Remarks in Vancouver, Washington

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 23, 1996

The President. Thank you. Hello, Vancouver. Thank you for being here in such wonderful numbers. Thank you for waiting for us. We have had a wonderful, wonderful trip all the way from Tacoma; we started this morning in the rain. There were about 25,000 people there, and then the Sun came out, and then the Sun went in, and the Moon came out - [laughter] - and we came to beautiful Vancouver. Thank you. Bless you.

Thank you, Gary Locke, for being with us and good luck - we need you. I hope you'll help him become the next Governor of the State of Washington. And thank you, Brian Baird, for taking on this brave fight for Congress. Congratulations on your great vote on Tuesday. Stick with him, folks. This young man can make it, and he'll represent you well.

Hillary and Tipper and Al and I, we've had a wonderful visit in Washington State. It's great to be back. I was just up the road, Woodland, where I came when the flood came, you know, and I saw some of the people I met there. I was so moved by the way they responded to the flood, by what they did, that I wrote about them in the book I put out this year as part of telling the American people what I wanted to do for the next 4 years.

And I have to tell you - when I go around to these communities in your wonderful State, I see all of the children coming out, full of hope for the future, I see all of you come out, determined to play a constructive role in this election, it is so different from the way it was beginning to be 4 years ago when we had a stagnant economy, rising crime, a more divided country, and increasing cynicism. Today, we're on the right track for the 21st century, and we need to stay right on it.

My fellow Americans, this election in 6 weeks and 5 days is an election for the last President of the 20th century and the first President of the 21st century. But by far more important, it's an election that will shape what America will be like when our children are our age.

The questions I try to ask and answer every day are: First, what do we have to do to keep the American dream alive for every American, every boy and girl willing to work for it? Second, what do we have to do to keep our country coming together? We're becoming increasingly diverse and different. How can we come together in mutual respect to build the bonds of strong communities to make a strong nation? How can we beat the odds and not become like so many other countries that are being torn apart by their differences, their religious, their racial, their ethnic, their tribal differences? That's not America. We need to be a strong community, just like this is a strong community. And finally, how can we keep on leading the world for peace and freedom and prosperity? We've worked on that for 4 years, with a simple strategy: opportunity for every American, responsibility from every American, and a real effort to build our community together.

Now I tell you, yes, we're better off than we were 4 years ago, and it wasn't an accident. And yes, there are big differences between our opponents, the nominee for President, Senator Dole, Mr. Gingrich, and all of them - we fought over many different issues that we honestly disagreed on. They said if our budget plan passed, it would bring on a recession and increase the deficit; that's what they said.

Well, 4 years later we've reduced the deficit 4 years in a row for the first time since the 1840's, we have 10 1/2 million new jobs; our auto industry is number one; we have record exports, record small businesses. I think we were right. We're moving in the right direction. We'll balance the budget if you'll give us 4 more years.

There's been a lot of talk - a lot of talk about crime. Well, folks, you never heard a politician who was for crime, did you? I never heard a politician give a speech saying, "I really wish we had more crime." Of course, we're all against crime, but what I found when I came to Washington is, we'd had 6 long years of talks, and nothing but hot air and nothing to show for it.

We passed a crime bill that our opponents led the opposition to, to put 100,000 police on the street, to have a "three strikes and you're out" law, to have much tougher punishment, to ban 19 kinds of assault weapons, to protect hunting and sporting weapons. We passed the Brady bill over their opposition. What's happened? Four years in a row, we're halfway home on 100,000 police; we stopped them when they tried to repeal the 100,000 police; we took the assault weapons off the street, 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers didn't get handguns, but all the Washington hunters still have their hunting rifles. I believe we were right, and they were wrong, and we need to keep on going in that direction.

We've moved almost 2 million people off the welfare rolls, increased child support collections by 40 percent. There are one million fewer crime victims in America today. We are moving in the right direction. As the Vice President said, while growing the economy we've worked hard to make the air cleaner, the drinking water and the food safer, to protect our natural resources and to expand them.