Friday, September 14, 2012 By Emily Nieves
Former president Bill Clinton addresses a crowd full of enthusiastic FIU students and politically involved individuals. - Kristen Nieves
Former President Bill Clinton spoke at a grassroots event for the Obama campaign on Tuesday in FIU, highlighting the campaign’s standpoint on key issues such as healthcare, the economy, and education.
After last week’s speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), expectations were running high for the former president, as one attendee commented.
“He better give another great speech like he did at the DNC,” FIU student Stephanie Victoria said.
Clinton also joked about the lengthiness of his speech last week before delving into the major issues at hand.
“So, I will say again—in much less time—what I tried to say last week. This is a pivotal election,” he said. “I believe we should be working in an interdependent world for an America of shared responsibilities, shared opportunities, shared prosperity, and shared membership in one American community. That’s what I believe in.”
One of the first things Clinton addressed was the importance of voting in this election, no matter which candidate one votes for, to honor the men and women who have served and fought for America’s freedom.
“If you want to honor the people who have worn this country’s uniform . . . be a good citizen. The least we can do is show up and vote,” he said.
Clinton also addressed the recent Voter ID laws that have been passed in key swing states, which are predicted to have a significant impact on minorities’ and the elderly’s abilities to vote.
“If you believe in honest debate, after the debate’s over you would want everybody to vote, not to make it harder for the young, the minorities, and the disabled,” he said of the GOP’s recent attempts at implementing Voter ID laws that Republican politicians claim would eliminate voter fraud.
“We’ve got a lot of reasons to vote, and we’ve got a good candidate to vote for,” he said of President Obama. “Besides, if you sit on the sidelines, you are responsible for the consequences.”
He also emphasized some of the core beliefs of the Democratic party, gaining support from the audience as he reiterated one of the main messages of the Obama campaign.
“If you look around the world today, no country making progress on creating a society where people share the future—not a single one—got there with a militant, bitter, anti-government strategy,” Clinton said. “None, because what works in the modern world is partnership.”
This partnership, Clinton said, should also exist between business and government. He spoke of the “literally dozens” of tax cuts given by President Obama to small businesses and explained that the “near depression level” recession would have been much worse had the President not taken action.
Before President Obama took office, Clinton says, the economy had shrunk 9%, 750,000 jobs were lost per month, and the average middle class family lost 40% of their income.
“No one—not me, not anybody else, no one—could have completely healed that and built a whole new economy and brought us back to full employment in just four years,” Clinton said.
“I think [Barack Obama] has good intentions and I think he needs four more years to really show us what he can do,” FIU student Stephanie Victoria said, echoing what the crowd had chanted for before the event began and the “four more years” that the crowd was in agreement of once the issue was brought up by Clinton himself.
He explained the mechanics of the stimulus plan implemented by the President: one third of the bill went to tax cuts for 95% of Americans, one third was allocated to keeping 700,000 government employees such as firemen, teachers, and police officers on the job, and one third was used to double America’s investments in renewable energy.
“[Obama] knows how bad some people are hurting. He knows what the problems are,” he said. “The test is whether he’s taken us in the right direction, and the answer to that is yes.”
The right direction, Clinton says, is toward an economy based on cleaner and more efficient energy (like natural gas production), where people will have more jobs related to home energy efficiency than jobs related to home building itself.
He also described Florida’s status in the renewable energy effort as leading the way in solar power, and mentioned that the current administration’s investments in the space program would bring new jobs to Florida that would be part of a “21st century economy.”
Clinton also addressed one of the most controversial topics of American politics: health care.
He stated his belief that the health care bill was “a good thing for the American people” and explained how the old healthcare system was both too expensive and inefficient in comparison with other healthcare systems like those in France and Germany.
“No other country in the world—let me say this again—no other rich, big country in the world spends more than 11.8%,” Clinton said, addressing the staggering and unusual 18% of national income that the United States spends on health care.
According to Clinton, the United States spends one trillion dollars a year to “insure a smaller percentage of our people in a way that doesn’t make us healthier.”
“If you look at the overall health of the population, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that we are not spending our money in the most effective way,” he said.
For this reason Clinton believes the healthcare bill was a tremendous feat for the nation. He said that the new healthcare bill “closed the donut hole in the Medicare drug program,” resulting in 238,000 Floridians saving an average of $600 a year on prescription drugs. Additionally, over a million Floridians have received rebates because the law requires insurers to spend 80 to 85% of their premium on health care.
And for young Americans, Clinton stated, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would allow Floridians to be covered under their parent’s health insurance plan until they turn 26. Another key aspect of the ACA would prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to 960,000 Florida children because of pre-existing conditions.
Clinton also addressed GOP claims that Obama had eliminated $716 billion from the Medicare budget, saying that “nobody lost anything” and that the $716 billion originated from savings that were the result of a more efficient restructuring of the Medicare system.
Clinton also pointed out that Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and Republican vice presidential nominee, produced the same amount in savings as the Obama budget did.
“You’ve got to hand it do them, it takes real brass to attack people for doing what you did,” he joked.
Clinton also claimed that the GOP have proposed to cut Medicaid by 25% over the next ten years.
The ACA, he says, caused more health care providers to ask to participate in the system than ever before, resulted in 17% more seniors getting into the Medicare Advantage Program, and made the price of being in the Medicare Advantage Program drop by 16%.
“So, if President Obama’s goal was to destroy Medicare Advantage, he did a poor job,” he said.
Additionally, Clinton suggested that repealing the ACA would be dangerous for the Medicare Advantage Program and cause the money supporting the program to run out quicker.
“Those are the facts. That’s the arithmetic,” he said.
He also claimed that thousands of seniors voted against those who “support the plan to strengthen Medicare” because they were misinformed.
“[The GOP] got away with running this old dog down to the chute in 2010. The first time they did that it was their fault. If we let it happen again it is our fault.”
Clinton emphasized that under the new Student Loan Bill, students will enjoy a fixed rate at which to pay back their student loans over a period of 20 years. He says that because the new program is cheaper, billions of dollars will be saved over the next 10 years, most of which will be put back into raising the Pell grant and protecting tax cuts.
“I personally believe that upping the Pell grants and making it possible for every person to pay that loan back as a limited percentage of your income means . . . it will change the future for young Americans,” he said.
President Clinton closed by reiterating his belief that it is up the American people to decide what kind of future they want.
“I’m telling you that I believe with all my heart that a society that basically says, ‘You’re own your own,’ is never going to be as successful in a highly competitive, interdependent world as a society that says, ‘We’re all in this together.’”
Clinton ended the speech on a strong note, summarizing his beliefs on what the Obama administration will bring to the American people and reinforcing his message of the importance of voting.
“If you’re looking for the future I think the President’s budget plan is better, it makes the arithmetic test. I think the health care plan is better. I know the higher education plan is better. And I know it will not amount to a hill of beans if you don’t register and vote.”