Remarks at Jenner Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois,

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 28, 1998

Thank you very much. There aren't ali that many sixth graders that could do that and be less nervous than she was. She did a great job, didn't she? Thank you, Gina, thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am so glad to be here today. I thank the mayor for his extraordinary work. and I want to thank Secretary Daley, too, for being a truly remarkable Secretary of Commerce. My old friend, John Stroger, thank you for being here. I'd like to thank the board members of the Chicago School Reform Board, Gery Chico and the other members who are here. I thank Paul Vallas, your CEO. I thank your principal; thank you for your good work here. It's been my experience that all good schools have a good principal.

I want to thank Gina again. I'm sure the first time she was asked to do this, this was just one step above going to the dentist, you know. [Laughter] And I thought she did a superb job.

I'd like to thank Joanne Alter, and all the people who are involved in the WITS program here in Chicago. I believe in this so strongly. Last year we arranged to have students from a thousand colleges and universities go into our elementary schools to help to tutor, to try to follow the sterling example you have set here.

To all the parents, the teachers, the educators, the tutors, the students, thank you. I'd also like to thank Mary Lou Kearns for being here, for her work in health care and for presenting herself as a candidate for Lieutenant Governor. And I'd like to thank Glenn Poshard who wanted to be here, but I wouldn't have him anywhere else. He's back in Washington voting a tough vote so close to an election, voting not to give an election year tax cut before we make sure we've got the budget balanced and we save Social Security for the 21st century. It is the right thing to do, and I thank him for that. And we're glad to have Glenn's wife, Jo Poshard, here with us. Thank you, Jo, for coming. We're glad to see you.

Ladies and gentlemen, I told the mayor on the way in that he ought to put me on the payroll because I've become such a shameless advocate for the Chicago public schools. But I want to tell you why. First of all, I am deeply gratified by the success of our country. Most of the credit belongs to the American people. But I think our policies have had something to do with the fact that we have the lowest unemployment rate in 28 years, almost 17 million new jobs; the lowest crime rate in 25 years; the smallest percentage of people on welfare in 29 years; the lowest African-American poverty rate since statistics have been collected; the lowest inflation in 32 years; the highest real wage growth in more than 20 years; the highest homeownership in history; and in just 6 days, the first balanced budget and surplus in 29 long years.

I have been particularly grateful to the people of Illinois and the City of Chicago, without whom it is doubtful that I could have become President. I brought some of them with me here today, Secretary Daley and Rahm Emanual. I was met at the airport by Kevin O'Keefe, who worked in the White House for several years. And I see my good friend, Avis Lavelle out there, who was a part of our administration. And of course, the most important person from Chicago to this administration is the First Lady, who asked me to tell all of you hello. She's out on the West Coast today, and I'm going to meet her tonight so we can see our daughter tomorrow. But you've had a lot to do with it.

But I would like to especially thank Senator Carol Moseley-Braun and Congressman Glenn Poshard and the other members of the Democratic delegation in Illinois, without whom - without any one of whom we would not have passed the economic plan in 1993, which led to this big decline in the deficit, big decline in interest rates, big takeoff in the economy.

One of the things that very few people know about that economic plan was that it also doubled something called the earned-income tax credit, the EITC, which lowers taxes to working people on modest incomes with children. Today, for a family of four with an income of under $30,000, that amounts to about $1,000 a year going back to families. Last year alone, thanks to Glenn Poshard and Carol Moseley-Braun and these other folks - and remember, if one of them had fallen off, none of it would have passed - last year along 4 million working Americans, including 1.1 million African-Americans, were lifted out of poverty because of this tax cut. And that has made a major contribution to broadening economic growth. And the people of Illinois should be very grateful to them for making that historic vote in 1993 when it was hard to do. And I thank them.

Now, the mayor once said when he was talking that not so many years ago people were kind of defeatist about the American economy. There is still a great debate going on in Washington, DC, about public education. Everybody knows - everybody knows that we have the finest system of higher education in the world, and we have now opened the doors of college to everybody who is willing to work for it with the HOPE scholarship, the $1,500 tax credit for the first 2 years of college; with tax credits for all higher education; the deductibility of student loans; huge increase in Pell grants; 300,000 more work-study positions. We've done that. But all of us know that we can't stop until we can look each other straight in the eye and say with absolute conviction, every child in this country, without regard to their race, their income, their neighborhood, their family circumstances - every single child has access to a world-class education. That is our national mission and we cannot stop until we achieve it.