Bill Clinton: “Are we going to tell the American people, ``You're on your own,'' or are we going to say that, yes, it does take a…”

“Are we going to tell the American people, ``You're on your own,'' or are we going to say that, yes, it does take a village to raise and educate our children and build our country and go forward together? [Applause] You heard Jerry say it, and you know we're in better shape than we were 4 years ago: 10\1/2\ million more jobs, the deficit cut by 60 percent, nearly 2 million fewer people on welfare, the lowest violent crime rate in 10 years. We are moving in the right direction. But your vote will decide what bridge we take to the future and whether we build one wide enough for everyone to walk across. I want to ask every one of you who's here tonight--this afternoon, this beautiful Florida afternoon, to do something tonight when you go home. I want you to do this, not for me but for you. Just take a few minutes and see if you can say to yourself the answer to this question: What do I want my country to be like when we start that new century? What do I want my country to be like when my children are my age, when my grandchildren are my age? What is my dream for America? For 4 years I've been working on that dream for America, mine. It's simple and straightforward. I want the American dream alive and well for every single person who is responsible enough to work for it. I think everybody should have the chance to live out their dreams and to live up to their God-given capacities. I want this country to be the world's strongest force for peace and freedom and prosperity. And I want us to go forward together, where families can succeed at home and at work, where we're living in harmony with our environment, and most important, where we're living in harmony with each other. That is my vision. And so I have worked to create more opportunity for all, to reinforce the principles of responsibility from all, and to create an American community where every person, without regard to race, color, creed, gender, you name it, believe they have a place at the American table and in the American future. That is what I have worked for. But now you will decide. You will decide by how you vote. You will decide by whether you vote. You have to decide. You will decide whether we balance the budget and protect Medicare, Medicaid, education, the environment, and research; whether we have targeted tax cuts to help people educate their children and themselves, raise their kids, buy a home, deal with medical costs; or whether we adopt that big, risky tax scheme that would blow a big hole in the deficit, weaken our economy, and force even bigger cuts in education, in the environment, in Medicare and Medicaid than those I vetoed a year ago. You will decide. You will decide by how you vote. You will decide by whether you vote. You will decide whether we can help more people to succeed at home and at work. Twelve million families have taken a little time off from work without being fired when a baby was born or a parent was sick. It's helped the American economy, and I want to keep it and do more. I want to say that parents ought to get a little time off to go to those regular conferences with their children's teachers or to take a family member to the doctor, to a regular appointment. You will decide whether we do it and whether we build that bridge. We have started to protect our children from the dangers of guns and gangs and drugs and tobacco. Over the intense partisan opposition, we passed the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban. We extended the Brady bill to say if you beat up your spouse or your child you should not be able to buy a handgun; you're a danger to society. We said to the tobacco companies, ``You may sell your products to adults, but it's illegal for children to smoke, so stop marketing, advertising, and delivering cigarettes to our children.'' We passed tough new laws against drug dealers, including the death penalty for drug kingpins. We dramatically increased funds to help our schools keep our kids out of trouble in the first place with safe and drug-free schools programs. We said to the States, ``We want you to start drug testing parolees.'' If people want to be out on the streets, they ought to stay off of drugs. If they're going to get back in trouble, they ought to lose their rights to walk the streets. Don't get any more kids in trouble. Your vote will decide whether we finish this work with tobacco and drugs and guns and gangs or whether we walk back on it. We passed the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, which says to 25 million Americans we can't take your health insurance away from you anymore just because you changed jobs or somebody in your family's been sick. We stopped--we passed a law that said insurance companies cannot force hospitals to kick new mothers and their newborn babies out of the hospital after one day anymore. But your vote will decide whether we keep on doing that, whether we provide health insurance to another million children, whether we help families who lose their jobs keep their health insurance when they're between jobs, whether we continue to work with States like Florida to help offer affordable health insurance to working people with limited incomes. Your vote will decide, and whether you vote will decide. We passed a historic welfare reform bill. And I want to applaud Governor Chiles on being one of the first three States in the country to submit a plan to actually move people from welfare to work, not to abandon poor families and poor children. Thank you, Governor. Now, we moved 2 million people from welfare to work. The new law says every State and every community has 2 years for every able-bodied family to turn that welfare check into a paycheck. Meanwhile, we'll guarantee health care; we'll guarantee food on the table; we'll spend more for child care if you go to work. But if you can work, within 2 years, you've got to turn the paycheck--the welfare check into a paycheck. That sounds good. But to do it, there has to be a paycheck. I've got a plan to create a million more jobs for people on welfare in partnership with the private sector. Your vote will decide whether we walk away from those people or create those jobs so they, too, can be part of the American dream. We have made our streets safer with 100,000 more police on the books but not all on the streets. We've only funded about half of them. And our friends on the other side--just as Jerry said with the budget--they fought us every step of the way with the crime bill. But we have saved that, and that's why the crime rate's gone down for 4 years in a row. But it's still not safe enough on Florida's streets. And we don't want to just catch criminals, we also want to prevent crime in the first place. That means you need people out there working with the kids, being strong role models, and preventing things from happening in the neighborhoods and on the streets. You need to help us finish the job of putting the rest of those police officers on the street. And your vote will decide whether we do that or go back. It is up to you. Will you help us do that? [Applause] We have taken more chemical pollutants out of the air. We have made our drinking water safer. We have raised the standards for food. We have done more to protect national parks and to expand national parks. We have begun the work, but not finished the work, of protecting the Everglades. You will decide. You will decide whether we will keep up this work and finish the job on the Everglades. You will decide whether we will clean up 500 more toxic waste dumps because there are still 10 million American children growing up within 4 miles of a toxic waste site. That is wrong. I want them growing up next to parks, not poison. You will decide. Will you help us do that? [Applause] But most important of all, you will decide whether we build an America in which we have a world-class education system open to all Americans. I have worked hard, from expanding opportunities for Head Start, to giving our schools more tools for the kids to meet higher standards, to creating the national service program, AmeriCorps--some of the people are here--that have allowed people to work in their communities and earn their way to college, to the biggest increase in Pell grants in 20 years, to the direct student loan program. And thank you, President Padron and others, for supporting that. We are saving the average college student on the direct loan program about $200 a year. But more important, we're saying to every student who borrows money in that way, you don't have to worry about your college loans anymore because you can pay it back as a percentage of your income. No one can ever make you go bankrupt because you borrowed the money to go to college. That is a good thing. Every step along the way, we had to fight our opponents on the other side. They tried to kill the student loan program improvements. They tried to cut back on Head Start. They tried to kill the national service program. Now they even have promised to eliminate the Department of Education. Audience members. Boo-o-o!”