CLINTON SPEECH TEXT: TEXAS STATE DEMOCRATIC CONV

 

Article 4909 of alt.politics.clinton:

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Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago

Date: Thursday, 20 Aug 1992 02:12:51 CDT

From: Mary Jacobs <U45301@uicvm.uic.edu>

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Subject: CLINTON SPEECH TEXT: TEXAS STATE DEMOCRATIC CONV

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Address to the Texas State Democratic Convention

Governor Bill Clinton

Houston, Texas

June 5, 1992

Thank you my fellow Democrats.  Thank you Garry Mauro for the

introduction, the hard work, the friendship, and the shades.

Thank you Senator Bentsen for your support, your leadership, and

your powerful indictment of this administration in Washington.

Thank you Governor Richards for setting a standard for public

office all across this nation and for sticking to the Republicans

at every turn.

You know, I wouldn't have missed this Texas convention for

anything, but I did miss a part of it that I want to apologize for.

Today you honored my friend of twenty years Billy Carr, for four

years as the Democratic Party chair, and I want to say I wish I'd

been there and I honor her too.

When I met Billy Carr twenty years ago, I had no hair, I had no

grey hair, she looked just the same.  She still is just the same.

And I've been trying to take instructions for twenty years.

Ladies and Gentlemen, One fight in this long process is over, but

it is time we turned our attention to the main event.

America's future is on the line in this election.  The American

dream is hanging in the balance.

When I was a child growing up next door, I grew up next door in

Arkansas nearly half a century ago.  As all of you know, particular

those of you that came from the parts of East texas that are a lot

like my home part of Arkansas.

At the end of the war, just about everybody was poor by national

standards.  I was interviewed in San Francisco the other night and

the guy who interviewed me was amazed to find that I lived for a

couple of years in a house that didn't have in door plumbing.

And I told him it just made me an average guy at the time.  But you

know, even then we knew something that millions of Americans don't

know today.

We knew that if you work hard, got an education, and you played by

the rules, you would be rewarded.  That was what I was raised to

believe.  I still remember as a child going way out in the country

to see my great grandparents, who lived in an old place that had a

couple of rooms built up on stilts almost.

They lived on what we call government commodities then, because

there weren't any food stamps.  But they believed, with all their

hearts, that if you were a good god fearing hard working person,

you could get ahead in life.  And you know what, you could.

And I did. I'm hear tonight on the verge of being the nominee of my

party.  As much as anything else, because I was just lucky enough

to live in a country that rewarded effort and work.  And to be

raised by people who believed in those things.

We are living in a country today, (applause), we are living in a

country today, that punishes people who play by the rules.  The

average working family today, is spending more hours at work and

less time with their children then they were twenty years ago.

Two-thirds of the American people today are working harder for less

money then they were making ten years ago.

George Bush promised us, "Look let's make this country a little

more unequal.  Let's lower the taxes a little more on the wealthy

and on the corporations. Raise them more on the middle class.  Make

the deficit a little bigger. Oh, I know they will mess things up

and make theme more unequal, but I tell you what I promise you if

you do that for me I'll give you thirty million jobs".

Well, he got what he wanted, for the first time since the roaring

twenties, the top one percent of the American people, control more

wealth, then the bottom ninety percent.

But we didn't get what we were promised.  The thirty million jobs

are no where in sight.  We've built an economy based on greed, and

paper, instead of people and products and we are being punished for

believing in the American dream. And this is what this election is

all about.

What do you think the Republicans would be saying about us today.

If we had the White House for eleven years during which time we

gone from first to tenth in the world in wages.  During which time

we quadrupled the national debt.

Increased it by 400% and reduced our investment in the education of

our children and cleaning up our environment and building our

economy while we were increasing our debt.

If we had done that you know what the Republican campaign would be.

"Are you better off then you were four years ago."

Can you trust those spindrifts in Washington in the White House to

manage your deficit.

Can you trust those people who do not understand free enterprise to

control the American economy.

No. And that is exactly what we ought to say to them.

We tried it your way.  We want our country back.

Look at Texas.  Just look at Texas.  You've lost jobs with the

collapse of an energy industry that this administration promised to

champion.

You have lost jobs because we have reduced defense with out

investing that money into the domestic economy to create more jobs

that were shut down in Texas and the rest of the country.

You lost jobs because your country has no national economic policy

and all of our competitors do.

We are having our lunch eating today by the party that says it is

pro-business and it is the biggest enemy the free enterprise system

has had in my lifetime and Washington.

My fellow Americans, at the end of World War II when I was born,

our country was the dominant power in the world.  And in self

interest and generosity we re-built Europe and Japan.

At the end of the Cold War which we won for them. They are growing

faster then we are.  And it is now time for us to rebuild America.

I have worked as hard as I know how to get and keep decent jobs in

a tough global economy.  To educate children and adults.  For a

world in which you earn depends on what you can learn.

To move people from welfare to work and to bring people together

across racial lines. And to have a laser like concentrated

commitment to seeing that we revitalize the American dream.  But e

cannot do it until there is national leadership, national vision,

and a national plan to turn this country around and talk won't get

it.

We have a president without a plan, without a vision, without a

commitment to change.  A president who has made a mockery of the

Democratic process.

A President who says I represent family values, and then he veto's

the family leave bill.

A President who says I believe in the free enterprise system and

then he vetoes Senator Bentsen's tax bill which would have given

more incentives for new plants, new equipment, and new business.

He vetoed it.

And he vetoed it because it had a tax increase on the upper income

people in this country whose taxes were reduced in the 1980's while

their incomes went up.

This is a President who says he wants to be the education president

but he still won't fund Head Start and he cut other education

funding to the states.

This is a President who says he is a friend of the American energy

industry and he has presided over its collapse and he is not

supporting Governor Ann Richards in her efforts to convert to

natural gas and revitalize the energy industry of America.

This is a President who says his heart bleeds for people who don't

have health care and who can't afford to pay their health bills,

but he won't support a bill to take on the health insurance

companies control health care costs and restore affordable health

care to the American people.

This is a President who promised to be the environmental president.

He thought about it and thought about and then he decided the way

to be the environmental president was to say we can't have clean

air rules like other countries.

And to shut down the meaningful agreement on global warming at Rio

De Janeiro.  He made all those other nations jump in the tank

because they wanted to be run by environmental leaders but the

United States put the agreement on its knee and now it won't be

worth the trees that had to be torn down to make the paper its

printed on.

This is the President who said if we voted for Michael Dukakis the

budget deficit would sore. I voted for him and it sure did soar.

This is the President who is all for choice if it means taking

public money and putting it in private schools but he wants to robe

the American women of their right to chose.

Well, I've got news for this president.  The Democrats are back.

We've got a plan.  We've got a program.  We've got a partnership.

We've got a passion.  Were going to invest in our country for a

change.  That's our program.

We going to take the money we cut from the defense budget and put

it into the American economy.

Into new projects that will put millions of Americans to work.  In

aviation, bio-technology, computers, and all the new technologies

of the twenty-first century.

We will build an economy that will win and that reward work and

family instead of punishing it the way its being punished today.

We are going to invest, We are going to invest, in the education of

our children instead of talking about Head Start we are going to

fund Head Start.

Instead of talking about the skills of America's workforce were

going to give every young American who doesn't go to college at

least two years of apprenticeship training to restore the dignity

of blue collar work in America.

Instead of speaking at college commencements were he talks about

family values were're going to honor one of the most important

family values the ability to send your child to college by making

it possible every American to borrow the money to go to college.

Instead of posturing about health care we are going to give this

country a health care program that we will once and for all

provide health care affordable to all Americans and control the

costs so we don't bankrupt the economy bur we do build up our

people.

We want to be health and strong, economically and physically, and

we will be.

Instead of just trying to take contributions from the energy

industry we going to give the United States of America an energy

policy that builds on natural gas, renewable resources, and energy

conversation to liberate the American people from our dependence on

foreign oil and the threat of environmental destruction and give us

an economic future worthy of the efforts of people like you.

The Democrats are going say we know the government can't do it all.

We know we have to be more aggressive and responsible and

responsive citizens.

But we want everybody to do their far share.  We are going to go

back to Senator Bentsen's bill and ask those who made money in the

eighties while their taxes went down to pay their fair share

because middle class taxes are too high.

And we are going to say to them we want you to pay more but we will

give you more incentives to invest in our plants, and our

businesses and our future but no more incentives just to raise your

pay at outrages levels or shut your jobs down and move them away.

More incentives for America and fewer for others.

We will say we know working people have to work smarter.  Give us

affordable health care, and life time education and training, we

will change the work rules, we revolutionize the workplace, we will

show you we can be the world's most productive workers.

We will say if you give our students access to college loans they

all will have to pay it back as a small percentage of their income

or even better by creating an American Peace Corps.

Coming home to Houston and being a teacher, police officer, nurse,

a drug clinic worker helping to solve the problems of America.

We will say instead of pointing the finger at the people on welfare

and trying to make them the Willie Horton's of 1988- 1992 -They run

the same campaign every time it's hard to keep up with the year.

We will say,"Oh yes the poor of this country they have

responsibilities too but first we want to empower them and liberate

them by investing in their education and training and their

children's medical care and then we will say now go to work but

first we are going to make sure you can take care of your family

and be a full fledged citizen.

That's how we're going to do it.

You see, the Democrats don't like the way this country is divided

up right now. By race, by gender, by income, by region, by you name

it.

We think you can be pro-business and pro-worker.  We think you can

be pro-growth and pro-environment.

We think you can be pro-civil rights and tough on crime. And we

think you can be pro-family and pro-choice.

My friends what this country really needs is a good dose of the old

fashion values that most of us were raised with hooked into the

high technology of the modern world.

I got a very basic idea.  I think we are all in this together.  I

believe in including people not excluding.

I believe he don't have a person to waste.  And your country wastes

people at an appalling rate.

You have eleven grade schools in this city where there are metal

detectors, in grade schools, to take the guns and knives off the

children when they come to school.

Because we refuse in this country to raise our children on safe

streets in good environments with adequate health care and adequate

pre-school and support for parenting.

Don't tell me about family values. I'm going to make sure we live

our family values. From the White House to the grass roots of

America.

I want you to think about this.  They may say we can't win now.

I've had my obituary written many times.  LBJ used to tell a story

about the first time a train came ...  He said the old crumugeon in

the town first said they will never get that thing started.

Then when the thing got started and the steam started coughing up

on everybody the same old skeptic said they will never get that

thing stopped.

Let me tell you something.  I got any opponent in this race who

says he will quote: Do what ever it takes to hold on to this job.

I got another one who said and I quote: He would spend whatever it

takes to get this job.

Now, let me tell you something, I can't spend whatever it takes and

there is a lot of things I wouldn't do to get this job.

But, I'll tell you this, I want your children and your

grandchildren and my daughter to grow up with the American dream

alive and well.

I refuse to stand by and let this generation of children be the

first to do worse then their parents.  I refuse to let America go

from a first military power to a third rate economic power in my

generation because of short sided greedy leaders who couldn't see

behind their nose.

I refuse to let that happen.  So I'll tell you what I will do.

I'll tell you what I will do.  I will get up early and I'll stay up

late.

And I will work as long as it takes to bring commonsense and a warm

heart and a clean head and a driving passionate vision back to this

country because we've got to rescue the American Dream.  To restore

America's leadership and pull this country back on the same team.

That's the mission of the Democrats in 1992.

Thank you and God bless you all.