Remarks on concluding a whistlestop tour in Michigan City, Indiana

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents,  Sept 2, 1996  

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I want to go into that century - you look around this crowd today - where we can say other people in the world may be in the grips, the throes of division, other nations may be divided by race, by ethnicity, by tribe, by religion. But in America, if you believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, and you show up for work every day as a good citizen, you're our kind of American, we're all in this together. We're going forward together.

Well, now, you tell me - so I wanted to go out and see the people after 4 years. Four years ago we had high unemployment, stagnant wages, a host of unmet social challenges. We had enormous growing cynicism and we were afraid the middle class dreams that have always driven America were dying.

Four years later we have 10 million new jobs, 4 1/2 million new homeowners, 10 million homeowners with lower mortgage rates, a record number of new small businesses, record exports, record businesses owned by women and minorities. We have - America is on the move. For the first time in a decade, wages are on the rise again for the first time in 10 years in the United States.

The crime rate has come down for 4 years in a row as we have given police officers and citizens at the local level the tools they need to make the most of their capacity for safe streets. We're putting 100,000 more police on the streets. We did pass the Brady bill and 100,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers lost their handguns. But no hunters in Indiana or Arkansas did. We did the right thing.

We're investing more in safe and drug-free schools to try to put more of those D.A.R.E. officers in the schools and provide more education, more prevention, more treatment, as well as tougher punishment to keep our kids away from the problems that come with rising drug abuse. We have taken stands for the American family; 12 million American working families have been able to take a little time off from work for a baby's birth or a sick parent without losing their job. That's good for America.

We have moved aggressively to prove that you can clean up our environment and promote the public health and advance the economy by doing it - 50 million Americans are breathing cleaner air. We cleaned up more toxic waste dumps in 3 years than were cleaned up in 12 year. We are moving to protect the American environment and grow the American economy. And we can do both.

And we have done this in a way that brings the American people together. We have faced a lot of tough challenges around the world, and I've had to do some things that were, frankly, unpopular with a majority of you. But because we went in to Bosnia with our allies, no soldier has fallen in combat so far there, but the slaughter has ended and the people at least are being given a chance to get over the madness of their ethnic hatreds and go on with civilized life and be a part of a free Europe and a free world.

And because we have worked with the Russians to be free, to promote their democracy, to promote their economy, to get their troops out of other countries, to be a constructive partner, for the first time since nuclear weapons were developed, in the last 4 years, there is not a single nuclear weapon pointed at an American child anywhere in this country. And I am proud of that.