I have to sign their 
permission slip. So I will do that for the ones in the back.
    Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for being here. Thanks for that 
``Ohio Republicans for Clinton/Gore'' sign. That looks good to me. I am 
delighted to be back here. Let me say, all of you know that 4 years ago 
when I ran for President we had a time of high unemployment and rising 
frustration. And all of you know that compared to 4 years ago, we are 
better off. We have 10\1/2\ million more jobs. The unemployment rate in 
Ohio has gone from 7 percent to 4.8 percent. Average family income in 
the last 2 years is up $1,600 after inflation, after being stagnant for 
a decade. We are moving in the right direction. The crime rate has come 
down for 4 years in a row. The welfare rolls have dropped. Child support 
collections are up almost 50 percent. We're moving in the right 
direction.
    This election will determine what direction we take into the 21st 
century. That is the decision before all of you. Will you help me build 
a bridge to the 21st century? [Applause] If you compare the work we've 
done in the last month since you had your voices heard, compared to the 
last 2 years, when I vetoed a budget that would have cut education for 
the first time in American history, weakened environmental protection, 
undermined the commitments of Medicare and Medicaid--and you stood by me 
and made your voices heard. Now, in the last month, we raised the 
minimum wage for 10 million working Americans. We passed the Kennedy-
Kassebaum health care reform bill that says you cannot lose your health 
insurance anymore because somebody in your family has been sick or 
because you changed jobs. We gave a $5,000 tax credit to families that 
would adopt some of these hundreds of thousands of children out there 
who need a home and support of a family. And we made it easier for 
small-business people to take out pensions for themselves and their 
employees. We are moving in the right direction.
    But now you have to make a decision in about 2 weeks. Your vote will 
decide whether we balance our budget and protect Medicare and Medicaid, 
education and the environment, and give targeted tax cuts to families to 
help them raise their children and educate them, to help them save for 
that first-time home or deal with medical costs, or whether we blow a 
hole in the deficit with a risky tax scheme that will raise taxes on the 
9 million working people, increase the deficit, and cut education again. 
I think the answer is clear. Your vote will decide whether we continue 
to support families, whether we continue to fight crime, whether we 
really finish the job of reforming welfare.
    Yes, we passed a bill that says people on welfare have 2 years to 
turn that welfare check into a paycheck. Now we have to make sure the 
jobs are there so that they can take the jobs and build good families. 
Your vote will decide whether we continue to clean up the environment or 
give in to those who say we have to weaken our environment to grow our 
economy. You know better than that. I want to clean up 500 more toxic 
waste dumps in this country so every American child will be growing up 
next to parks, not poison, and I think you do, too.
    Most of all, your vote will decide whether we continue our struggle 
for world-class education for the schoolchildren who are here, whether 
we continue to expand Head Start, whether we continue to raise 
standards, whether we hook up every single classroom in the United 
States of America to the information superhighway--the Internet, the 
World Wide Web--by the year 2000, so that for the first time in history 
every child in America, in a private, parochial, or a public school, 
whether in a rich, a middle class, or a very poor district--for the 
first time ever we'll have every child able to hook into the

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same amount of learning in the same time, in the same way from all over 
the world. It will revolutionize opportunity for every child in the 
United States.
    And above all, your vote will decide whether we make the 
opportunities you enjoy here available to all Americans. In the last 4 
years we've had the biggest increase in Pell grant scholarships in 20 
years. We had a huge increase in work-study in just the last month 
approved. We created the AmeriCorps program, which has helped 69,000 
young people to serve their community and work their way through 
college. We have created the school-to-work program for young people who 
don't go to 4-year colleges--and that includes the Cuyahoga Community 
College's Tech Prep program right here. That's the kind of thing we have 
tried to do.
    Now, what I want to tell you is we have more to do. One of the 
things we did that you heard your president talk about is pass the 
direct loan program. It made it quicker and cheaper for young people to 
get college loans. Sixteen hundred schools now participate in that 
program, including Cuyahoga Community College and 69 others in Ohio. And 
what that has meant is that 10 million Americans have saved an average 
of $190 each on their college loan. And even more important, it means 
you can borrow money to go to college without worrying about how you're 
going to pay it back, because you cannot be required to pay more than a 
certain percentage of your income every year. That means every young 
person in this program can afford to borrow the money to go to college.
    But there is more to do. I propose the following three things. It's 
a big part of your decision on November 5th. Number one, look around you 
here. I want to make 2 years of education after high school as universal 
in America by the year 2000 as a high school diploma is today. And 
there's a simple way to do it. I propose to give every family a $1,500 
tax credit--that's the cost of a typical community college tuition--a 
dollar-for-dollar reduction on their tax bill if they're going to a 
community college or another 2-year institution. Will you help me do 
that? [Applause] And I propose to give every family a tax deduction of 
up to $10,000 a year for the cost of any college tuition, undergraduate, 
graduate, you name it. Will you help me do that? [Applause] Finally, I 
propose to let families save more in IRA's and withdraw from them 
without any penalty if the money is being used for a college education 
or for health care or to buy a first home. Will you help me build that 
bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    Folks, even in the rain we know that the key to our future is 
investing in the minds of our people. This decision, more than anything 
else, will determine whether we together as a nation recommit ourselves 
to the proposition that in the 21st century if we want every American to 
live up to the fullest of his or her God-given ability, we must 
guarantee every American a world-class education, and I need your help 
to do that. Will you help? [Applause] Will you support that? [Applause]
    The program that I have outlined altogether will make sure that the 
money saved by a middle class family for college need never be taxed, 
that we are going to invest together in a college education. Now, as all 
of you know, my opponent has a different view. He opposed the creation 
of the Department of Education, and now he says that he and Speaker 
Gingrich will eliminate it. I believe they're wrong and we're right. We 
need a Department of Education. Just imagine what it would be like in 
the United States, alone of all the great nations, to start the 21st 
century with no one in the President's Cabinet to speak up for the 
education of our children. I say let's keep it, let's make it better, 
let's expand educational opportunity for all of our children.
    Thirty-one years ago, my opponent voted against the creation of the 
student loan program in the first place. Three years ago, he opposed the 
direct lending program, which your president just praised and which you 
know has improved college loans right here at

Cuyahoga Community College. He's tried to cut it back and cripple it ever 
since.

    And the budget I vetoed last year would have cut Pell grant 
scholarships for hundreds of thousands of students for the first time 
ever. Instead, we fought them back and we got the biggest increase in 
Pell grants in 20 years. Will you support the direction we are

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taking for education for all Americans? [Applause]
    I want you to be clear about that. Your vote is going to decide 
whether we continue to expand access to college and student loans or 
whether we eliminate the Department of Education, cut college aid, and 
tell our young people to fend for themselves. I don't know what all the 
family circumstances of all those young people in the band are over 
there, but I know one thing: All of us will be better off if every 
single one of them, without regard to their family income, can get a 
college education. And I want you to help me do that.
    I want you to help me make sure we have an America in 4 years at the 
dawn of a new century where every 8-year-old can read, every 12-year-old 
can log on to the Internet, and every 18-year-old in America can go on 
to college. We just have 2 weeks and a day. Will you help me for 2 weeks 
and a day build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]
    Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:20 a.m. on the Campus Green. In his 
remarks, he referred to Jerry Sue Thornton, president, Cuyahoga 
Community College; Mayor Gerald M. Boldt of Parma, OH; Dennis Kucinich, 
Democratic congressional candidate; Mayor Thomas J. Coyne, Jr., of 
Brookpark, OH; State Representative Jane L. Campbell; David Leland, 
chair, Ohio Democratic Party; and Mayor Jimmy Dimora of Bedford Heights, 
OH.