Bill Clinton: “If you think it is, you ought to vote for him. But now, the interesting thing is, this being Halloween, is that 2 weeks…”

“If you think it is, you ought to vote for him. But now, the interesting thing is, this being Halloween, is that 2 weeks ago he said we had the worst economy in 100 years. I made up 80 years in just 2 weeks. I think you ought to feel good. Now, back in February, Senator Dole, in a more candid and open and accurate moment, said we had the best economy in 30 years--the best economy. That's when he was right. That doesn't mean we don't have more to do. And one of the things that I worry about all the time is--you know, life is about more than economics. Most of us work so that we'll have the wherewithal to live in the way we want to live, to raise our children well, to enjoy our lives, to find some personal fulfillment, to have good lives. And on Halloween, even though it's supposed to be ``fright night,'' I always think that what I really want is a safer Halloween for all of our children and stronger families and safer neighborhoods. So I say to you, I want you to feel good about America, and I want you to make this choice based on these two big ideas, because we still have more work to do. If we want to strengthen our families, we have to help parents succeed at home and at work. I was for the family leave law; he was against it. We had an honest difference of opinion. He said it would hurt the economy, but we've had 3 years of record starts of new small businesses and over 10 million jobs. You know who was right and who was wrong. The evidence is there. And I think we ought to extend family leave. I think people ought to be able to go see their children's teachers twice a year and go to the doctor's appointment with them without losing their jobs. There is nothing more important than helping parents succeed at home and at work. If the parents of America have to choose between their children or their job, we are in trouble, whichever choice they have to make. Their most important job is raising our children, but we have to have a strong economy. If we have a strong economy at the expense of raising our children, what are we working for anyway? We have got to work to create conditions in which everybody believes, ``I can do my work, and I can still be a good parent.'' There is no more important agenda for America. We have to help parents pass their values along to their children, and they should be reinforced. That's why I fought for more educational television. That's why I fought for a V-chip in new TV's and a rating system so you can control what young children see. Every study shows that too much violence too young numbs children to the meaning of violence and undermines their ability to see other people with dignity and respect. We have to deal with that. That's why we fought for the safe and drug-free schools program, and we got more than double the number of children who now see D.A.R.E. officers and others in their schools saying, ``Don't do drugs. They will kill you. They will ruin your lives. You deserve a better chance.'' We were right to fight for that. That's why I fought to stop the big tobacco companies from advertising and marketing cigarettes to children illegally. It was wrong. Now, in every single one of those instances, Senator Dole disagreed with me. That doesn't make him a bad person, but I think I'm right, and I think he was wrong about that. And you have to decide who you think is right. I believe we've got to keep our streets safe. I know it was unpopular in Nevada when we passed the crime bill and the Brady bill. I know a lot of people in the rural parts of this State were told, ``There they go again, those crazy Democrats and that awful President. They're going to take guns away from hunters and sports people.'' Well, you know something? I grew up in a State where more than half the people have a hunting or a fishing license or both. I was shooting a .22 at old tin cans when I was 12. But we don't need assault weapons on our street. They're designed to kill people. They're designed to kill people. And that's just like a lot of this stuff. That's what they said 2 years ago, but now we know. We've got a record. Not a single Nevada sportsman has lost a weapon, but 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers didn't get handguns because of the Brady bill. We're putting more police on our streets--this is unbelievable--if we keep going until we get all 100,000 police on the street, instead of 4 years of declining crime we'll have 8 years of declining crime. We might actually be able to feel safe again in every community in this country. Here again my opponent voted against 100,000 police. Senator Coffin's opponent voted to eliminate it, even in the evidence--in the face of the evidence that the crime rate was coming down, they voted to stop doing it. I don't understand it. But that's one reason, when I was in Arizona this morning before I came here, that Bill Bratton, the former commissioner of police in New York City and Boston--and in New York City, because of community policing, because they put more police on the street, they brought the crime rate down 39 percent and the murder rate down 50 percent--and he endorsed Bill Clinton and Al Gore because he knows we ought to finish the job of putting 100,000 police on the street. And I want you to help us do it. I believe, as strongly as I can say, that we need to do these things block by block, community by community. We have to work together to make the American dream work. That's why I wanted someone like Nell Justice to introduce me, someone who has taken responsibility for her children, someone who's active in her community. I don't believe that the President for a moment can take full credit for any of the achievements that I've talked to you about. But it is the job of the President to do those things which we should do together as a country. And it is the job of the President to imagine the future and to try to lead the country into a better, brighter future in a way that is consistent with our values. What we have here in America today is an old-fashioned partnership. We're out working today to mobilize another million volunteers to work with police officers in their neighborhoods because we know community citizen groups can drive the crime rate down. I've asked a million volunteers a year to join with us to make sure every 8-year-old can read independently by the third grade. These are things we have to do together. But how we do it, what we do in Washington determines whether you can do it here. So you have to decide, do we want to balance the budget as I want to and still protect Medicare, Medicaid, education, the environment, technology? Or do we want to do what they want to do, which is to promise you a big tax cut that will blow a hole in the deficit, actually raise taxes on 9 million working people and will require bigger cuts in the environment, in education, in Medicare and Medicaid than the ones I vetoed? There's a big difference here. It's just an honest difference of opinion. I say balance the budget, protect our values, invest in our future. Do we want to keep reforming health care step by step? We've made a good start. My balanced budget plan--which cannot be funded by them--my balanced budget plan will help families that are between jobs keep their health insurance for 6 months, add another million children to the rolls of those with health insurance, provide free mammograms to women on Medicare. And for the over 1\1/2\ million families that are courageously out there caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's, it will give them some respite care. That is hard duty, and that's important, and we can do it. I think we ought to do it. Will you help us do that? [Applause] And let me say this, especially to the young people: The two biggest differences, the two biggest choices you have to make--the first is about education. I am telling you, I would not be here today, no way in the world would I be here today--I was born to a widowed mother in a little town in Arkansas; she married my stepfather, who did not have a high school diploma--if it hadn't been for my family drumming into me the importance of education and for the opportunities I was given, I wouldn't be here today. I know every politician stands up, loves to give speeches about self-reliance. Well, the woman who introduced me is self- reliant. But we all need a hand, too. Every politician would like you to believe that he or she was born in a log cabin they built by themselves. [Laughter] But that's just not true, folks. Educational opportunity is the gift we give not only to our children but to our- selves, to give us a country that can be free and strong and that can grow and go forward together. And we have a lot still to do. Here's how we're going to teach every 8-year-old to read, and 40 percent of them can't do it. We're going to mobilize 30,000 AmeriCorps volunteers and reading specialists to go across this country and get a million others. One of the things that we did this year I'm very proud of is to allocate 200,000 more work-study slots to college students in the years ahead than we've had. And I want 100,000 of those--100,000, half of them, to be given to college students who say, ``If you'll give me work- study money, I'll go teach an 8-year-old to read.'' And I want you to help me do that. I want us to hook up every classroom and library in every school in America to the information superhighway, to the Internet, to the World Wide Web. I want every child for the first time in the history of this country, whether in a poor district, a remote rural district, a middle class or a wealthy one, every child for the first time to have access to the same information in the same way at the same time. It will revolutionize education in America. And I want to open the doors of college education to every single American. I want you to help me make community college, at least 2 years of education after high school, as universal as a high school diploma is today. And it will be easy to do. It will be easy to do. Just let people deduct dollar for dollar from their tax bill the cost of the typical community college tuition. I want to let people save in an IRA and withdraw from it without any tax penalty if the money's used for education or health care or homebuying. And I believe we should give families a tax deduction of up to $10,000 a year for the cost of any college tuition, undergraduate, graduate, at any school, for people of any age. And I can pay for it. Now, they believe that--their education agenda is to abolish the Department of Education. Audience members. Boo-o-o!”