Bill Clinton: “You need some help? Where's my doctor? I've got my medical team. We've got somebody here who fainted. We're coming.…”

“You need some help? Where's my doctor? I've got my medical team. We've got somebody here who fainted. We're coming. We'll bring it right there. Somebody hold your hand up, and we'll find you. They'll be right there. Here they are. There's nothing else we can do. You all just--let's go on with the show here; they're going to take good care of him. Now, listen, when we came there the thing that bothered me about Washington was that there was a lot of talk and very little action. Everybody spent all their time trying to get their 30 seconds on the evening news, seeing who they could blame for America's problems. And I said, we are going to change the way Washington works. We're going to stop asking, ``Who is to blame'' and start asking, ``What are we going to do to get this country moving again and help people?'' So I tell you today, we are better off than we were 4 years ago. But we've got a lot to do. And we're going to be better off still. And I came here to ask the people of Longview and east Texas and this great State to help and join in in building that bridge to the 21st century. Now, you know this approach is right; we are better off than we were 4 years ago. We don't need a U-turn. We need to bear down and go right on into that future. And I want to ask you to help us. I want you to help me balance that Federal budget. We've already taken the deficit down 4 years in a row for the first time since before the Civil War. They talked about it; we did something about it. But we've got to balance the budget in a way that is fair to everybody. We can protect education and the environment and research and technology, we can protect Medicare and Medicaid, and we can afford a targeted tax cut tied to childrearing and education. I am very proud of the fact that on October 1st 10 million Americans will get an increase in their minimum wage. You may not know there is also in that bill tax cuts to help small business if they invest more, tax cuts to help small businesses--self-employed people that have to buy their own health insurance policy. And there is also a $5,000 tax credit for any family that will adopt a child. That's pro-family, pro-work, and pro-business. What I want to see us do now is to give the American people tax credits for childrearing. I want to see tax cuts for education. I want to see tax cuts for homebuying. I want to see tax cuts for medical care. And I want to explain in a minute how all that works, but the main thing I want to say to you is we can afford the right kind of tax cut. But we should not have a tax cut that is a big, across-the-board tax cut that goes to people like me who don't need it and that will increase the deficit again. Now, every time I get on a plane and leave Washington, they say, ``Now, Mr. President, the economy is going well now; don't go down to someplace like Longview and talk about the deficit. It bores people to death. They don't want to hear about it, and nobody cares about it except when times are tough.'' Well, let me tell you what it means. You go home tonight and you think about this. Because we cut the deficit by 60 percent, we're not borrowing as much money. That leaves more for you. That means interest rates are lower. Now, last year our Republican friends put out a report that I agree with--I agreed with them last year, and I wish they hadn't changed their position--last year they said, ``If we get off of this plan to balance the budget, interest rates will go up by 2 percent.'' Now, when you go home tonight, you think about what that would mean. If your car payment, your credit card payment, and your house payment went up by 2 percent, that would take your tax cut away right quick, wouldn't it? Think what it would mean. Even worse, if all the little businesses up and down this street here and every other business in this country had to pay 2 percent more for a business loan, then small business would have a harder time expanding and growing and hiring new people. So I say, yes, cut taxes, but pay for every dime of it and still balance the budget. That's my plan. Help people educate their kids, help people build their families, but do it right. The second thing I want to say is, we've got to build a bridge to the 21st century where every single person has a chance to get a world- class education. And I could keep you here until tomorrow at this time talking about the schools and education. But let me just tell you two of the things I want to do. Number one, I want to see every classroom in this country and every library and every school in America hooked up not only with computers but hooked up to the information superhighway, to the Internet, to the World Wide Web. And let me say what that means--let me tell you what that means. If you're like me and you're sort of out of the computer generation and it gives you a headache to think about all this, here's what it means in simple terms. If we can hook up every classroom in Longview to the World Wide Web, to the Internet, to all these other networks of information and we did that in New York City and we did that in the remotest place in North Dakota, for the first time in history the kids in the poorest school districts, the kids in the most remote school districts would have access to the same information at the same level of quality and the same time as the kids in the richest public and private schools in America. It has never happened before. We could revolutionize education, and we ought to do it. The second thing we ought to do is to make a college education available to every single person who needs it of any age. And here's my plan to do that in three little ideas. Number one, let more families save in an IRA, an individual retirement account, for their retirement, but let them withdraw from it tax-free if they're using it pay for a college education, a health emergency, to buy a first home. Number two, make a community college education as universal in America in 4 years as a high school diploma is today. Make 2 years of education as universal by giving families a tax credit, dollar for dollar, off their tax bill for the cost of tuition at the typical community college in America today. Number three, give the families of this country a $10,000 deduction for the cost of any college tuition, any vocational tuition, up to $10,000 a year every year the kids are in college or their parents are in college. We ought to make this available to America, and we can pay for it and balance the budget. Will you help me build that bridge to the 21st century? [Applause] I want to build a bridge to the 21st century where the crime rate goes down for 4 more years. If we take it down 8 years in a row it might be low enough for us to stand it. And I have some specific ideas. First of all, we've got to finish the job of putting those 100,000 police on the street. For reasons that absolutely amaze me, the Congress--this Congress--is still trying to stop us from putting police on the street, even though it is lowering the crime rate and preventing crime and helping kids to stay out of trouble. Number two, we ought to do more drug testing of people who are out on parole. Sixty percent of the cocaine and heroin consumed in the United States today is consumed by people who are already in the criminal justice system in some way. You should not be on parole if you go back to drugs. That will make us a safer country. Number three, we ought to fully fund our safe and drug-free schools act. We ought to have a D.A.R.E. officer in every grade school classroom that needs it in America, out there helping these kids to stay off drugs and stay out of trouble. For reasons I do not understand, this Congress has tried to cut that program in half. I want to do more. We have got to convince our young people not to get in trouble in the first place. We're not going to jail our way out of their problems, we've got to keep them on a good path to the future. We've got to keep them on that bridge to the 21st century. And we need to do what we can to help you folks, the parents, the religious leaders, and the people in law enforcement who are willing to go into these schools and help our kids. We need to support them in every way we can. We've got a program to do it, and I want to finish that job. And I want you to help me build that bridge to the 21st century. I want to build a bridge to the 21st century where we have stronger families. And what's the biggest problem I hear from families all over this country? Everywhere I go they say, ``We're having trouble doing our job as parents and doing our jobs. We're working harder than ever before, but our kids need us more than ever before.'' That's why I'm proud that the first bill I signed was the family leave law. It's given 12 million families--12 million of them--the chance to take a little time off from work if they have a baby born or a sick child or a sick parent, without losing their jobs. And we're a better country because of that. It's been good for our economy. I believe we ought to expand it and say you can get a little time off from work to go to a parent- teacher conference or a regular doctor appointment with your child, too. We do not weaken America's economy when we make it possible for people to do right by their children. We weaken America's economy when there are millions of workers at work all over America worried sick about their kids while they're trying to do their job. I want to create a country where everybody who wants to work can work, where everybody has to work who can work, but where every worker can be a good parent, because that's our first and most important job. That is what I'm trying to do, and I want you to help me build that bridge to the 21st century. And finally, let me say that I believe almost every American now understands that we can't build a bridge to the 21st century unless we find a way to improve our environment as we grow our economy. I'm really proud of the fact that we passed a safe drinking water law; we passed a pesticide protection act supported by all the farm groups and all the consumer groups, to improve the quality of our food; that we are working hard to clean up toxic waste dumps and we cleaned up more in 3 years than our predecessors did in 12. But I am concerned about the continuing environmental challenges we have, and I want to leave you with just one. As you look at all these kids in the audience today, there are still 10 million American children--10 million American children--living within 4 miles of a toxic waste site. If you will give us 4 more years, we'll clean up the 500 worst sites so we can say America's children are growing up next to parks, not poison. And that's a part of our bridge to the 21st century. Now, folks, you have a clear choice in 39 days. Are we going to build a bridge to the past or a bridge to the future? Do we really think it's better to say ``you're on your own,'' or was my wonderful wife right, it does take a village like Longview to raise our kids and build our businesses and build our future? Are we going to build a bridge that's big enough and broad enough and strong enough for us to all walk across and that will be strong enough for our children and grandchildren to walk across? You know, I want to ask every one of you to go out and talk to the people you know who aren't here today--it doesn't matter what their party is--and just ask them this, say, you know, the century only changes once every 100 years, and this country is changing dramatically, the way we work, the way we live, the way we relate to the rest of the world. It is changing. And ask people, what do you want America to look like when we go into that new century? What do you want America to look like when our children are our age? In 100 years what do you want people to say that we did at this moment in time with our responsibility? If what we do is to create opportunity for everybody who is willing to work for it, if we prove that unlike all these other countries that are torn apart by their differences, we can be a country of different races, different religions, different points of view, bound together by our fidelity to the American system and American values, that we can lead the world--that's what I want the story to be. If those are the questions people ask before the election in November, 39 days from now, I believe I know what the answers will be. You go out and reach out to other citizens so that we can go forward and build that bridge to the 21st century. Thank you, and God bless you all.”