Bill Clinton: “Then I say, finish the job and stop those that want to turn it around. Let's go. And the last thing I want to say is…”

“Then I say, finish the job and stop those that want to turn it around. Let's go. And the last thing I want to say is this, folks. We have a lot of other challenges--I'll talk more about them at the convention-- challenges at home, challenges abroad. I've got a lot of other ideas about what to do in the next 4 years. But let's look at the big picture. We've got to keep this economy going until everybody has a chance to benefit from it. Now, we've proved that we can get the deficit down and grow the economy. I told you this would produce 8 million jobs; it produced 10. I told you we'd cut the deficit in half; we cut it by more than 60 percent. We're doing the right thing. Now, we ought to give Americans a tax cut who need it, and it ought to be targeted to childrearing and child care and education and to expanded IRA's that you can withdraw from for a first-time homebuying or health insurance policy or to pay for education. I'm for all that. We can afford that kind of tax cut. And it'd be worth a lot to middle class, hard-working families. But we cannot afford to go right back around and take a U-turn and make the same mistake we made before. And that's what the other side is proposing, a tax cut 5 times as big as mine that they don't know how they're going to pay for. And you know what will happen; it will blow a hole in the deficit. That means higher interest rates. That means whatever you get in the tax cut, you'll pay right back in your mortgage payment, your car payment, your credit card payment. It also means even bigger cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment than I vetoed when they shut the Government down. I didn't put up with it before; I won't put up with it again. It is not the right thing for America. Now, you look at that train there. If you were on that train going to your destination, which is the 21st century, the last thing in the wide world you'd want to do is to make a U-turn just because you heard a pretty song somewhere along the way. [Laughter] That's a pretty song, that big old tax cut. But it's like that contract. Do you remember their contract? They never did say word one about it in San Diego, did they? I didn't watch it, but somebody told me they listened intently for 4 days for their record, and they never talked about their record and their contract. Do you remember, it sounded so pretty in 1994? And then the consequences came in in '95 and '96. And thank goodness for America, Wendell Ford and his friends were there to stand up and say no. But if you give them the White House and the Congress, there won't be anybody to say no. And they'll get to do their U-turn, and it will sound pretty. And then you'll have to deal with the consequences: high interest rates, slow growth, and exploding debt. Let me just tell you one other thing. The budget of the United States of America would be in surplus today--this day--if it were not for the interest we're paying on the debt run up in the 12 years before I took office when they quadrupled the debt with all those tax cut promises. You wouldn't yourself, in this beautiful town of Ashland--you wouldn't yourself go down to the local bank and borrow money to give yourself a tax cut, would you? You wouldn't do it. Why would you hire somebody else to do something you wouldn't do for yourself?We cannot blow up the debt. We can give you a tax cut. It will help you raise your kids. It will help you get an education. It will help you with health care and homebuying. And we can afford it and still balance the budget and protect our priorities and build on the future. And the last thing I want to say is this: All this comes down to whether we're going to meet our challenges and protect our values, whether you believe we can create opportunity and have more responsibility, and whether we can go forward together, or whether you're better off with somebody telling you, ``The Government's the problem. It's not yours. You're on your own. Have a nice life. Here's a little money.'' I believe you know from your life in this great, grassroots, God- fearing American community that we are all in this together, we had better lock arms and go forward together, and that when America is together and we're positive and we act like this fine police officer and local government official and we act like that wonderful young girl in her Olympic championship, America always wins. Let's stay on the right track for the 21st century. God bless you.”