Bill Clinton: “I want to thank Governor Patton and Mrs. Patton for being here, for their leadership and their energy. I want to thank…”

“I want to thank Governor Patton and Mrs. Patton for being here, for their leadership and their energy. I want to thank our good friend Senator Wendell Ford, a great leader in the Senate and an immensely respected man. I don't know how many times I've thought to myself, if we just had about 10 people like Wendell Ford in the Senate we could solve half the country's problems in a month or two. I want to thank Lieutenant Governor Steve Henry for being here. I want to thank Steve Beshear and join in what has been said about him. When I was looking at him speak tonight, I thought, boy, Kentucky would be better off if he were the United States Senator, along with Wendell Ford. You know, it's really too bad that a person like Steve Beshear or our fine candidate for Congress, Dennis Null, whom I urge you to help elect--it's too bad that they have to get up and give campaign speeches, with so much to be done in this country, about what they have to help stop. It's too bad that they have to talk about--here it is, 1996--that a Congress in 1996 actually tried to break apart Medicare into a two- tier system; that a leader of the Congress, now a nominee for President, actually bragged about--in 1996, not before--actually bragged about being one of the only 12 people to vote against Medicare in the House; that they tried to take away the guarantee that Medicaid gives not just to elderly folks in nursing homes, not just to pregnant women and poor little kids but also to a lot of middle class families that happen to have a family member with a disability. A lot of you saw Christopher Reeve and his magnificent speech to the convention. But, you know, one of the most moving conversations I've had in the last several months was with Mr. Reeve when he said, ``A lot of people with my disability don't have the income of movie stars, and even movie stars can go broke caring for something like this. Don't ever let anything happen to Medicaid, Mr. President.'' We need for working middle class families to be able to care for their children, their brothers, their parents, their spouses if they have a disability without going broke and going to the poorhouse. We ought not to have to defend that against these congressional leaders. At a time when we know we need to be doing more for education, we ought not have to defend our education programs. Why would anybody want to make student loans more expensive and have fewer people in Head Start? We ought not to have to defend that. At a time when we have proved in this administration that you can grow the economy and save the environment at the same time, and create more high-wage jobs, we ought not have to deal with people coming in and trying to repeal 25 years of bipartisan environment protection. We ought not to have to do that. Now, if you don't want to have to worry about that anymore, I want you to send Steve Beshear and Dennis Null to the Congress to advance your interests, and you won't have to worry about those negative things happening to you anymore. I want to thank my colleagues--former colleagues Martha Layne Collins and Julian Carroll for being here. Mayor Jones, I'm delighted to be here in your community. I want to thank your county executive, Danny Orazine, and J.W. Cleary, the president of the Paducah NAACP; all the Kentucky legislators who are here; the chairman of our party, Bob Babbage; Sandra Higgins, the vice chair of our party, a native of western Kentucky; Glenn Dowdy, the head of the western Kentucky AFL-CIO, is here. I want to mention one other person here just for personal reasons. Nearly 20 years ago, or anyway, more than 15 years ago, I spent the night in western Kentucky in a nearby county where I met Mike Miller, the Marshall County judge. Now, folks, he kept me up half the night talking about western Kentucky. And that's why I got gray so young in my life. [Laughter] That's the only reason Al Gore's got dark hair and I've got gray hair; I had to stay up half the night with Mike Miller a long time ago. [Laughter] And I am here to deliver a report: Governor Patton and Senator Ford have made absolutely sure that the administration is perfectly aware that we are all for getting your new locks on the Kentucky Down, Judge. We are there. I have reported. Now, the next time I come to your county, I want to get a good night's sleep. Thank you very much. Folks, when I asked--oh, one other thing. I'm an old band boy. Let's give a hand to the Murray State Band. They were great. They were great. [Applause] Thank you. Folks, when I asked the American people last night--hello, folks. Keep playing; you're great. When I asked the American people last night, all of you, to help me build a bridge to the 21st century, that's not just a slogan with me. The Vice President will tell you that the thing that dominates our thinking and has for 4 years is the plain fact that our whole country is going through such a period of rapid change, how we work, how we live, how we relate to each other, how we're relating to the rest of the world. Most of these changes are very good, but not all of them are. We have enormous new opportunities and some stiff new challenges. And all the time I'm thinking, we're only 4 years from a new century. What's this country going to look like when we start that century? What's this country going to look like when our children are our age? What's it going to look like when our grandchildren are our age? This is the greatest country in human history. We've been around here for over 220 years now because more than half the time, in times of profound change, our people were both good and smart and did the right thing. And I'm telling you, the issue now is, are we going to build a bridge to the future or a bridge to the past? Do we believe we have to go forward together and help each other to make the most of our own lives, or would we be better off saying you're on your own? I believe the answer is clear. We said in the convention a lot that Hillary's book was right, that it does take a village. And I believe that is right. We ought to go forward together. And so tonight I say to you again, I want to build a bridge to the future with a strong economy. That means that we have to keep these interest rates down, investment going, keep the wages rising. That means we do have to balance the budget. But don't let anybody tell you any different, we do not have to balance the budget by breaking Medicare, turning away from our commitments in Medicaid, undermining our investments in our children's future, wrecking the environment, allowing $15 billion to be taken out of worker's pension funds, turning our backs on the research and development that is critical to our future here in western Kentucky. I got asked--I heard it tonight from the platform-- what we want for the Technology Center in western Kentucky. We have to invest in these things, folks. So I say again, yes, balance the budget, but, no, don't compromise our future or divide our people. Do it consistent with our values. We'll grow the economy. And should we have a tax cut? Yes, we should. But it ought to be the right kind. It ought to be a tax cut we can afford. It ought to be targeted to people who need it. And it ought to be targeted to things that will grow the economy, educating our children and caring for our children, helping people to buy that first home, helping them get in another home, helping them to save for health care costs. That is what this tax cut ought to be. And I want to say again to you, any tax cut I propose to you in the election will be paid for line by line, dime by dime. I am not going to let this country go back to exploding the debt. I learned what happened. We quadrupled the debt of this country in 12 years before we took office, and today your budget would be in surplus--in surplus--and we could have a bigger tax cut but for the interest we are still paying on the debt we ran up in the 12 years before Bill Clinton and Al Gore took over the White House. That is a fact. We cannot go back. Now, our opponents say the way to go to the 21st century is to have a tax cut that's 5 times that big, that's undifferentiated, that can't be paid for. Well, I want to tell you something, if they got their way there would be even bigger cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment than the ones I vetoed that Steve talked about, number one. And still it wouldn't cover it, so we would blow up the deficit anyway. Now, what does that mean? Who cares what happens to the deficit? You should. Why? Because if the Government borrows more money, then your interest rates will go up: what you paid for your home mortgage, your car payment, your credit card payment, what every small-business person in Paducah and all over western Kentucky has to pay to borrow money to start a new business or expand a business and hire new people. So I am telling you, let's keep the economy going and growing and wages rising and jobs coming in with the right kind of tax cut targeted to educating our people, raising our families, meeting their health care costs, and fully paid for in a balanced budget. That's my part of the bridge to the 21st century. I want you to help me build a bridge to the 21st century where we've got the best educated people in the world; where every person, no matter where they live, because of technology now has a chance, now has a chance to get a world-class education. I want you to support my initiative to make sure every third grader in this country can read on his or her own by the year 2000, with more tutors, support for teachers, support for parents. I want you to support our idea which will have phenomenal consequences in places like Kentucky and rural Tennessee and my native State of Arkansas. We are going to see, by the year 2000, that every classroom and every library in every school in this country not only has computers, not only has the teachers trained to teach the students how to use the computers but is hooked up to the information superhighway, so that for the first time in history, in the poorest hill and hollow in Appalachia, in the poorest inner-city school district in any city in this country, they have access at the same time to the same information children in the wealthiest school districts in America do. It has never happened before. We're going to make it happen if you help us. Will you help us do that? Audience members. Yes!”