Remarks to the Saxophone Club in Seattle

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 23, 1996

The President. Thank you. Thank you very much. Believe it or not, we can almost see most of you way in the back and up there. Thank you.

I want to begin by just thanking all of you for being here tonight.

Audience member. Where's Hillary? [Laughter]

The President. Well, Hillary is on her way here. She's been in Denver. We're going to leave for the bus trip here tomorrow, so sometime in the next hour and a half she'll be here.

I want to thank you Tom Skerritt for introducing me and for being a good friend and supporter. I know you're all proud of him. I want to thank all the musicians who played tonight, and this is a Saxophone Club event; we've got five saxophones back here. Let's give them all a hand. [Applause] Thank you.

I want to tell you how proud I am to be here with these fine folks who are up on the stage with me. Gary Locke is going to be a great Governor of Washington State. And you can be proud of him. I want to thank my good friend Congressman Norm Dicks for being here and ask for your support for him. And I want to briefly introduce all these other gentlemen behind me because they're going to give you a chance to undo that revolution that Mr. Gingrich brought us 2 years ago.

So I'd like to ask them to give you a wave as I call their names: Kevin Quigley; Rick Locke; Brian Baird; Jeff Coopersmith; and this gentleman got more votes than the incumbent Congressman last night and will again November, Adam Smith. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.

Now, were any of you in the Pike Street Market today? I hope you didn't get pneumonia. I couldn't believe that you waited in the rain. You should know I just got the latest figures. I understand that 35,000 people were put through the mags at the rally tonight. So I thank you for that. I am very grateful for your presence here tonight and for your support.

Audience member. Play the sax!

The President. No, I can't do that. After the election, I'll play, after the election. No, I'm not going to do it. You might as well stop now; I'm not going to do it. [Laughter]

You know, that's the way they were when they passed that budget and shut the Government down. I told them I wasn't going to put up with that, either. I didn't do it. [Laughter] After the election, I'll play, after the election. I've got to get my skill level back up. After the election, I'll do that.

Let me tell you something, this election in 7 weeks - or to be precise, 6 weeks and 6 days - is going to have a huge impact on what your country looks like in 50 years. You know that, and you're determined to make it come out right, or you wouldn't be here tonight, and you certainly wouldn't be in such a good humor, with such high spirits, with such high energy.

But I want to ask you tonight to take the energy, the enthusiasm, the spirit that you're manifesting here and take it out all across this community, all across this State, to your friends in other States for 6 weeks and 6 days. If you'll give us 6 weeks and 6 days, we'll give you 4 great years. And I need your help.

You know, if you look around, if you just look around Seattle today and the State of Washington, you see a lot of living examples of what I am trying so hard to do for America's future. You know, I want to build a bridge to the future that has a growing economy in which everybody can participate, not just a few, but everybody. That's why it's important to stop those who tried to cut back on education and instead make a college education available to everybody, bring the Internet to every classroom, make sure we have world-class opportunities.

I want us to go forward as one community building for the future. That's why it's important to balance the budget without walking away from our commitments to education or to the environment or to research.

As I said today at the Pike Street Market, the University of Washington is the number one recipient of Federal research investment of any public university in the United States of America. You've got a big stake in our continuing to invest in the future and building a better future.

Just in the last 4 years, I've seen the life expectancy of people with HIV and AIDS more than double in 4 years because of medical research and accelerating movement of drugs to the marketplace.

Just a few days before Christopher Reeve spoke so movingly at the Democratic National Convention about research - just a few days - for the first time in history we had an example of lower-limb movement being restored to laboratory animals that had their spines severed by nerve transplants. This is historic in its implications. To turn away from research at the time when things like this are happening is folly.

So, yes, balance the budget, but keep investing in our people and our future, so we can go forward together and grow together. You understand that here. You know that here. You know it's a part of our future, and you have to stand for it.

This has also been a great week for America's natural heritage and environment. Last night we reached an agreement to preserve the old growth forests in Washington and Oregon. This week we reached an agreement to preserve and restore salmon on the Columbia River, very important. Today I went to the Grand Canyon, which was first preserved by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 by a declaration of Presidential monument to declare a monument in southern Utah: 1.7 million acres; the Grand Cascade-Escalante monument. It's a beautiful, priceless treasure for our people and a great thing for our country.