REMARKS BY GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON AND SENATOR AL GORE ST. LOUIS MAIN LIBRARY 1992

 

Article 4908 of alt.politics.clinton:

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Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago

Date: Thursday, 20 Aug 1992 02:10:15 CDT

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Subject: CLINTON/GORE TEXT: RESCUE AMERICA--ST.LOUIS LIBRARY

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      REMARKS BY GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON AND SENATOR AL GORE

                     ST. LOUIS MAIN LIBRARY

                         ST. LOUIS, MO.

                            07/22/92

                        SENATOR AL GORE:

Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. What a crowd here

today! Way over there behind us, there's another big crowd part

of this crowd, way back that way, way down the street that way,

in both directions, up on the roof. This is biggest one yet. But

ladies and gentlemen, we were told on the way over here that

there are more than forty thousand people gathered here for this

event today.

Let me tell you why I think this is happening. All along this bus

tour, on the roadsides, and at the small towns and the large

towns and the cities, everywhere, Republicans for Clinton/Gore

have been coming to join these crowds. Independents and Perot-

supporters for Clinton/Gore have been joining these crowds. We

Americans love our country. We want change in this country.

People are allowing themselves to hope again. We are tired of

politics. We are tired of the politics of distraction, denial,

despair, and division. We want the politics of hope, and

substance, and accomplishment to get this country moving forward

in the right direction again.

Before I introduce Bill Clinton, I would like to introduce two

other people in words I used last week at the convention, two

women who have done more than the last two men in the White House

have done in their whole lifetimes for children and families,

Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore.

I'd like to thank my friend Dick Gephardt for his introduction of

me, and tell you what you already know. He stands for integrity,

compassion, caring, competence, and leadership in Washington. We

need a lot more like Dick Gephardt to help us pass Bill Clinton's

programs.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, you know Bill Clinton's story. His

father died in a tragic accident three months before he was born.

He was born into a poor family. His mother had to go to work to

put food on the table. His grandparents helped out. But Bill

lifted himself up by his bootstraps, worked his way through

college, and took that great education, not to make a personal

fortune, but to come back home to help the families who were in

the circumstances from which he came.

And he has gained the reputation of leadership in the field of

education by lifting the test scores above the national average

with innovative, creative new programs; by implementing new

health care programs in his state that form the basis for some of

the provisions of the national health insurance program that he

has talked about in his campaign; and by creating good

manufacturing jobs at ten times the national average.

Those are some of the reasons why the other forty-nine governors,

Republicans and Democrats alike, voted to name Bill Clinton the

best and most effective governor in the United States of America.

Now we've got a basic choice to make. Do we want to continue in

the same rut we've been in for the last twelve years? Do we want

to keep a government that responds only to the wealthy and

powerful and privileged few? Do we want a phony environmental

President? Do we want a phony education President? Or do we want

a change in this country?

Do we want a real environmental President? A real education

President? Do we want to get this country moving again? Do we

want to put people first for a change?

Ladies and gentlemen, help us send a message to those in the

White House who have turned their backs on the working families

of this country. Let's tell Bush and Quayle that it's time for

them to go.

What time is it?

CROWD: It's time for them to go.

Again, what time is it?

CROWD: It's time for them to go.

One more time, loud enough so that they can hear you all the way

in the White House. What time is it?

CROWD: It's time for them to go.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the next President of the United

States of America, Bill Clinton.

                     GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON:

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you

very much. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the largest, most

enthusiastic, most committed crowd of Americans we have seen on

this great trip.

Al Gore and I today are ending the first thousand miles of our

campaign to change America. We have gone from New Jersey to

Pennsylvania to West Virginia to Ohio to Kentucky to Indiana to

Illinois and now to St. Louis in a great crusade to give the

American people their country back.

And all along the way, we have been reminded about what makes

this country great--going through the farming communities and

seeing the little children lighting sparklers along our way;

seeing people hold out their American flags; seeing the

Clinton/Gore banners draped across the combines in the fields;

seeing America say we want to change this country and put our

people first for a change.

This great state, the home of Harry Truman, is called the Show-Me

State. One thing you cannot say about this administration, you

can't say that Bush and Quayle haven't shown you, they have shown

you. Look what they have shown you: the worst economic record in

the last fifty years, only Herbert Hoover in the twentieth

century, matched the economic record of this last administration.

When Reagan and Bush came to office, we had the highest wages in

the world. We are down to thirteenth and dropping. In every

measure of economic performance, we are falling behind.

Most people in this crowd today, and most people in this country

today are working harder today for less money than they were

making ten years ago. Is it right?

And what have they given us? The same old, tired idea, they are

in the grip of a failed theory. They believe passionately that

the only way for America to compete and win in the world is for

us to become more unequal and more divided, keep taxes as low as

possible on the wealthiest Americans, raise them on the middle

class, explode the deficit, and get the government out of the

way.

What has it brought us? More decline, more inequality, an America

that is the mockery of the world. This year, they got their way--

the top one percent of Americans control more wealth than the

bottom ninety percent. Did it make us strong? No.

What happened? The President goes to Japan and the Japanese Prime

Minister says he feels sympathy for the United States. I say this

to those who are holding up those "Jobs Now" posters, when I'm

your President and Al Gore is your Vice-President, people will

look up to us with respect, not down on us with sympathy, because

we're going to win again.

We want a new day for the Democratic party, and a new day for

America. Here we are in St. Louis, Missouri, and you're having an

election year here today. And I don't want to get involved in

your elections, but I do want to say that you have two Democrats

running for governor, both of whom are better than all the

Republicans they can dredge up.

Al Gore and I woke up this morning and Mayor ... of St. Louis. We

ran up to Lafayette Square, we ran back. Neither one of us

fainted, and we decided that this was a wonderful city, and Mr.

Mayor, we're glad to be here.

And I want to thank your Lieutenant Governor, Mel Carnahan, for

being one of the first people to endorse me when I was low in the

polls, and now that we're up, we're going to change the country

together, all of us working together.

Let me tell you something. In my announcement speech at the

Democratic National Convention, I quoted one of my favorite

verses of scripture, "Where there is no vision, the people

perish." George Bush mocked that as the "vision thing." He said,

"I'm not very good on the vision thing." I hope you never leave a

place without a vision, I hope you don't have to live tomorrow

without a vision. I hope you never have to raise a child without

a vision, or plant a crop without a vision, or start a business

without a vision. That's what's the matter with this country

today.

And I'll tell you something else. We have a plan. We have a plan.

Mr. Bush said our plan was smoke and mirrors. Well, he's the

world's expert on smoke and mirrors. You decide if it's smoke and

mirrors. Here it is, it says, "For too long, our government has

been dominated by special interests, our elections controlled by

them, our process paralyzed by them. We're going to give the

government back to the people again. We're going to invest in

jobs, and education, and affordable health care for all

Americans, not just a few."

Our plan says no smoke and mirrors. We're going to pay for it by

taking every dollar by which defense is reduced, and re-investing

it here in America to put those people back to work. Why should

we throw people out to work, when we can create more jobs in the

future.

It says, "We're going to open the doors of college education to

all Americans. Let anybody borrow the money to go to college. And

pay it back, either as a percentage of your income when you go to

work, or, better yet, come home to St. Louis, come home to

Missouri and work for two years. Be a police officer, be a nurse,

be a teacher, work to help kids in trouble. Pay back your college

loan by solving the problems of America at home."

Our plan says, "If you're a high school graduate and you don't go

to college, we want a hundred percent of you to have at least two

years of further training in an apprenticeship program to get a

good job, not a dead-end job." I'm tired of the dignity being

stripped from blue-collar work in America.

Our plan says, "We're going to take on the health insurance

companies in the bureaucracy and the government regulation, and

strip the millions of dollars of waste out of the health care

system, to control the costs, to preserve industry and the

decency and security of life for average Americans, and provide a

basic package of health care to all Americans. We're going to get

America in line with the rest of the world."

Our plan says, "Every American will have to be more responsible

for the future of this country. We want to create more wealthy

people in America than Reagan and Bush have, but we've got an

old-fashioned idea. We want everybody to get rich by putting the

American people to work, producing American jobs, American goods,

American services."

And so we say, "New incentives for modern plant and equipment,

new incentives to start new business, but no more tax breaks for

moving your jobs overseas. We will help you to build America

again, and we want you to get rich doing it the old-fashioned

way."

Our plan says, "We're going to liberate the poor. We're going to

change the tax system for all those working poor people, who

courageously get up every day, work forty hours a week, do their

best to raise their children, and they're still in poverty. We

ought to have a tax system that says, if you're working hard and

playing by the rules, we're going to lift you up and out of

poverty in this country today.

We're going to have a welfare system that says, "We want you to

have more from your country in education and training, and health

care for your children, but then when you can go to work, you've

got to go to work." Welfare should be a second chance, not a way

of life.

We're going to have a new idea. Put our people first. Invest in

the re-vitalization of our cities and our countryside. Put this

money back to where it belongs, in creating jobs and education,

so we can compete. There is nothing wrong with this country,

except that we're under-organized, under-educated, and under-led,

and we're going to change all that in November, if you'll help

us.

Ladies and gentlemen, people say to me all the time, "Well, that

sounds good. But how do I know you're serious?"

Well, I'll tell you one way you know I'm serious. Look at the

first decision George Bush made, and the first decision I made.

Dan Quayle versus Al Gore. I win. I wanted Al Gore to be on my

team because he knows more than I do about some things, not cause

he'll make me look good every day.

The first and greatest Republican President, Abraham Lincoln,

said that you can never lift yourself up by putting other people

down. Al Gore and I want to lift everybody in America up. We

don't want anybody left out.

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

be tough on crime and, still, fair to all Americans. And we think

you can preserve the environment and develop the economy, and the

other side doesn't believe any of that.

Ladies and gentlemen, we didn't get into this mess overnight. And

we won't get out of it overnight. But we will make progress.

The thing that kills a country is when people get up every day,

and they don't think that tomorrow will be better, when they

think nothing is going to change, when they think nobody cares

about them, when it's every person for themselves.

We want to restore this country a genuine sense of community and

caring, to say we're all in this together. We're going up or down

together, without regard to race or region or income. This is

America. Let's start acting like it again.

And we want you to believe that tomorrow can be better than

today. Don't let anybody tell you we can't make these changes.

There are countries in the world today where the people are not

working as hard, and they're making more money, and they've got

health insurance, because their governments put their people

first. They know that if you don't take care of people, nothing

else works.

So if you're sick and tired of the way it's been going, if you

want people in control again, if you believe your country is

still the greatest country in the world again, if you think we

can compete and win again, if you're tired of being heartbroken

when you go home at night, and you want a spring in your step and

a song in your heart, you give Al Gore and I a chance to bring

America back. We will lift the country up. It's time for them to

go, and time for us to rescue America.

God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you.