Remarks in Vancouver, Washington

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 23, 1996

I want you to think about this. We have to balance the budget, but we do not have to cut Head Start. We do not have to raise taxes on the poorest working people. We do not have to do it in ways that allow corporations to raid their workers' pension funds. We don't have to do it in a way that abolishes the safe and drug-free school program, the AmeriCorps program, gets rid of direct student loans which have helped millions and millions of young people in this country. They were wrong. Our way of balancing the budget is better. And I hope you'll support it.

Will you help us build that bridge to the 21st century?

Audience members. Yes!

The President. Finally, most important of all, most important of all, we've got to create a bridge that all of our children can walk across that gives every American without regard to their age access to a lifetime of educational opportunity.

And I just want to mention two things. Number one, I want to see every classroom and library in America hooked up to the Internet by the year 2000, hooked up to the World Wide Web. I want to make sure that children in small towns, children in inner-city neighborhoods, children in Native American tribes on reservations - children everywhere - for the first time in the history of this country have access to the same learning, in the same way, at the same level of quality, in the same time - everybody. It has never happened. We can do it.

Will you help me build that bridge to the 21st century?

Audience members. Yes!

The President. And the second thing I want to say is, I want you to help me make a college education available to every single American citizen who needs it. And we propose to do it with three simple steps.

First, let families save in an IRA, an individual retirement account, and then withdraw from it tax-free if they're spending the money on a college education for their children or themselves.

Second, second, let's make a commitment that by the year 2000, at least 2 years of education after high school, a community college diploma will be just as normal, just as usual, just as universal as a high school diploma is today. We can do it.

Here's how. I propose to let you take a credit, just take it off your taxes, dollar for dollar, for the cost of tuition at the typical community college in America. You go find the college, reduce your taxes by the tuition. That way we'll pay for everybody who needs it to go to community college. And we can do it and balance the budget.

And third, third, for people who want to go to the 4 year colleges or to graduate school - of any age - people that were working and have to go back - I think we should allow you a deduction on your taxes of up to $10,000 for the cost of college tuition every year.

Will you help me build that bridge to the 21st century?

Audience members. Yes!

The President. Folks, there are 6 weeks and 5 days to this election. I have done everything I could do to make this an election of ideas not insults, to stop the old-fashioned Washington politics of dividing people. There was a sign at our last rally that said, "We don't need division. We need vision." And I believe that. We need more of that.