September 19, 1996

The President Hello, Yelm, hello! Wow! Thank you for coming. Thank you. I love your signs. Thanks for the Arkansas sign out there; that was nice. I want to thank the band for being here, and the choral group. There you are. And I want to say when I finish speaking - this group has written a song, they want to play it for us. And so they've got a little microphone over there, and I want us to listen to their song. These kids have done so much work, I think we should listen to them and give them a little support.

Let me also tell you that I am delighted to be here. I thank you for your warm welcome. I cannot believe the size of this crowd. What's the population of this community? Two thousand?

Audience member. Two people.

The President. No, not two people - I know that. Now, come on.

Let me also say to all of you that I'm honored to be here with the Vice President and Hillary and Tipper, with our good friend Gary Locke, who will be a great Governor of Washington if you will help him for the next 6 weeks and 5 days.

And I want to say that I'm just getting acquainted with Washington State's primary system, but as I understand it, you throw everybody in and let them run. And I was really impressed that our candidate for Congress here, Adam Smith, got more votes than the incumbent Congressman. And I'd like to ask him to come up here and just say a word of hello to you.

Adam, come here.

[At this point, Adam Smith, Democratic candidate for the 9th congressional district in Washington, made brief remarks.]

The President. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am so glad to be here today. I'm glad to be back in Washington State. I told the big crowd - we had a huge crowd in Tacoma this morning, and I told them that yesterday and today, of all the times I've been to Washington, yesterday and today are the only times it has ever rained on me in Washington State. Now I feel like you've finally taken me in as one of your own now that it's raining on me like it rains on you all the time. And I thank you.

Four years ago, we came to Washington State and asked you to support our efforts to change this country. We asked you to take us on faith. We said that we could bring hope back to America, that history was giving us a remarkable opportunity to change this country for the better, that we did not have to put up with the conditions as they were, high unemployment, stagnant growth, stagnant wages, rising crime, a dividing country, a more cynical country.

And I can tell you that after 4 years this country is in better shape than it was 4 years ago. We are on the right track to the 21st century.

Ten and a half million more Americans have jobs; 4 1/2 million more Americans have their own homes. Twelve million Americans have been able to take some time off from work without losing their jobs when a baby was born or a parent was sick because of the family leave law. Ten million Americans will get an increase in their pay on October 1st, when the minimum wage law goes into effect.

Twenty-five million Americans will have a change to keep their health insurance because of the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill that says you can't have your health insurance jerked or denied because someone in your family has been sick or because you changed jobs. This country is moving in the right direction.

The Government's deficit has been cut by 60 percent. It's gone down 4 years in a row for the first time since before the Civil War. The crime rate has gone down for 4 years in a row. The welfare rolls have been reduced by 1.8 million; child support collections have been increased by 40 percent - $3 billion. And there are one million fewer crime victims than there were last year. We are moving in the right direction toward the 21st century.

And I want to ask you to help America make the right decision between building a bridge to the future and reaching back to build a bridge to the past, between saying that "you're on your own and we hope you do fine, the Government's always your enemy," and saying "it takes a village - yes, the First Lady is right - it does take a village to raise our children, to build strong communities, to build strong businesses, to build a strong country. And we're going to go forward together into the 21st century."

I want to ask you to help me build a bridge to the 21st century that all of us can walk across by saying, first of all, we're going to have the finest educational opportunities in the world for all of our children, no matter where they live, in little towns or big cities. I want you to help me mobilize an army of reading tutors to go out and help parents and schools, to make sure that we change the conditions that exist today where 40 percent of the 8-year-olds in this country cannot read independently. In the year 2000 I want us to be able to say any 8-year-old in America can take out a book and say, "I can read this all by myself." And we can do that.

I want us to make a commitment that we will hook up every classroom and every library in every school in the United States to the information superhighway, to the Internet, to the World Wide Web, so that children can say, "No matter whether we live in small towns or big cities, whether our districts are rich, middle class or poor, for the first time in history we all have access to the same information at the same time in the same way. America's education system finally is truly equal for all America's children." I want you to help me do that.

I want us to be able to say that we have opened the doors of college education to every single person who is willing to work hard and do well - very American, without regard to age or income should be able to go. How are we going to do that? Let people save through an IRA and then withdraw without penalty to spend it on a college education. Make the first 2 years of college in a community college as universal in 4 years as a high school diploma is today by saying you can take off the cost of the typical community college tuition right off your tax bill, dollar for dollar - a tax credit to educate people for 2 years.

Finally, give people a $10,000 tax deduction for the cost of all college tuition. That will build this country; it will strengthen us; it will open opportunity for everybody. Will you help us build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause]

The second thing we have to do, folks, is keep this economy growing strong. I want to have the right kind of tax cut, one that is targeted to education, to childrearing, to health care costs, to buying the first-time home; we're not imposing taxes on people if they sell their home for a gain. But I want these things paid for because we still have to balance the budget without bankrupting Medicare, Medicaid, or turning our backs on education and the environment. We have to invest in our future and honor our obligations to the people that share this country with us. And I want you to help me build that kind of bridge to the 21st century. I hope you will do that.

I want you to help me build a bridge to the 21st century where we move people from welfare to work and every able-bodied person now on welfare is working. But we have to create the jobs to do it. I have a plan to work with your new Governor to put a million jobs in America to move people from welfare to work. And I want you to help me build that kind of bridge. We want to lift these kids up in poor families and lift their families up and let them succeed at home and at work, just the way you're struggling to do. And I want you to help me build that kind of bridge.

I want you to help me build a bridge to continue our fight to reduce the crime rate. Yes, there are one million fewer victims. Yes, crime has gone down for 4 years. But it's still too big, it's still too much trouble, there are still too many of our children in gangs, too many of our children turning to drugs, too much random violence. And I want you to help me finish the job to complete putting 100,000 police on the street, to defeat those in Congress who tried to cut our safe and drug-free schools program, to do what we can to make this a stronger country.

You know, 2 years ago, the State of Washington, in this congressional district and others, led the country in embracing Mr. Gingrich's Republican revolution. He told you two things that weren't so. He said that we'd raised all these income taxes on working people, and we were going to break the economy. Well, 10 1/2 million jobs later, we know he was wrong. We've got the lowest unemployment rate in 7 1/2 years.