IP: President Remarks to the People of Philadelphia PA (fwd)

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

                            THE WHITE HOUSE
                                    
                     Office of the Press Secretary
                      (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)                             


________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                   October 29, 1996     
                                    
                                    
                        REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                 TO THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILADELPHIA AREA
                                    
                                    
                               Hill Field
             Chestnut Street Between 33rd and 34th Streets
                       Philadelphia, Pennsylvania                              
            






2:33 P.M. EST




                THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  Thank you,
Philadelphia.  Can you hear us in the back?  (Applause.)  Beyond the
fence?  Thank you.  Thank you for being here today.  Thank you,
Congressman Chaka Fattah, for your eloquent introduction.  What's all
that music?  (Laughter.)  Whoever turned it off, give them a hand.
That's great.  There are a few thousand people out there beyond the
fence.  Can you hear us back there?  Welcome.  We're glad to see you.
                
                Thank you, Congressman Chaka Fattah, for your
leadership.  Thank you, Mayor Rendell, for your outstanding leadership
of Philadelphia.  It's amazing what you've accomplished for all of
America, as you said in your introduction.  (Laughter.)  Congressman
Borski, Congressman Foglietta.  And I'd like to introduce a person that
I hope will be joining them in the United States Congress to fight for
you and you future, Joe Hoeffel, a congressional candidate, very near
here.  Thank you, sir.  (Applause.)  Thank you, President of the
Philadelphia City Council, John Street.  Thank you, my good friends,
Grover Washington, Patti LaBelle, Boyz 2 Men.  Weren't they great?
(Applause.)
                
                Thank you, Rodney Peete, for what you said and what you
do and we all wish you well in your recovery.  He's in a line of work
where he even takes more blows than I do, and he's doing very well.
(Laughter and applause.)  And thank you, Holly, for being here.  Thank
you, Dr. Papadakis, and thank you, Dr. Judith Roden.  (Applause.)  Thank
you, Chairman Brady and thank you, Catherine Baker Knowles.  And I
understand that there are students here from 21 different colleges and
universities throughout the Delaware Valley -- thank you, all of you,
for coming here today.  (Applause.)
                
                Thank you, Secretary Riley, for being here with me and
for being, I believe, the most outstanding Secretary of Education in the
history of that department.
                
                Ladies and gentlemen, we're about to elect the last
President of the 20th century, the first President of the 21st century.
You have a lot at stake in that election.  I wanted to come here today
where there would be so many young people to ask you to think about your
tomorrows.  I ask you to go home tonight and before you go to bed, to
spend just a few moments asking yourself a simple question:  What do I
want my country to be like when we cross that bridge into the 21st
century?  What do I hope my country will be like when my children are my
age?
             
             Here we are in Philadelphia, the birthplace of American
democracy.  When our forefathers gathered here to lead the way into the
19th century over 200 years ago, they restored to the Earth a form of
government called democracy that had been all but forgotten for 2000
years.  Since ancient Greece, people had given up on the idea that
people could be free, could freely govern themselves, could elect their
own leaders and make their own decisions and march into the future as
equal children of God.  It was a revolutionary idea.
             
             And because they did that, they set in motion a whole chain
of circumstances that have brought us here today -- all of us from our
different ethnic and racial and religious backgrounds, all of us from
our different economic circumstances, all of us from all over this great
country and from all over the world, we stand here today freely to
debate our opinions and discuss our visions, because they did that.
What I want you to understand is that we are about to begin a new
century and a new millennium where we are radically changing the way we
work and live and relate to each other; where we must find a way to meet
our challenges and seize our opportunities while preserving the values
that have sustained this country and our families and our lives for over
200 years.
             
             Many of you in this audience today will soon be doing jobs
that have not been invented yet; many of you will even be doing work
that has not been imagined yet.  I want to say a special word of thanks
to those who are here who are pushing the frontiers of knowledge, the
hundreds of scientists and engineers, including many here in
Pennsylvania, who have supported our goals in science and technology.
And I want to thank especially one of your own who is here today and was
a pioneer of the Internet and one of the co-chairs of Scientists and
Engineers for Clinton-Gore, Pennsylvania's own, David Farber.  Thank you
for being here today.  (Applause.)
             
             If you just think about the Internet, four years ago when I
took the oath of office as President, about the only people who knew
about the Internet were nuclear physicists.  Today my cat has his own
home page and on Web site.  (Laughter.)  I stop and shake hands with
school children; they know not very much about me, but they have been
conversing with Socks on the Internet.  (Laughter.)  Before you know it
there will be 100 million people on the Internet.
             
             So when we think about this election, I think it's good to
cheer and shout, make a lot of noise and get our emotions running, but I
also think you ought to take a little time just to ask yourself, what do
I want this country to be like when we cross that bridge to a new
century and a new millennium.
             
             I have always wanted America to go into this new century
with the American Dream alive and well for everyone responsible enough
to work for it.  I have always wanted to know that our country would
still be the strongest force in the world for peace and freedom and
prosperity.  And I have always wanted to know that we could beat the
tide of history driving so many people apart around the world, and we
could say, we love our diversity, we relish our diversity; we're
building a stronger American community with all the different people who
come here who share our values and believe in our Constitution.
(Applause.)


             Four years ago when the people of Pennsylvania supported
me, you sort of took me on faith.  Today you don't have to do that
entirely.  There is a record.  And it is true that we have 10.5 million
more jobs; that we have the lowest deficit that our country has had,
once you adjust for inflation, in 22 years; that our deficit is now the
lowest of any advanced country in the world; and that in part because of
that, we have lower interest rates, which means lower loan rates for
businesses, lower car payment rates and student loan rate and home
mortgage rates.  That's what gives you 10.5 million new jobs and record
numbers of new businesses.


             We have seen, after years and years of decline and
stagnation, the typical families' incomes begin to go up substantially
again; the biggest drop in childhood poverty in 20 years.  We have the
largest number of businesses owned by women and minorities in the
history of America.  We are moving in the right direction to the 21st
century.  (Applause.)


             The welfare rolls have dropped by nearly 2 million.  The
crime rate has gone down for four years in a row and is now at a 10-year
low.  Ten million Americans just got an increase in their minimum wage.
Twenty-five million Americans may be helped by the Kennedy-Kassebaum
bill that says you can't lose your health insurance anymore just because
you change jobs or somebody in your family has been sick.  (Applause.)
We've stopped and made it illegal for insurance companies to kick
mothers and their newborn babies out of the hospital after 24 hours.
(Applause.)
             
             There are fewer chemical pollutants in the air.  Our
drinking water is safer.  Our food standards have been raised.  We've
cleaned up more toxic waste sites in three years than the previous
administrations did in 12.  The environment is cleaner, and we have
fought off the most vigorous assault on environmental protection since
we began to protect the environment in 1970.  We are moving in the right
direction into the 21st century.  (Applause.)
             
             We have expanded Head Start, created the national service
program, given our schools the tools they need to meet higher standards.
We have lowered the cost of college loans and improved the repayment
terms so that for 10 million American students today you can pay your
college loan back as a percentage of your income and never fear being
bankrupted because of the increase in the cost of college.  (Applause.)
             
             I just signed the biggest increase in the Pell Grant
program in 20 years, and 200,000 more work-study positions for college
students throughout America.  We are moving in the right direction.
(Applause.)
             
             But you have to decide.  And I want to go through some of
the specific issues, but I want you to keep the big issues in mind.  The
big issues are, what do you believe we have to do together as a people
nationally.  It's not the government versus the people.  Our
administration has reduced the size of government, the number of
regulations, the number of programs and privatized more government
operations than the last two administrations combined.  That is not what
it is.  It's whether you believe we'd be better off going into the
future with the philosophy of you're on your own, or whether you think
it does take a village to raise our children and invest in our future
and move forward into the 21st century.  It's whether you believe that
it's enough for someone to say to you, whatever your station in life,
there is the future out there and there is a lot of mountains to climb
and valleys to cross and rivers to ford -- I hope you make it; or
whether you want to build a bridge that's strong enough and wide enough
for every one of us to walk across together.  That is the question
before you.  (Applause.)


             So will we balance the budget while we protect our
investments in education, research, the environment, and our obligations
to poor children, to our families in nursing homes, to people with
disabilities through Medicare and Medicaid; or will we adopt a risky tax
scheme that will blow a hole in the deficit and require bigger cuts than
those I vetoed last year when they shut the government down?  I think I
know the answer to that.  I think you want to balance the budget, keep
the economy growing, and have targeted tax cuts for education and child
rearing and health care and buying a first home.  Will you help me build
that bridge?  (Applause.)


             We have made a beginning on health care reform, but our
balanced budget plan will go further.  It will help families keep their
insurance when they're between jobs for six months.  It will add another
million children to the ranks of insured.  It will give free mammograms
to women on Medicare.  And for the nearly two million families
struggling to care with a family member with Alzheimer's, we're going to
keep them some respite care because they're trying to keep their
families together.  That's what we ought to do.  Will you help us build
that bridge?  (Applause.)


             We passed the Family and Medical Leave law, which has given
12 million families a chance to take a little time off from work when a
baby is born or a family member is sick.  Our friends on the other side
led the fight against Family and Medical Leave.  They said it would hurt
the economy.  We have 10.5 million more jobs and the fastest small
business growth in American history; it does not hurt the economy when
you help people succeed at home and at work.  Parenting is our most
important work, and we're better off.  (Applause.)


             I want to expand Family and Medical Leave to say you can
have a little time off without losing your job to go see your children's
teacher twice a year, and when someone in your family needs to go to the
doctor, to take them.  And I think when people earn overtime, they ought
to have the right to decide whether to take the overtime in cash or time
with their family if they're needed at home.  Will you help us build
that kind of future?
             
             The crime rate has gone down for four years in a row
because we listen to the police in this country and the community
activists, because we passed a crime bill that had tougher punishment,
but also had prevention programs to give our children something to say
yes to, is putting 100,000 police on the street and taking guns and
drugs and gangs off the street.  The Brady Bill cost no Pennsylvania
hunter a weapon, not a single one.  But 60,000 felons, fugitives and
stalkers didn't get handguns to terrorize the people here in
Philadelphia as a result of it.  (Applause.)
             
             And now we have to go further and finish the job of putting
those police on the street. You know, our friends on the other side,
they still are trying to undermine our commitment to 100,000 police.  It
is bringing the crime rate down.  I want to keep going until we have
eight years of declining crime and everybody in this country feel safe
walking on the street outside their house with their children playing in
the park down the street, feel safe in their schools, safe in their
homes, safe in their neighborhoods, from the Violence Against Women Act,
to the Domestic Violence Prevention Program, to the 100,000 police we
are moving in the right direction.  Will you help us build that bridge
to the 21st century?  (Applause.)
             
             There are still 10 million children in this country living
within four miles of a toxic waste dump.  I want to close 500 more so we
can look every child in the face and say, son or daughter, you're going
to grow up next to a park, not poison. In America, we know the
environment can be enhanced as we grow the economy, and we will never
turn back on that commitment.  Will you help us build that bridge to the
21st century?  (Applause.)
             
             We've moved almost 2 million people from welfare to work
and signed a new bill that says that people who are able-bodied have to
turn their welfare check into a paycheck within two years.  That sounds
good, but passing a law does not change people's lives.  I say if you
require people to go to work, you had better make sure there is work for
them to do.  I have a plan to create those jobs, and I want you to help
me build that bridge to the 21st century.  Will you help us do that?
(Applause.)
             
             Most of all, my fellow Americans, your vote will decide
whether we go forward together in our common quest to give every person
in this country, from the smallest children to people way in their later
years who need it the opportunity to learn and to keep on learning for a
lifetime and to do so at international standards of excellence.
             
             We have worked hard to improve education, but we must do
more.  We have to raise standards, define them, expect them and measure
them and hold people accountable.  We ought to do more.  Forty percent
of the 8-year-olds in this country -- this is important -- 40 percent of
the 8-year-olds in this country can still not read independently.
That's partly because we have so many people coming to our country from
other places and their first language isn't English.  But they need to
learn to read so they can grow and learn and someday show up at the
University of Pennsylvania or Drexel and do well.  That's when they need
to learn.  (Applause.)
             
             Now, we have a plan to mobilize 30,000 AmeriCorps
volunteers and other trained reading experts to go across the country to
generate one million total volunteers to help teach children to read.
Of the 200,000 extra work study slots we just got allocated to college
students, I want 100,000 of those devoted to young people who say, yes,
if you will help me go through college, I will be glad to take some of
my time to teach a young child to read.  Will you help us do that?  Will
you help us do that?  (Applause.)
             
             We have to keep going with technology until we hook every
school and library in the country up to the Internet, to the Information
Superhighway.  I want to do it for free -- every classroom and every
library.  For the first time in history, if we do this, we can know, for
the very first time since education began in America, that the students
in the poorest inner-city schools, the students in the most remote
mountain villages, along with students in the wealthiest schools and the
middle class schools, all of our kids together for the first time ever
will have access to the same information in the same way at the same
time.  We are going to revolutionize learning in America if we do it.
Will you help us do that?  (Applause.)


             And finally, we are determined to open the doors of college
education to all Americans by passing the HOPE Scholarship, and saying,
within four years we want two years of education after high school to be
as universal as a high school diploma is today.  And we'll help you do
it.  You can deduct dollar for dollar from your tax bill the cost of a
typical community college tuition.  Until everybody can go, we'll pay
the way.  All you have to do is work hard and make your grades, be
responsible, and we'll give the opportunity to build a new life.
(Applause.)


             We want to give every college student, undergraduate or
graduate in any form of higher education a $10,000 tax deduction a year
for the cost of any tuition.  Will you help us do that?  (Applause.)


             We want to let families all over America save in IRAs for
college and withdraw the money without tax penalty for education or home
buying or medical costs, so that we can say we will never tax the money
being used for higher education in America because we want everyone to
go.  I want you to help us achieve that.  We can do it with your help.
Will you do it?  (Applause.)


             And finally, let me just say this -- look around this great
sea of people today.  You have people here who come from every
continent, from many different racial and ethnic and religious groups.
Here we are together as Americans.  You have people here with different
political opinions.  I'm glad some of the opposition showed up today;
reminds us we don't have everything.


             AUDIENCE:  Booo!


             PRESIDENT:  Now, wait a minute.  Listen.  That's what makes
America America.  If we all agreed, it wouldn't be nearly as interesting
as it is, because we're all different.


             But you think about the rest of the world.  Congressman
Fattah mentioned it.  But you think about Bosnia, the Middle East,
Northern Ireland, Rwanda, Burundi, South Africa -- how many places in
the world have people been torn apart because folks are driven by their
hatreds rather than their hopes, because people define themselves in
terms of who they aren't instead of who they are, because political
leaders are always looking for a wedge to drive into the stake of the
spirit of people instead of looking for way to bring us together.  We
have beat that.


             In the reaction to the terrible tragedy in Oklahoma City,
we said, we don't hate people just because they work for our government.
They're our servants.  And the reaction we had to the terrible church
burnings, to the desecrations of synagogues and the destruction of
Islamic centers -- we said, in America we believe in religious freedom
and dignity.


             You look around this crowd today -- that's the last thing I
want to say -- we have got to say, if you believe in the Constitution,
the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights birthed by our
founders here so many years ago, if you are willing to show up tomorrow
and do the right thing, being a good student, going to work and doing
your best, we don't need to know anything else about you.  You're part
of our America, part of our future, and you're going to walk across that
bridge with us into the 21st century.  (Applause.)


             Will you be there next week?  (Applause.)  Will you lead
them?  (Applause.)


             Thank you.  God bless you.  We can do it.  Thank you.
(Applause.)


            END                        2:55 P.M. EST