Remarks at Cuyahoga Community College in Parma, Ohio

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 28, 1996

Thank you very much. Good morning. I won't let the rain bother me if you don't let it bother you; how's that? Thank you so much, all of you, for being here. I'm going to put on my raincoat. I cheat a little bit.

First let me thank Dr. Jerry Sue Thornton and all the people here at this wonderful community college for hosting us. Thank you, Senator Glenn. Thank you, Mayor Gerald Boldt. I'm glad to be back in Parma. Thank you, sir. I'm the only President in history who has ever come to Parma twice just to eat pierogies, but I'm - [laughter]. We're going to do a little work today.

Thank you, Cleveland Mayor Mike White. Thank you, Dennis Kucinich, for that great speech. He sounded like a Congressman to me. Thank you, Mayor Tom Coyne, for running for Congress. Thank you, Congressmen Tom Sawyer and Sherrod Brown, for being here. Thank you, Representative Jane Campbell, David Leland. Thank you, Mayor Dimora, for being here.

And let me say a special thanks to the Valley Forge High School Band for being here. I am not so old that I do not remember what it's like to try to play one of those instruments in the rain. It's not easy, and let's give them another hand. Come on. [Applause] I also want to thank all the other students who are here. There is a group of students back here - [applause] - there is a group of students in the back over there with a sign that says they got out of school and I have to sign their permission slip. So I will do that for the ones in the back.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for being here. Thanks for that "Ohio Republicans for Clinton/Gore" sign. That looks good to me. I am delighted to be back here. Let me say, all of you know that 4 years ago when I ran for President we had a time of high unemployment and rising frustration. And all of you know that compared to 4 years ago, we are better off. We have 10 1/2 million more jobs. The unemployment rate in Ohio has gone from 7 percent to 4.8 percent. Average family income in the last 2 years is up $1,600 after inflation, after being stagnant for a decade. We are moving in the right direction. The crime rate has come down for 4 years in a row. The welfare rolls have dropped. Child support collections are up almost 50 percent. We're moving in the right direction.

This election will determine what direction we take into the 21st century. That is the decision before all of you. Will you help me build a bridge to the 21st century? [Applause] If you compare the work we've done in the last month since you had your voices heard, compared to the last 2 years, when I vetoed a budget that would have cut education for the first time in American history, weakened environmental protection, undermined the commitments of Medicare and Medicaid - and you stood by me and made your voices heard. Now, in the last month, we raised the minimum wage for 10 million working Americans. We passed the Kennedy-Kassebaum health care reform bill that says you cannot lose your health insurance anymore because somebody in your family has been sick or because you changed jobs. We gave a $5,000 tax credit to families that would adopt some of these hundreds of thousands of children out there who need a home and support of a family. And we made it easier for small-business people to take out pensions for themselves and their employees. We are moving in the right direction.

But now you have to make a decision in about 2 weeks. Your vote will decide whether we balance our budget and protect Medicare and Medicaid, education and the environment, and give targeted tax cuts to families to help them raise their children and educate them, to help them save for that first-time home or deal with medical costs, or whether we blow a hole in the deficit with a risky tax scheme that will raise taxes on the 9 million working people, increase the deficit, and cut education again. I think the answer is clear. Your vote will decide whether we continue to support families, whether we continue to fight crime, whether we really finish the job of reforming welfare.

Yes, we passed a bill that says people on welfare have 2 years to turn that welfare check into a paycheck. Now we have to make sure the jobs are there so that they can take the jobs and build good families. Your vote will decide whether we continue to clean up the environment or give in to those who say we have to weaken our environment to grow our economy. You know better than that. I want to clean up 500 more toxic waste dumps in this country so every American child will be growing up next to parks, not poison, and I think you do, too.

Most of all, your vote will decide whether we continue our struggle for world-class education for the schoolchildren who are here, whether we continue to expand Head Start, whether we continue to raise standards, whether we hook up every single classroom in the United States of America to the information superhighway - the Internet, the World Wide Web - by the year 2000, so that for the first time in history every child in America, in a private, parochial, or a public school, whether in a rich, a middle class, or a very poor district - for the first time ever we'll have every child able to hook into the same amount of learning in the same time, in the same way from all over the world. It will revolutionize opportunity for every child in the United States.