Watch video coverage of Hillary Clinton's Missoula appearance.Hoarse from a weekend of campaign appearances, the New York senator brought a crowd of 1,500-some supporters to their feet time and again during a town hall meeting at the Neptune Aviation hangar in Missoula.
“It is exciting to be here in Montana, the state that elected the first woman to Congress - Jeannette Rankin,” Clinton said, flashing a huge smile. “Jeannette Rankin was elected before women could vote. So who says men won't vote for a woman? They elected Jeannette Rankin.”
The slurry bomber hangar reverberated with deafening whistles and applause when Clinton lingered on the topic of taxes. Under the existing tax code, she said, America's most wealthy citizens thrive and the middle class suffers.
“I want an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected,” Clinton said. “They had a president for the last seven years.
“I want to take a hard look at this tax code, which I think is unfair, and frankly, unpatriotic. What sense does it make for the United States tax code to give any business any benefit with your tax dollars to move jobs out of Montana to some foreign country? How can it be fair when we have a Wall Street money manager making $50 million a year pay a lower percentage in income taxes than the teacher and truck driver right here in Missoula who are making $50,000 a year?”
Shouting to be heard over the crowd's enthusiastic endorsement, Clinton said: “Let's expire the tax code.”
“People ask me all the time, ‘Are you going to let George Bush's tax codes expire?' Well, for the people making over $250,00 a year, I will,” Clinton said, and further elaborated: “I want to keep all the middle-class tax cuts.”
In a self-deprecating moment, Clinton said she knows all about recent media reports announcing to the world that she and her husband make more than $250,000 a year. (The Clintons' recently released tax returns showed they have earned $109 million since 2000.)
Although she would be among the wealthy Americans taking a financial hit if the tax code were changed, she's all for it. “We didn't ask for those tax cuts,” she said. “We didn't want them and, frankly, we think they were bad for America.”
Restoring America's economy is her priority, and Clinton said she plans to stabilize it by stanching the flow of $55 million in federal funds that, under President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, have been given annually to special interests such as energy and insurance companies.
“We are going to try to wrest that back, and instead we are going to come up with - which I have put on my Web site at www.HillaryClinton.com - $100 billion in middle-class tax cuts,” Clinton said. “Money that is going back in your pocketbooks, money you can use to ride through George Bush's recession.”
Under her watch, Clinton promised the audience - a patchwork of college students, young families, single parents, teachers, artists and white-collar professionals - “we are going to start moving this giant government of yours back to you.”
Through the whooping and the cheering, signs - passed out by event volunteers - waved through the air, including a particularly cheeky one that read: “Give 'em Hill.”
Clinton motored on through the rest of her agenda and her 60-minute speech, addressing the need to invest in clean energy, to make college more affordable, to increase funding for federal science and health programs, to update America's infrastructure for the 21st century, to permit stem cell research, to restore diplomacy to international relationships and to forge - and defend - reciprocal, accountable and enforceable trade agreements.
“I for one am tired in a sense of being out-maneuvered by our trading partners,” Clinton said. “China is a perfect example. They manipulate their currency, they don't live up to any (environmental) standards, they steal our intellectual properties.”
The result? America gets poisonous pet food, lead-based children's toys and tainted pharmaceuticals. And because of the current $9 trillion national deficit, this nation is borrowing money from China to buy its suspect products, she said.
Turning her eye homeward, Clinton said investing in and committing to clean energy will offer to America several benefits. Clean energy will help turn the tide on global warming, it will create new jobs for Americans, reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, and stimulate the economy, she said.
Clinton said she wants to issue a “declaration of energy independence” for all Americans, to encourage people to do their part to conserve energy such as turning the lights off at every opportunity and trading cars for ones that are more energy-efficient.
“We can't allow the status quo to continue,” Clinton said. It's completely within America's reach, she said, adding that the country that figured out how to navigate space can certainly figure out how to become more energy-efficient.
And on education? Clinton got an enthusiastic response when she pledged to end the headache known as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form (FAFSA).
Joking, she said her staff tried to calculate how many hours annually American families wrestle with the form, and it was about “100 million.” Even worse, she said, when you do make it to the end there's this: “Just kidding, we have no money for you.”
Her solution is to create a sliding-scale student loan program that is easy to navigate. Students who agree to spend their time doing public service could receive upward of $10,000 to pay off their college debt. And she would insist on low-interest college loans, not like today's typical student loan that is driven by “predatory insurance practices” and in many cases come with a 25 percent - or more - interest rate.
Clinton took several questions from the audience.
Alexandra Volkerts, of Missoula, asked about the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Throughout her professional career, Clinton said she has championed the cause of people with disabilities, and she will continue with that work. There's much left to do, she said, given that people are living longer - and as people age, more and more must learn to live with disabilities.
Illegal immigrants were on the mind of one questioner.
Clinton said there are about 12 million to 14 million people living illegally within U.S. borders today.
America needs a tougher internal system to deal with unlawful immigrants, but going around and “rounding everyone up” is not the answer, she said. To do so would be expensive - requiring a huge police force - and it would mean giving police unprecedented access to the private lives of all Americans.
“That would last a nanosecond in Montana,” Clinton quipped. “Can you imagine that?”
Her solution would be to crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, often at a much lower wage than they could pay American workers. She would create a register where people could report their status. Individuals with a criminal record would be immediately deported; others would have to pay a steep fine for coming into the country illegally and pay back taxes for the work they did here illegally.
The most provocative question Clinton fielded came from Bridget Clarke, a professor at the University of Montana, who asked why she voted to support the war in Iraq.
“I have said on many occasions that if I had known then what I know now, I never would have voted that way,” Clinton said. “It seems very self-evident today, all these years later, that everybody should have known what wasn't there. But even the Iraqis, their generals and their officials did not know what wasn't there.”
What helped push her toward the decision was was Saddam Hussein's order ousting weapons inspectors from Iraq in 1998, and his use of poisonous gas on the Kurds.
World leaders wanted to know what was going on, Clinton said, and the only thing they knew for sure was that inspectors were fiercely denied the opportunity to see for themselves - and neighboring countries were worried.
The world was changing in that region, Clinton said, and Hussein was challenged by Osama bin Laden's popularity among terrorists.
“We knew that psychologically, the idea that Osama bin Laden would now be given the top spot, so to speak, among extremists would be very hard for Saddam to take and would probably encourage him to do something,” she said.
Taking a swipe at her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who spoke against the war in 2002 before he was a senator, Clinton said: “A speech is not a decision and I had to make a decision.”
At the time, Clinton had to cast a vote, but if people check the record, she said, “You will find many of us who struggled.”
Clinton urged the audience to do their research before Montana's primary in June. Clinton narrowly trails Obama in the delegate count, but neither candidate has the number needed to secure their party's nomination. Thus, the intense interest in Montana's 17 delegate-votes.
Said Clinton, “I want you to look at what I have already done, and I want you to look at what I say I will do.
“I want you to hold me accountable.”
It's time to restore trust between Americans and their government, Clinton said.
“When the speech is over, the cameras are gone and the lights are turned off, we have to have a president who you can hold accountable for what we bill you.”
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