Remarks at a Get Out the Vote Rally in New York City - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Nov 13, 2000

Okay. Second question. This is not just a country that's better off; this is a better country--crime at a 26-year low; the number of people without health insurance going down for the first time in 12 years; 2.5 million more kids with health insurance; the environment getting cleaner, we've tripled the number of toxic waste sites we've cleaned up over what they did in 12 years; we have cleaner air, cleaner water, safer drinking water, and we set aside more land for internal protection than any administration since Theodore Roosevelt almost 100 ago.

The schools are getting better. On the national test scores, the math scores are up; the reading scores are up; the science scores are up; the dropout rate is down. African-American high school graduation rate was almost exactly equal to white high school graduation rate last year for the first time in history. The college-going rate is at an all-time high, thanks in part to the biggest increase in college aid in 50 years under this administration.

Now, second question, do you want to build on this progress and not reverse it? Don't you want to do better? Wouldn't you like it if our streets were safer, our environment was cleaner, we had more people with health insurance, and we had even more educational opportunities and more of our schools worked well? If you do, you've got a choice. Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, Hillary, and our Democrats in the House, do you know what they want? They want, number one, on crime, to keep putting more police on the street, keep taking steps to get guns out of the hands of criminals and kids.

Number two, they want a clean energy future, so that you don't have to worry sick in New York every winter about whether you'll have enough home heating oil or whether, if you've got it, you can afford it.

Number three, they want to continue to insure more kids, until all kids are insured, then their working parents are insured. We pass a Patients' Bill of Rights and a Medicare prescription drug program for all the seniors in this country who need that.

Number four, they want to keep working on the schools. You heard Major talking about that. If we win a majority in the House, he'll be the head of the Education Subcommittee, and I won't have to worry about education anymore. What do we want to do with schools? Universal preschool and after-school for all the kids who need it; smaller classes in the early grades, with 100,000 new teachers; school construction funds to build schools and repair schools, so kids are not going to substandard schools and they have the facilities they need to get a good education; funds to help turn around failing schools and a tax deduction for the cost of college tuition--that's our program.

Now, you've got a choice. You have a choice. What does the other side want? Here's what they promise to do. On crime, they promise to repeal our program to put 100,000 police on the street. It works--never mind that, they're still going to repeal it. They say the Federal Government shouldn't be doing it, even if our streets are safer.