Bill Clinton, back in Bend: Hillary ‘knows what she’s doing’

Back in Bend, eight years later, again stumping for his wife Hillary in a tough battle for the Democratic nomination, former President Bill Clinton spoke to hundreds of enthusiastic Central Oregon Community College students and supporters Thursday afternoon, making a case that she – unlike presumptive Republican Party nominee Donald Trump – has a track record of getting important things done.

“I was glad to be back in Bend before I saw you, and I’m really happy now,” Clinton told the audience at the Coats Campus Center as he began a 45-minute address that began about a half-hour late, after he arrived by private jet at Bend Airport.

You can watch the talk replay on our live stream page at http://www.ktvz.com/live — and even after our evening newscasts, you can scroll back and watch.

Clinton, who noted he’s now almost 70, thanked greeters, from City Councilor Sally Russell and her daughter to COCC President Shirley Metcalf, noting that he was the first president to give a commencement address at a community college.

The former president, who spoke at Bend High back in 2008, tailored his talk to his audience, speaking largely about the future and the needs of today’s schools and college students.

“For 20 years, Hillary and I have been saying this country would solve more of its problems if it worked like a community college” – open to all, flexible and able to help people achieve various goals. “It finds a place for everyone, so we can all rise together.”

“The great task today is to create a shared prosperity that is shared not only among all Americans but the future, that is sustainable,” he said, laying out ways to raise middle-class incomes and restore upward mobility.

“This has been a rather interesting year, wouldn’t you say?” the two-term president asked. “But I do believe that love trumps hate” – one of the few references by name to Trump.

And just once did he mention Hillary’s Democratic foe, Bernie Sanders, though about a dozen Sanders supporters lined the road to the college as he arrived, with a large banner decrying NAFTA and Hillary’s “lies.”

Clinton made sure to stress that things are not as bad as critics claim – and can be better.

“In 400 years of history of economics, not a single, solitary country has recovered from a crash as bad as the one we endured in less than 10 years,” he said.

As many other global economies falter, “we are, by light years, best positioned for the next 50 years … out-performing every other big economy in the world. We’ve created 14 million new jobs in the last five years – the most since the last Democratic president, whatever his name was.”

Bill Clinton stressed a need to make college more affordable and the crushing debt more manageable, while investing in clean energy and needed modern infrastructure, such as transmission lines.

“Every reservation in the country could be making a killing in solar energy, if we had the right infrastructure,” he said.

“We need to remember that Flint, Michigan, as heart-rending as it is, is not the only community where children have high lead levels from old, rusty pipes,” he said, also calling for “affordable, rapid broadband” that would “bring every rural community into the global economy overnight.”

“Banking today is suffering all over America from the ‘cat on the hot stove syndrome,'” he said – a reference to the theory that cats once burned won’t get on a hot stove again – or a cold one, either.

“Hillary wants us getting back to making small business loans again, to get us back in the top five countries in the world for business startups,” he said.

Clinton said only 20 percent of Americans have gotten a pay raise since the crash, when adjusted for inflation.

“Oregon did a smart job in passing this three-tiered minimum wage bill,” the former president said. “Some states can’t even get through their Republican legislatures a $10 minimum wage.”

“Corporations are not people – I don’t care what the Supreme Court said,” Clinton said. “They are creatures of special privileges by law, and in exchange they are supposed to take care of their customers, their employees and their communities.” Though he said businesses do better when they look five or seven years ahead, rather than just the next quarter, he added, “It’s just crazy – the tail is wagging the dog.”

Clinton said his wife believes in “carrots and sticks,” such as a halt to big cuts in corporate tax rates for holding stock a year and a day,. “Give ‘em a 15 percent tax credit if they fairly share their profits with their employees,” he said. “This is not a Republican or Democrat thing – it’s basic economics 101.”

Though taking issue with free tuition for all, as Sanders has proposed, Clinton did say “everyone who needs free tuition should get it.” He also called for a “huge increase in Pell Grants, to help people with living expenses,” as well as work-study programs to help hold down costs.

Clinton talked of the many Americans who can’t afford to move out of their parents’ home, and said they should be able to serve a combination of two years in AmeriCorps program and one more in any community service job, then receive nearly $24,000 tax-free to apply to their college debts.

And if you owe more? “A college loan is the only loan in America you can’t refinance – it’s nuts.” He said his wife supports letting larger college debts be turned into a 20-year “mortgage,” and the payments couldn’t be more than 10 percent of the person’s after-tax income, letting people move out on their own and take the job they want, not the one they hate.

Clinton used the example of someone who wants to start an organic bakery in Bend. He said they could do it, and “if they don’t make any money, they wouldn’t pay debt. It’s all tied to your income.”

Other topics flowed quickly – discrimination against the disabled, and “too many people in prison for nonviolent offenses,” who need training and a fair shot.

As for the global economy, Clinton noted that a Mercedes-Benz plant in Indiana makes cars that all go to China.

“It’s a lot more complicated than a lot of people say,” he said, moving on to other problems such as the refugee crisis in Europe and the economic woes in Brazil, which is the biggest economy south of America’s border.

“You cannot have a president who doesn’t have the confidence of world leaders, the trust of world leaders, who can help keep bad things from happening,” Clinton said.

And he spoke of Trump’s idea of a wall along the border – and also mentioned the idea of one to the north, at Canada, that Oregonians could help build – but went on to note that the San Bernardino terrorists “were converted over social media.”

After those walls were built, and seawalls as well, “then we could use every plane the Air Force has to keep planes from coming – but you couldn’t stop social media,” he said.

So along with fear and walls, “we can also be derailed by continued political gridlock in Washington,” Clinton said. “The only person left in this race with a record of getting a lot done working with Republicans is Hillary.”

He noted how, while in the Senate, his wife worked with Republican leader Tom DeLay to help with the exploding number of older or special needs children in foster care. Thanks to their plan, there was an 80 percent increase in adoption of children out of foster care.

Clinton defended the controversial nuclear deal with Iran, saying there are four to five other countries that can afford nuclear weapons. No deal would “increase the likelihood terrorists could build suitcase nuclear bombs.”

Clinton said his wife left office as secretary of state with the highest approval rating of any public figure in America, and the lowest disapproval rating. Then “the Republicans did what they always do: try to delegitimize her,” he said, recounting the seven hearings on the Benghazi deaths.

“No secretary of state has ever been responsible for security decisions” at overseas embassies, he said – “but she did implement the 29 recommendations of an impartial review panel.”

In 11 hours testifying about Benghazi, “she answered every question, exposed their strategy and proved why she should be the next president of the United States.”

While his wife is in a tough fight with Sanders, who won in Indiana, Bill Clinton noted, “I was running third in polls after I won the nomination” in 1992.

Americans “want somebody who knows what they’re doing,” he said. “You have to have the right ideas. We can’t have trouble around the world, gridlock at home and get things done.”

At the end of his speech, Clinton returned to the theme of needing “a country that works like a community college, and she’ll give it to you if you help her, on May 17 th and in November,” he concluded, to more cheers.

And then he was off, shaking a few hands, to return to the plane waiting to take him to another rally, this one in Portland later Thursday afternoon.