Bill Clinton: “I don't think that's what we ought to be doing in the 21st century. And here's the last thing. This is the last on my…”

“I don't think that's what we ought to be doing in the 21st century. And here's the last thing. This is the last on my top 10 list. There are $148 billion of new taxes, fees, and costs imposed on middle class America and poor America in this budget, including a $42 billion tax increase on working people with the most modest incomes in our country. The Wall Street Journal--again, this is not me, hardly an arm of the Democratic Party--the Wall Street Journal yesterday reported--the Wall Street Journal reported that if this budget passes with all of its tax cuts in it, the group of people making less than $30,000 a year, 51 percent of the American people, will have greater tax hikes than they have tax cuts. Can you believe it? Why? Ronald Reagan said that the working family tax credit was the best antipoverty program the country had ever devised. All we did was double it so people could say, ``If I work 40 hours a week and I've got children in my house, I will not be taxed into poverty. The tax system will lift me out of poverty. My country values my work and values my being a good parent.'' I do not want to live in a country that throws people out of the middle class and puts them back in the under class, and I don't think you do, either. I don't think you do, either. I don't think any of you want to live in that kind of America. So, look--I'm nearly done. You don't even have to sit down. [Laughter] I just want you to think about this. This country is on a roll. We're coming back. It's in better shape than it was 2\1/2\ years ago. The American people deserve the lion's share of the credit. But our economic policies and our social policies and our anticrime bill and our welfare reform, those things have all played a role. We are moving in the right direction. And the choice now is whether we're going to be a society in which everybody has a chance to win or become a winner-take-all country, a society where we're growing the middle class and shrinking the under class or one in which we're kicking people out of the middle class and swelling the under class, a society in which special interest and short- term greed override the long-term concern for the welfare of all Americans. This is a very, very great country. We are a great country. And you look at these children tonight. And when you walk out of here, I want you to keep their faces in your mind, and I want you to promise yourself that you will realize that this could be a Jefferson-Jackson-Abra- ham Lincoln-Theodore Roosevelt dinner. This is about American values, American interests, America's future. And I want you to promise yourself that when you walk out of this room tonight, for the next year you are going to engage your fellow Americans in talking about these fundamental values and the fundamental vision we have for our future. The 21st century is ours if we will simply be true to our values and follow our vision and think about these children and what kind of America we want for them. Thank you, and God bless you all.”