Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Saturday, 10 Oct 1992 01:17:47 CDT
From: <U56503@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: ==> Clinton/Gore Madison Speech (10/1/92)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Information in the public interest which does not imply that it
is the opinion of UIC.  Contact 75300.3115@compuserve.com for
further information.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Remarks by Governor Bill Clinton & Senator Al Gore Madison, WI
 October 1, 1992


 SENATOR ALBERT GORE, JR.

      We are so proud of the candidates that you have selected to be a
 part of this ticket here in Wisconsin.  They are magnificent.  And to
 the leaders who are gathered with us, Speaker Kunicki and Assembly
 Majority Leader Dave Travis, Senator Majority Leader David Helback
 and Senate President Fred Risser, to all of the distinguished guests
 who are present, you could not possibly have given us a better day
 than by being a part of this unbelievable crowd, with the enthusiasm
 you bring here.

      You know, we have spent the day in Wisconsin, both of us.  We
 have been finding that the people of this state understand very
 clearly that we cannot put up with four more years of Bush and
 Quayle.  We have got to move in a different direction.

      And we have been finding that the progressive tradition of
 Wisconsin is very much alive, and just as Wisconsin often leads the
 way, Wisconsin is prepared to lead this nation in the choice of hope
 over fear, change over the status quo, and the rejection of Bush and
 Quayle.

      Bush and Quayle have just put a new television ad on which is
 one of the falsest, most misleading advertisements I've ever seen in
 my life.  It lists a bunch of people and their occupations, and says,
 Clinton and Gore are going to raise their taxes by this much and this
 much.  First of all, it is totally wrong.  Second of all, it is
 typical of the misleading way in which  Bush and Quayle run their
 campaign.  And I will predict to you that the people of Wisconsin are
 going to reject that kind of appeal out of hand--out of hand.

      You know, we took one of our first bus trips here in Wisconsin,
 and if any of you have been watching C-Span, you'll know that all
 over the United States I have been talking about that bus trip
 through Wisconsin.  And I've been talking about the evening when we
 pulled into LaCrosse at 2:30 in the morning, three hours late, and
 thee were a thousand people there for no reason except to say we're
 excited about change in this country.  And there was a man in the
 back of the crowd with a home-made sign, and he had the most
 determined look on his face I believe I've ever seen.  And his sign
 said, very simply, ``Lips and Potato Got to Go.''

      And he's got that right.  Ladies and gentlemen, what Bush and
 Quayle have given this country is the worst economic performance
 since the Great Depression.  Unemployment is up.  Housing starts are
 down.  The trade deficit is up.  Real incomes are down.  Bankruptcies
 are up.  Consumer confidence is down.  Everything that should be down
 is up.  Everything that should be up is down.  They've got it upside
 down, and we're going to turn it right side up.

      Under Bush and Quayle there are fewer jobs in the private sector
 today than there were four years ago when they took over.  In other
 words, if George Bush went out to Hollywood and made a movie, he
 would have to call it, ``Honey, I Shrunk the Economy.''

      And you know what?  The sequel would have to be, ''Honey, I Blew
 Up the Deficit,'' because they've doubled it only four years time.

      After compiling a record like that, it is pretty outrageous for
 them to encourage their supporters to say four more years.  It's
 understandable why their supports seem to have such difficulties
 working up any enthusiasm when they say it.  ''Four more years.''
 You know, ``four more years'' sounds more like a threat than a
 promise.

      What about four more months?  That's enough for Bush and Quayle,
 and four more weeks till the election when we tell them what they've
 got in store.

      The only time Bush and Quayle start talking about your jobs are
 when their jobs are on the line, and they're going to lose their jobs
 with your help, because we need new leadership in this country.

      A woman named Clementine Paddleford wrote about fifty years ago,
 quoting her mother, don't put a wishbone where a backbone should be.
 That's what George Bush has done.  He keeps telling us if we just
 play like Tinkerbell and wish hard enough, this economy will turn
 around.  But the new indicators that came out just today show that
 once again our economy may be heading toward a triple dip recession.
 And still they hang in there saying that trickle down economics is
 what we ought to stick with.

      Well, we're tired of trickle down economics.  We're ready to put
 people first for a change, and start putting people back to work for
 a change, start creating jobs for a change.  We're ready to move this
 country forward for a change.

      All they do--all they do is respond to the privileged few and
 the wealthy and powerful.  And they try to convince the rest of us
 that nothing's wrong except our attitude.  Well, the wealthy and
 powerful don't really want change, because this year for the first
 time since the Great Depression the top one percent has more money
 than the bottom 90 percent.  Why would they want change?  And since
 Bush and Quayle respond mainly to the privileged few, why would they
 want to change the policies that are producing this disparity.

      They want instead to distract our attention by talking about
 everything except jobs and the economy, family values, for example,
 in their effort to persuade us that only right wing supporters of
 Bush and Quayle care about families.  Well, let me tell you
 something.  I've met with people in the dead of night, in the
 intensive care unit of a pediatric ward of a hospital, and I've
 talked to them about what it's like to see your child needing an
 operation and need to be there, and be fired from your job because
 your employer won't give you unpaid leave.

      George Bush cannot look the people of Wisconsin straight in the
 eye and say he's for family values, while he vetoes the Family
 Medical Leave Act.  It's hypocrisy!

      The tradition of this state will not permit a candidate to
 engage in that kind of hypocrisy.  I know.  When my father was a
 young man, he served as the first secretary of labor that our state
 of Tennessee ever had.  And he went into that office determined to
 try to help working men and women, and he looked around this nation
 to find someplace that had taken the lead during those depression
 years.  And he came up here to the state of Wisconsin, because you
 had the first unemployment compensation program in the entire nation,
 and he copied it, took it back to Tennessee.  That's how come we have
 one today.

      Because you led the way.  And what about that speech by Pat
 Buchanan at their convention?  Did you like that one?

      If they think they're going to come here to Wisconsin with the
 anti-woman position they have in their platform, they've got another
 thing coming.  They're in for a big surprise.

      I know that, too.  Because when my mother was a young woman, and
 she looked for a place to go to law school that was progressive and
 admitted women who wanted to get their law degree in the 1930s when
 it was hard to find a place like that, she went to Vanderbilt, but
 she came here to the University of Wisconsin Law School.  And that's
 where that tradition started.

      Now, let me tell you what we're offering instead of this
 Bush-Quayle, Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell amalgamation of extremist
 right wing sentiment that they offered at their convention over
 there.

      What we're offering is someone who has balanced eleven budgets
 in a row while maintaining the second lowest tax rate in the entire
 United States of America.  Now, you listen, you listen to their
 misleading advertisements, and then you read the back page of the
 Wall Street Journal today, and look at the truth about the leadership
 and the progressive measures that Governor Bill Clinton has
 introduced in education and health care and jobs.  He knows what
 needs to be done, because he comes from a working family.

      His father was killed three months before he was even born.  He
 came up the hard way.  He worked his way up, worked his way through
 college, and took that education back home to help the families in
 the same circumstances from which he came.  And he's created
 highways, manufacturing jobs at ten times the national average, put
 17,000 people--taken them off welfare and on to the payrolls.  And,
 ladies and gentlemen, for the last two years in a row, according to
 the figures from George Bush's own Department of Labor, his state has
 been number one among all fifty in creating jobs in the private
 sector.  And that's what we need in the White House.

      Those are some of the reasons the other 49 governors, on a
 bipartisan basis, voted to name Bill Clinton the best and most
 effective governor in the entire United States of America.  And
 that's the experience and stature and leadership that we need as
 contrasted with one of the worst presidents in the history of this
 country.

      You know, they want to talk about the experience that George
 Bush has in foreign policy.  I want them to explain to this country,
 first of all, how come Saddam Hussein is still over there thumbing
 his nose at the rest of the world if they're so brilliant in foreign
 policy.  But secondly, why did George Bush ignore the warnings of the
 CIA and the Defense Department and the Department of Commerce and the
 State Department and continue sending our foreign aid dollars to
 build up Saddam Hussein when he was told that Saddam was using the
 money to finance terrorism and to acquire weapons of mass
 destruction.  We don't want that kind of experience in foreign
 policy.  That needs to be rejected.

      And, ladies and gentlemen, we need somebody in the White House
 who understands in his heart as Bill Clinton understands that we face
 a global environmental crisis, and the United States of America must
 lead the way to solve that crisis, instead of dragging its feet and
 bringing up the rear, and blocking the actions and the progress that
 are needed.

      But we've got to have the courage to reach out for change.
 We've got to reject the arguments of Bush and Quayle to keep us in
 this rut we have been in.  Just as young people led the way in China,
 just as they had the courage to stand in front of the tanks, just as
 young people led the way, destroying communism in Eastern Europe, and
 freeing Nelson Mandela in South Africa, now it's our turn.  And young
 people must help lead the way to change here in the United States of
 America.

      We can create millions of new jobs by being the leader in the
 environmental revolution, and creating the new products and
 technologies the world needs.  And we have to change in our own
 lives, and recognize how high the stakes are.  Change takes courage
 personally.  Register to vote, reach out to the independents and the
 Republicans.  We want to welcome all the Republicans here for
 Clinton-Gore.  Thank you for joining our cause.  Wave your arms if
 you are a Republican for Clinton-Gore.  Thank you.

      Welcome.  Wave your arms if you are an independent or a former
 Perot supporter for Clinton-Gore.  Welcome.  Thank you for joining
 our cause.  The choice, Wisconsin, is up to you.  You can make the
 difference.  Do you want four more years of trickle down economics?

      Four more years of ``Read my Lips''? Four more years of a phony
 environmental president?  Four more years of a counterfeit commitment
 to education? Four more years of Dan Quayle? Four more years of
 George Herbert Walker Bush? Is it time for them to go? Well, then,
 what time is it?  Again, what time is it?

      One more time, louder.  What time is it? They've run out of
 time.  They've run out of excuses.  They've run out of ideas.  With
 your help, on November the 3rd, they're going to be run out of
 office, and we're going to elect Bill Clinton the next president of
 the United States of America.

 GOVERNOR CLINTON:

      Thank you.  Thank you very much.  Thank you.  I am so glad to be
 back here in this wonderful city and at this wonderful state capital,
 back in the state that has been so good to me for a long time, since
 I first came to Stephens Point over five years ago.  Now I have been
 in the last two years to Madison three times, to Milwaukee several
 times.  I have been up the Black River on our wonderful bus trip.
 This is a gorgeous place, full of good, level headed, warm hearted,
 determined, progressive people who can lead this country to a new
 future on November the third.

      I want to say to those of you who take some comfort in the
 present polls to remember how you feel about the Brewers.  It's not
 over till it's over, and we need your help all the way to the end.

      Let me say also how grateful I am to be here with your attorney
 general and the leaders of your legislature and my friend of several
 years who ran such a remarkable campaign for the United States
 Senate, Russ Feingold, a person who will be a national figure.

      Russ Feingold makes me feel like an old man.  But I'm proud of
 him, and I'm proud of being able to run on a ticket with someone like
 Ada Deer, and if you send the two of them to the United States
 Congress we'll have a lot better chance to change this country in the
 way that we ought.

      Let me say that once in a while the ``read my lips'', education,
 environmental, kinder, gentler, family values president says this
 election is about trust.  I ask you to consider this: the president
 and I have only made one decision in common, a profoundly important
 one, the decision of who should be the president of the United States
 and have all this awesome responsibility if anything should happen to
 us.  And my decision was Al Gore.  Who do you trust?

      My fellow Americans, the indictment of this administration is
 not difficult.  It is now widely known that not only has this
 administration and this president broken its major commitments to the
 American people in the election of 1988, but that its policies have
 produced the worst economic performance since the Great Depression,
 the first decline in industrial production in our history, an actual
 reduction in the number of people working in the private sector, and,
 as Senator Gore has said, even in states with relatively low
 unemployment rates, more than two thirds of our people today are
 working harder for lower wages than they were making ten years ago.

      I got into this race for president a year ago because I did not
 want my daughter to grow up to be part of the first generation of
 Americans to do worse than their parents, because I was sick of the
 politics of blame and denial and paralysis that has gripped our
 nation's capital for too long, and because I thought as a people
 we're better than that, and we can do better than that.

      And so I ask the American people to join me on a journey to go
 beyond trickle down economics, not back to tax and spend economics,
 but forward, toward the 21st Century, with a commitment to invest in
 our people, to educate them, to face the crises that the health care
 system and the AIDS epidemic, and all the other problems we have
 imposed on us and seize the futures that is rightfully ours.

      This has always been a ``can do'' country, and I am tired of
 being told what we cannot do.

      None of us would be here today were it not for the fact that our
 forebears refused to say ``we can't.''  They always said, ``we
 can.''  I can't help pointing out today in this vast crowd the large
 number of our fellow citizens with disabilities who are here.  They
 are here because they have waged a courageous battle for decades for
 the right to say, we can, we can live, we can do, we can have a life,
 give us a chance.  That's what the Americans with Disabilities Act is
 all about, and that's what this campaign is all about.  We can do
 better, and we must.

      In the next few weeks, our opponents will do everything they can
 do divert your attention.  They will run ads that apparently have not
 even a close relationship to remote facts.  The ad now running
 taxation would be funny if it weren't so sad.  The very idea that an
 incumbent president of the United States, at the end of four years,
 with no record, no vision, no plan, could resort to the debasing
 tactic of running an ad that has not one shred of truth in it about
 my record and my plan on taxation is embarrassing for our country.
 But I say to you, we won't have to put up with it too long if you
 will help us seize the future.

      But what is more important, and what I liked about the way you
 spoke so loud and clear in this Senate race is that the American
 people now, led by people like those of you who live in Wisconsin,
 are saying that what matters is what happens the day after the
 election.  What are we going to do to make America a better place?
 What are we going to do to change the future and open it up?  Well,
 you don't have to look too far.  Al Gore and I have said what we're
 going to do.  It's on that big banner there, and it's in this book.
 We call it putting people first.

      And I want to talk a little today, even to this vast crowd in
 ways that go beyond the slogans of a political rally.  What is the
 difference between our position and theirs?  First of all, we're
 never going to turn this country around until we create jobs and
 raise incomes.  We cannot have the American people working harder for
 less.   What the other side wants to do is to give you four more
 years of trickle down economics.  It's a simple program.  It says cut
 taxes on the wealthiest Americans and get out of the way and see what
 happens.  All the benefits will trickle down.

      Well, it hasn't worked.  You know it hasn't worked, and I know
 it hasn't worked.  Here's our program: raise taxes marginally and
 modestly on the wealthiest Americans, because we've got a $400
 billion deficit, and because their tax rates went down while middle
 class taxes went up.

      But then use the money--use the money to give modest relief to
 working class Americans, especially those with children, and then to
 say to the wealthy, if you want to pay lower taxes, here's a tax
 incentive.  Invest in new equipment and new plants, and start new
 small businesses, and put the American people back to work, and get
 rich the old fashion way.  Then you can lower your tax bill by
 putting the people to work in this country.  That is what we want,
 not trickle down.

      But invest and create jobs and put us to work.  And we want to
 say that we want to invest more of your tax money.  We have reduced
 the defense budget for three and a half years now, but all the money
 has been lost going into the S&L boondoggle and the higher health
 care costs.  What Al Gore and I say is, let's take every dollar by
 which we reduce defense and invest it in an American economy for the
 21st Century, and modern transportation and communications, and
 environmental clean up, and other technologies that can create jobs
 for you and for people like you all across the United States.  Let's
 build the American economy here at home.

      We say we want to be involved in the world, we want to trade
 more, we want to sell more, we want to buy more, we want a fair and
 open and just relationship with the rest of the world.  States like
 Wisconsin and Arkansas are great trading states.  We sell a lot of
 things around the world, but we want fair access to foreign markets.
 And we also want jobs here at home.  That means that I am outraged at
 the recent undisputed report that under the Bush administration the
 Agency for International Development has spent taxpayer dollars to
 shut plants down in America, and move them overseas.  That is
 wrong.   Your money should not be spent that way.  I am stunned to
 see that American taxpayer dollars have been used to pay for ads
 encouraging Americans to throw other Americans out of work so they
 can work people for 57 cents an hour in Central America.  That is
 wrong.  We're better than that.

      And now it comes out that we under this administration, this
 government, spent more money to train workers in Central America than
 it did to train unemployed workers in the United States of America.
 We can do better than that, and if you'll give us a chance, we will.

      And we believe that it's not bad for the economy to help the
 environment.  One of the reasons I put Al Gore on this ticket is that
 I wanted to make a clear statement that we believe with all our heart
 that having a sustainable, good, long term environmental policy is a
 pre-condition to a strong American economy, not an enemy of it.

      You think about the jobs we can make in America with a new
 energy policy, with more reliance on renewable resources, and natural
 gas, and energy efficiency.  Think about the jobs we can make in
 America building light rail and high speed rail.  Think about the
 jobs we can make in America recycling our solid waste.  There is a
 company here in Wisconsin, in Green Bay, that has a papermill in my
 home state that takes newsprint and office waste paper to recycle to
 make products for the commercial market.  They have saved us from
 environmental heartache, and helped to create economic opportunities
 for America.  And Bill Clinton and Al Gore are going to do that for
 four years, for eight years, and, by your will, for even longer.

      We believe that we can never, ever reduce the government debt,
 restore health to the manufacturing economy, rebuild small business,
 or frankly provide basic security to the American people until this
 country joins the ranks of all other advanced nations and finally,
 finally moves to control health care costs and provide basic health
 care to all Americans.

      During the life of the Bush administration, almost 100,000 of
 your fellow citizens a month has lost health care coverage.  Think of
 it: almost a hundred thousand people a month.  On our bus tours
 across this country, at every country crossroads, someone will come
 up to us with yet another heartbreaking story related to the absence
 of health care coverage, or the bankruptcy of a business, or the pain
 of having to stop covering employees, or the inability to change jobs
 because there's someone in the family who's been sick and you can't
 get new health insurance coverage.  I tell you, my fellow Americans,
 it is the biggest problem with the deficit, it is one of the biggest
 drags on our economy.  We spend thirty percent more of our income on
 health care than any other nation on earth, and we have less to show
 for it because we waste so much money on insurance, on
 administration, on bureaucracy, on the absence of primary and
 preventive health care.

      We have a plan not to pour more money down the same old system,
 but to revolutionize the American health care system to provide
 affordable health care to all.  And only you can give us the chance
 to implement it.

      Lastly, in the home of this great university, let me say that we
 believe America needs a real education presidency.

      No candidate for president can promise you to reverse the march
 of time.  No candidate for president can promise you to show the laws
 of change.  The average eighteen year old will change work eight
 times in a life time.  You live in a world where how well you do
 depends on what you can learn.  It is time we had a commitment to
 educate people from pre-school to all, to an education for a lifetime
 for every man and woman in this country.  And we will offer you that
 sort of opportunity.

      What does that mean?  What does that mean?  It means if you
 could see the faces of the people we see, Al and I, as we go along
 the road on this bus tour, the people who have worked like crazy all
 their lives, who are now making less than half of what they were
 making three or four years ago, it is obvious that we must make a
 renewed commitment to educate all our people.  What does it mean?  It
 means first teach everyone with a job to read and give everyone with
 a job a high school diploma in the next five years.  We can do that.

      It means, second, for all the young people in this country who
 do not go on to four year colleges, make sure they get at least two
 years of apprenticeship training in a community college or a work
 program to get good jobs, not dead end jobs.


      And finally, finally it means we must open the doors of college
 education to all our people.

      I want to establish a national trust fund out of which any
 American can borrow the money to go to college, without regard to
 income, and then pay it back as a percentage of their income after
 they go to work, or even better, by working off their college loans
 by giving two years of service to our country here at home.

      Think of it.  Think if it here in Wisconsin.  What if every
 person in this gorgeous state took a national service loan and said I
 will pay it off, I'll be a teacher, I'll be a police officer, I'll
 work with people with disabilities, I'll work with the elderly for in
 home care.  I'll work with children to keep them out of trouble.
 I'll work in a housing program to solve homelessness.  From the grass
 roots up, without government bureaucracy, we could sweep away many of
 our problems, and educate a whole generation of Americans.  It would
 be the best money we ever spent.

      That is our agenda for change.  But we cannot implement it
 without your help.  You must also support our efforts to change this
 political system for both parties in Washington have contributed to
 the paralysis.  We want to reduce the influence of political action
 committees, control the cost of congressional campaigns, open the air
 waves to honest debate, limit the influence of lobbyists over
 legislation, and require them to disclose their activities.  We want
 to clean up the system and open it up so that it will work in the
 progressive tradition of Wisconsin.  The United States deserves no
 less.

      And finally, we ask you to join us in challenging every American
 to be part of this change, challenging people on welfare to get more
 education and receive support for their children, and move to work,
 challenging people who owe child support not to cross the state line
 to get out of paying for it and setting up a system to collect it,
 challenging people in the work force to be constantly ready to be
 more productive and to change, challenging people who get something
 from their government to give something back to their country.

      It is time for all of us to be committed to change.   Now we
 have just a little more than a month.  In the next month, we will
 chart the course of America well into the 21st century.  And there
 will be repeated pleas to you to remember that things could be
 worse.  Appeals to your fears, to your uncertainties, to your
 doubts.  But let me tell you something: I remember when I was the age
 of the college students here, when America knew that if we could
 behave properly and not make mistakes, that the future would always
 be unlimited.  Now we are gripped, not by the dimensions of our
 problems, but by the dimensions of our disbelief.  It has been so
 long since we had a government that was on our side, a government
 committed to really working, a government that was not trickle down
 and was not tax and spend, but that was lean and effective and
 committed to being in partnership with people in their private lives,
 to create opportunity, provide education and solve problems, that
 many people do not believe it can be better.

      But I tell you, it can be better.  The thing that will determine
 the outcome of this election is whether we can in the end keep our
 courage up.  At every critical juncture in our nation's history, the
 things could be worse crowd have been there carping on the
 sidelines.  And this crowd that's in there, they've had a long time.
 Their record is clear.  They're running this economy down and
 shrinking our future when it ought to be expanding.

      The end of the Cold War opens up unbelievable opportunities to
 all of you.  I want your children and your grandchildren to be part
 of the American legacy, leading us to a freer, more democratic world,
 dealing with our global environmental problems, and giving richness
 and texture to the lives of every man and woman in ways that were
 never dreamed of before.

      But it all depends on whether you can keep your courage up.  And
 so I ask you this, on this beautiful fall night in this wonderful
 place:  when you go home tonight and you think about what you want
 for the rest of your life, and you imagine what America will be like
 on the day after the election, resolve to do everything you can hear
 in Wisconsin and with your friends around the country to say on
 November 3rd we're going to take our country back, we're going go
 claim our future, we are better than we have been, we are going to be
 better in the future.  It is our country, and on November 3rd we're
 going to lift it up and move it forward.  Thank you very much, and
 God bless you all.

Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton