Bill Clinton: “Exactly right. As Senator Harkin and I warned--Congressman Boswell and I, we were all three laughing about it--we said…”

“Exactly right. As Senator Harkin and I warned--Congressman Boswell and I, we were all three laughing about it--we said, you know, the people who put in that freedom to farm act acted like there never would be a bad year on the farm. And now last year we dealt with it. Today I'm going to meet with some of your farmers, and we're working on it. The Vice President called me after he had a chance to meet with some farmers here this week, and we talked about it. But the point I want to make is, you have farmers; you have people in Appalachia; you have people in the Mississippi Delta; you have people who live on the Indian reservations; you have people who live in the inner cities; and even though we're doing better than we've ever done, there's still a lot of people who aren't part of this train. And there are ways to give everybody a chance who's willing to work to be a part of it. That ought to be something we do with our prosperity. We ought to give everybody who's willing to work a chance to be a part of that prosperity. And I think it's very important. One thing we can do that will help the economy more than anything else is, if we adopt the plan I put out to save the majority of the surplus for Social Security and Medicare, since it's not needed now-- while we save it we can pay the debt down so much that by 2015, in 16 years, for the first time since 1835, this country can be out of debt. If you're a middle class person, why should you worry about that? Because if we're out of debt it means lower interest rates; higher investment; more jobs; higher wages; lower college loan, credit card, car payment, and home mortgage rates. It means a more stable world economy over the long run. It means a better environment for farmers and manufacturers and everybody else. It is a good thing to do. Now, what I want to tell you is, we can do all that and still have a tax cut and still invest in education. But we cannot pretend that there are no consequences to proposing a tax cut that will cut education and prevent us from saving Social Security and Medicare and mean we can't pay off the debt and we can't do these other things. There are choices to be made, and we should be thinking about the children and the future. And as we have proved the last 6\1/2\ years, when you do things that are right for the long run, often they turn out to be right for the short run, as well. And so I say to you, this school issue is a part of this debate, this school construction issue. We propose a tax cut to help people save for retirement, take care of long-term care needs of their family, take care of their child care needs, and also to induce people to invest in more school construction with a big tax break. It is very, very important. And you've already heard about Iowa's needs. You've heard Secretary Riley talk about America's needs. In spite of all--what you have to understand is, the school enrollments, as big as they are, are fixing to explode. And we've got to do some things about it. We've got to do what Governor Vilsack wants to do everywhere in America. Hardly anybody has done as well as he has. We've got to hook up all the classrooms in the country to the Internet. And we've got to have teachers to go into the classrooms--2.1 million are going to retire over the next few years. Dody is the beginning of a wave in America. And we've got to find young people to go in there and take their places. And we've got to have good facilities for people to visit, to learn in. You know, I can still remember every schoolroom that I ever was in in my life. And a lot of old schools can be modernized, but when you've got kids--I've been to school districts, literally, literally, with one elementary school with 12 housetrailers out behind it. Not one or two. Twelve! So we have to deal with this. And there are serious consequences to not dealing with it. Now, if our school construction initiative passes as a part of our tax cut proposal and our education program, it will help communities have $25 billion over the next 2 years for school construction. That's enough to build or modernize 6,000 schools. Now, if you compare that to the Republican proposal you will see that their plan is 644 schools. Ours is nearly 10 to 1. So somebody can say, well, we have a school construction proposal--6,000 is better than 644. We're having the same discussion about teachers. Last year I was thrilled--in the teeth of an election year, we had a bipartisan agreement to put 100,000 teachers in our schools, because the classes are getting bigger and it would allow us to lower class size in the early grades to an average of 18. We just had another national study come out the other day about how important that can be and how the learning gains can be permanent. And just 2 weeks ago Secretary Riley and I announced $1.2 billion to help States and local school districts hire the first 30,000 of those 100,000. But now the majority in Congress wants to back off from that. They have other ways to spend the money. They want to give the money out and not guarantee that it will go to hire new teachers. I feel that if you make a promise in an election year, you ought to keep it the next year, too. If it was a good idea last year, it's still a good idea. So I say to you, these are two things that we ought to do. We need to do this school construction program. We need to finish the work of hiring 100,000 teachers. We need to finish the work that Governor Vilsack has done so much on here of wiring all of our schools. We need to finish these things. It all comes down to this: What do you want to do with this moment of prosperity? And let me say one thing--you know, Washington tends to be a more partisan place than most places in America--maybe than anyplace in America. I've done what I could to try to unify this country. Most Americans, whether they're Republicans or Democrats or independents, that have kids in the schools want them to go to good schools. I'll bet you there are a lot of school elections in Iowa where Republicans and Democrats vote the same way for school bond issues or on educational proposals. This is not always an ideological issue. This should be an issue that brings America together. But issues that unify people in the country have a way of dividing people in Washington. We had the same thing happen with the Patients' Bill of Rights; you probably saw that. We had this crazy idea, we Democrats did, that everybody in a managed care plan in America ought to be able to see a specialist if their doctor said they should see one. Or, if they lived in a big city and they got hurt in an accident, they ought to be able to go to the nearest emergency room, not be driven halfway across town. Or, if their employer changed managed care providers while a woman employee was in the middle of a pregnancy or a man or a woman was in chemotherapy, they ought to be able to keep their doctor until the treatment was over. And if somebody hurts you with a bad decision, you ought to be able to get redress for it. Now those are rights that I enjoy under the Federal Health Care Plan and the Congress enjoys and every Federal employee enjoys. And the Congress--the Republican majority's own budget office said this would add at most $2 a month to a managed care premium. In the Federal system, it added less than $1 a month when I put them in. Now, I don't know, but I believe in Iowa when you go to the doctor's office, they don't ask you if you're a Republican or a Democrat. [Laughter] And I don't believe when the children come to school here they ask you if you're a Republican or a Democrat. These are things that should unify us. And so I ask you to please, please do what you can to talk to all the members of this congressional delegation; ask them to support us on 100,000 teachers; ask them--it's still not too late to pass the Patients' Bill of Rights that gives the rest of you the protections we have in Congress and the White House and the Federal Government. And ask them to make a part of any tax cut plan a school construction initiative that will build or modernize 6,000 schools. You think about this young woman who introduced me today. I have seen people like her all across America, marvelous kids in the poorest corners of this country--kids in schools that are 75 years old that haven't been fixed, where the kids walk up the steps and they see broken windows every day, where there are rooms, in some cases whole floors they can't even go on. They deserve better. How in the world can we say to them, we had the most prosperous time in American history; we had the biggest surplus in history; we dug ourselves out of debt; but all we thought of was ourselves and the next election; we didn't have the time or money or vision to think about you and your future? We are a better country than that. All of us are, without regard to party. Everywhere else but Washington, DC, you would never hear anybody discarding this argument. I implore you, help us to get this done this year. The children of American deserve 21st century schools. Thank you, and God bless you.”