Bill Clinton: “By the year 2000, I want us to make sure that 2 years of college education, at least a community college education, is…”

“By the year 2000, I want us to make sure that 2 years of college education, at least a community college education, is just as universal in America as a high school education is today, by giving people a tax credit for the cost of that community college tuition for 2 years. We ought to do that. I want us to make sure that every student in this country who wants to go to college, whether they're young, middle-aged, or older, who needs to do it can do it. I want to preserve our good student loan program, and I want to give people a $10,000 deduction for the cost of college tuition every year they're in school. I want us to make sure that we don't short-change education, as our friends in the opposition tried to do in the budget I vetoed. I want us to do more with education. You know as well as I do, we will never, never, never give every American a chance to participate in tomorrow's economy unless we give every American a chance to get a world-class education. And I want you to help me. And I might say, the Vice President talked about how we're going to run a civil campaign and just talk about our disagreements. I disagree with the condemnation of teachers which I heard at their convention. I think we ought to be lifting our teachers up and supporting them and supporting their efforts with our children and helping them to do a better job. I want us to build a bridge to the future that breaks the cycle of welfare dependency. I am proud of the fact that there are 1.8 million fewer people on welfare today than on the day I took the oath of office as President of the United States. I am proud of the fact that child support collections have increased by $3 billion, 40 percent, since we took office. We're supporting more children. But I'm telling you, we can do more. If everybody paid the child support they owed, 800,000 women and children would leave welfare tomorrow. It's all very well for us to sign a welfare reform bill, and I was glad to do it, but you cannot make people go to work unless there is a job for them to take. So in the next 4 years let us resolve that we are not only going to tell people who are poor but able-bodied on welfare, ``We'll support your children with health care and child care and nutrition, but you have to go to work.'' Let's resolve to make sure we do everything we can to create the jobs wherever they're needed so people have the jobs to work at. That's a Democratic idea, and we owe it to them. Let me say just one other thing. We can't build a bridge to the future unless we go there together. More than any other issues, the things that symbolize what we have to do as a community to me are, first, helping families to make the most of their own lives and to succeed at home and at work. Of the many achievements of our administration, I am perhaps most proud, among the top two or three, certainly, of the family and medical leave law because it has enabled 12 million--think about this--12 million American working folks to take a little time off when their babies were born or their parents were sick without losing their jobs. And it hasn't hurt our economy a bit. We are a stronger economy today because we're standing up for families and working people. So I want to expand the family and medical leave law a little bit to say to these same working people, you can take a little time off to go to regular parent-teacher conferences, because that's important to our future, and to take your kids to the doctor or your parents to the doctor. And I want to say to people, if you earn overtime you ought to have the option--not anybody else--you ought to have the option to take that overtime in money or in extra time with your family, with your children, with your sick parents, with an uncle or an aunt with Alzheimer's, whatever you need, whatever is best for the family. We need to do what we can to make sure every single American can succeed as a parent and as a worker. That's important. Last thing I want to say is, we can protect the environment and grow the economy. We still have 10 million kids living within 4 miles of toxic waste dumps. If you give Bill Clinton and Al Gore 4 more years, one of the ways we're going to build that bridge to the future is to clean up two-thirds of those dumps, the two-thirds worst of them. We want our kids to be living next to parks, not poison. And that will create jobs, not cost them. Will you help us build that bridge? Audience members. Yes!”