Remarks to employees at the Chrysler jeep plant in Toledo

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 2, 1996

The President. Thank you. I'm glad to see you, and I'm glad to be here.

Audience member. Put the hat back on!

The President. I can't talk with a hat on. [Laughter] My brain's not working. It's only - it's early, you know. [Laughter] But you'll see me with this on again. I'll run in it, play golf in it.

I want to thank Dennis Pawley for what he said out here a few minutes ago and for the leadership that he's given to Chrysler and our partnership. I want to thank your plant manager for showing me around and bragging on you. I thank my old friend, Rob Liberatore for coming from Washington for Chrysler; and Lloyd Mahaffey and Bruce Baumhower, and Ron Conrad and all the people from the UAW.

And one of your members behind me gave me this very old UAW pin, and I'll collect it, and it will have a prominent place in the White House in my collection. So I'm glad to have that.

I'll tell you, I was listening to the Mayor talk, listening to Marcy talk, and I thought there's more energy in Toledo than any other place in America. I never heard such - [applause]. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for what you said and for the partnerships we've had both in building up the economy and trying to tear down crime. And in both places you've worked hard when we've worked together, and I thank you for that. Thank you, Marcy Kaptur, for being perhaps the most ferocious defender of middle class economics and middle class values in the Congress of the United States.

Thank you, John Glenn, for all you have done for this State and this country, for your partnership with me in helping to rebuild our economy and helping to make this a safer world.

You know, I've heard Senator Glenn introduced a lot, and two things I rarely ever hear - one I want to tell you is that he said we have downsized the Government. We had to. We wanted to put 100,000 more police on your streets, and we had a big Government, and we had a huge deficit, we had to find some way to pay for it. We couldn't just pay for it with a tax increase, so we reduced the size of Government. But you never hear about it in America, and I'm proud of that because we did it in a good way.

Of the 250,000 fewer people that are working for the Federal Government today, fewer than 1,800 were involuntarily separated. We gave those folks early retirement. We helped them find other jobs. They went on to other careers in dignity, so they could support their families and go forward into the future. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud of that.

And John Glenn was one of the people who found ways for us to save money and to do things so we could do that and treat people humanely. He played a major role in that, especially in the first 2 years of my administration. And there are families out there who can thank God that he found ways to save money, for example, in the way the Pentagon bought their purchases and deal with the personnel systems. All that's real people, and it matters.

And speaking of real people, I hope you were proud of Todd last night. He was great at the Democratic Convention. I've been asked several times by the press, why do we have Todd Clancy, why do we have Mike Robbins, the Chicago police officer who was riddled with bullets in an assault weapons hail on the street of Chicago after serving our country in Vietnam and Desert Storm and never being wounded. Why did we have that young Puerto Rican American woman who was an AmeriCorps volunteer and is now going to go on and be a doctor after being a high school dropout? Why do we have these people talk? Why do we have the superintendent of schools in Seattle, Washington, who is an Army General?

[At this point, an audience member required medical attention.]

The President. We need a doctor here. My doctor is here - can we get somebody over here?

And I want you to - we're okay, we've got somebody here now. I want you to know why we asked citizens to go to a political convention and kick it off. Why do we have Jim and Sarah Brady, lifelong Republicans, come and talk? Why do we ask Christopher Reeve, a man who's not particularly political but is a shining example of the kind of courage never to give up, to talk about the importance of Government research and the importance of continuing the Medicaid program so we don't cut off middle class families who don't have a lot of money to deal with disabled people in their family and keep guaranteeing them their health care so they can keep their good jobs?

Why did we do all that? Because people lose the connection between what is done in Government and what happens in your daily lives. It's easy to lose that connection. It meant an awful lot to me when Dennis Pawley talked about how I asked to meet with the representatives of the auto industry soon after my election as President, and I said we'd put a premium on that. I knew that America could not lose its auto industry. I knew we could be number one again. And I think the best way to say that and to show the connection between what we do in Washington and what you do in Toledo is to have a person like Todd Clancy tell a personal story that shows how America's life can be changed if we work together and do the rights things. And I know you are proud of him, and so am I.