    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [May 22, 1993]
    [Pages 720-724]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 720]]

    Remarks at the New Hampshire Technical College Commencement Ceremony in
    Stratham, New Hampshire
    May 22, 1993

        Thank you very much. Madam President, members of the faculty and
    staff, distinguished Members of Congress and other platform guests, and
    ladies and gentlemen, and most importantly, the members of this
    graduating class: To answer the president's question, I came here to
    address this class because you were the people that I ran for President
    to serve. It was your America that I hoped to make better.
        I'm proud to come back to the State that 15 months ago made me the
    ``comeback kid'' in this country. [Laughter] On February 7, 1992, when I
    came to this college, the people I met here asked me about things that
    matter to mainstream Americans, about jobs and health care and getting
    the economy moving again and whether the future for our young people
    would be better than the present. After I finished speaking, one of your
    students, Greg Fuller, then asked me to come back and speak at this
    graduation. Stand up, Greg. And then he wrote me a letter to confirm his
    request. That itself was miracle enough. In 3 months and 2 weeks we had
    received more mail at the White House than had come in in all of 1992.
    There may be another letter from Greg somewhere we haven't found yet.
    [Laughter] But I'm delighted to be here.
        This is the first graduation ceremony I have addressed as President,
    and I am told, I don't know, but it may be the first time a President
    has ever addressed a graduation of a technical college. But I will say
    this: More colleges like yours should have visits from the President
    because people who work hard and study hard and who have to raise
    children and go to work while they go to school and who are really on
    the cutting edge, up and down, of this economy, you are the heart and
    soul of our present and our future.
        The world in which you--[applause]--your families are clapping for
    you. The world in which you live, to be sure, has been full of bad news
    here in New Hampshire for the last few years, but it's also a very
    exciting and challenging place. And it will be different from the world
    in which I grew up in two very important ways. First of all, more than
    ever before, America will be captured by the reality of the global
    economy. More and more of our jobs will depend on trade. And more and
    more of our future will depend on not only how well we are doing but how
    well our trading partners are doing. One of our problems today is that
    Europe and Japan's economies are down, so it's hard for ours to go up.
    More and more, our national security will depend not just on military
    power but on our renewal of economic strength. More and more, we'll have
    to find ways to cooperate as well as to compete with other countries.
    We'll have to find ways to preserve the global environment and still
    make it possible for the economies of our world to grow. That's the
    first thing.
        The second thing is something you already know, or you wouldn't be
    here. We are moving very rapidly in all forms of production and service
    to a knowledge-based economy in which what you earn depends on what you
    can learn, not only what you know today but what you're capable of
    learning tomorrow, and in which every graduate of high school needs at
    least to go on to 2 years of further education and training. You know
    that, or you wouldn't be here.
        All of you have invested your money, your time, your energy to take
    personal responsibility for your own lives, developing your own skills
    and in recognition of this new world reality. Your investment in a way
    is an act of faith. You know the world is knowledge-based; you know you
    have to do this. Now having done it, you have to have faith that there
    will be opportunities for you, that if you have worked hard and played
    by the rules, you will be rewarded.
        As President I share that faith. I believe we can make our system
    work. I believe we can see our country once again reflect the values
    with which all of us were raised. I don't think any of us can ever lose
    sight of that. It's appropriate that I'm at this graduation, because New
    Hampshire taught me all these things once again. In the fall and winter
    of 1991 and 1992, when I spent so much time here, I literally, as we say
    in my part of the country, went to school with you. Two winters ago I
    came face

    [[Page 721]]

    to face with middle class people who had lost their jobs and their homes
    and their health care. I met people whose business loans had been
    canceled, even though they had never missed a payment in their lives. I
    saw people who went down to the public assistance office and began to
    draw welfare checks just to make their home payments to keep from
    putting their kids in the street, middle class people who had had jobs
    and never thought they'd be unemployed.
        Every day when I get up in the White House and go to the Oval Office
    to work, I think about the people I met here and people like them all
    over America whose quiet courage and determination inspires me to keep
    fighting to restore the middle class and the fundamental strength and
    purpose of this country. I'll never forget people like Ron Macos, Jr.,
    who couldn't get a job with health insurance because his little boy had
    open heart surgery. And when the First Lady's health care task force
    presents the national health care proposal in the next few weeks to the
    Congress, if that proposal passes, the Ron Macoses of this world will be
    able to keep working and raising their children in the future.
        I'll never forget a young woman I met named Emily Teabold, who was a
    senior in high school when I met her. Her father lost his job in New
    Hampshire, and he spent her entire senior year in North Carolina,
    because that's the closest place he could find a job.
        I met a man here named David Springs, who was a month away from
    having his pension vested when he was fired from his company because the
    people who owned his company sold it out in one of these leverage deals.
    And they bailed out with a golden parachute to a happy life and left
    their employees on the rocks.
        I remember some stories of courage, too. I went to Clairmont and met
    the people who were working in the American Brush Company, trying to
    help revive that community. And I tried to help them find some customers
    for their products. I remember going to Manchester and visiting a
    company called Envirotote that made bags that we wound up buying all
    during the campaign and giving out with our little Clinton-Gore stickers
    on, all across the country. I saw people who were trying to make this
    country work again and trying to make New Hampshire a beacon of
    opportunity again.
        Most of the people I saw, for all their hurts, never lost their
    hopes. And I'm here today to thank you for not losing yours, for going
    through this program and believing in it. Your president said something
    I want to reiterate. For most of the 20th century there's been a big
    division in our minds about what kind of learning counts and what kind
    of learning doesn't count as much, a big division between what is
    vocational and what is academic, between what is practical and what is
    intellectual. In the last few years really smart people realized that
    that's a bogus distinction and that we have seen all over the world, and
    especially here in America, the line drawn down between the vocational
    and the academic, between the practical and the intellectual. All work
    requires knowledge, and it's not so bad if it has a practical
    application. That is what you have proved here.
        So here we are with you. You have done your job. You have done
    anything that could be asked of you. Many of you have done this at great
    personal sacrifice. I wonder how many of you have gotten up in the
    morning wondering about what you were going to do for child care that
    day, wondering about whether you should keep doing this given the fact
    that it costs money and the unemployment rate in the State's above the
    national average, wondering about all kinds of uncertainties. You have
    done it. You have done your job. You have now a right to ask what is our
    job: What can you expect of your country? What can you expect of your
    Government? What is our job? If you have been responsible, what
    opportunity should you be able to claim?
        Our job is to try to put your values and your dreams into law and
    into facts. It means we have to have a new economic policy that
    recognizes that for 20 years, through the administrations of Democrats
    and Republicans alike, most working people have been working harder for
    lower hourly pay, one that recognizes that for a long time we have been
    the only advanced industrial country that didn't provide basic health
    care to all of our citizens, the only one that puts people in the trap
    of not being able to change jobs if anybody in their family has ever
    been sick, because they've got a preexisting condition that will cost
    them their health insurance if they change jobs. That's a huge handicap
    in a world where the average 18-year-old will change work eight times in
    a lifetime and where, because of global competition, most new jobs are
    created by small businesses that are coming into existence and going out
    of existence all the time.

    [[Page 722]]

        And then, for 12 years we have seen our national debt go from $1
    trillion to $4 trillion and our national investment in many things that
    are critical to our future go down. So we're spending less on what we
    should be spending money on, and costs are exploding.
        You have a right to better than that. You have a right to an
    economic policy that puts our people first, our jobs, our technologies,
    our education. You have a right to an economic policy that brings this
    deficit down so that we are not crushed and paralyzed with it, into your
    children's children's lifetime, with high interest rates and a mortgaged
    future. You have a right to be treated fairly and to be given a chance
    to make it. You have a right to live in a country where everybody is
    given a chance to make it, which is not prejudiced against the wealthy--
    we'd all like to be that way--but gives those who aren't a fair chance
    to earn their due.
        That is what you have a right to. And that is what you do not have
    today. We are doing our best in Washington to turn that around, to get
    control of the deficit, to bring it down, to invest in those things that
    will create more jobs, and to guarantee over the long run that we'll
    have jobs and incomes and health care that will justify the efforts you
    have made by going through this program. That is our responsibility.
        I've asked the United States Congress to adopt a program that begins
    with spending cuts, starting with a reduction in my own staff, a
    reduction in the size of the Federal Government by 150,000 over the next
    4 years, big cuts in the administrative budgets, and asking the Federal
    employees to accept a wage freeze and lower increases in later years so
    that we can bring the deficit down. I have asked also that more than 200
    other spending programs be cut, including the entitlements that have so
    much special-interest support.
        Second, it is clear to anyone who studies this problem that we need
    new revenues also to bring the deficit down. I've asked those who can
    best afford to pay, whose taxes went down in the 1980's, the wealthiest
    Americans, to pay most of what we need to raise. Over 74 percent of my
    tax program comes from the top 6 percent of income earners. [Applause] A
    slight clap.
        I also have proposed an energy tax which most Americans will pay. It
    is one called a Btu tax which will help promote conservation and the use
    of the most clean and fuel-efficient fuels. But listen to the way it
    works: Because we offer income tax cuts to working families with incomes
    under $30,000, those will offset the impact of the energy tax. And for
    larger families under $25,000, there will even be a relief in the tax
    burden. For people with incomes above $30,000, at $40,000 and $50,000
    and $60,000, here's what it costs. You're entitled to know in plain
    language. Next year it costs a dollar a month per family. The next year
    after that, $7 a month; and the next year after that, depending on the
    size of your family, between $14 and $17 a month. You have to decide if
    it's worth it to bring the deficit down.
        But let me tell you, all the tax increases and the spending cuts
    will be put in a trust fund so that they can't be used to do anything
    but bring the deficit down. And we can't have the taxes without the
    spending cut. That's what the budget resolution that was adopted a few
    weeks ago means. We must cut spending. So we are going to do that, both
    things.
        Now, is it worth it? You have to be the judge. But let me ask you
    just to consider this. Since November, since we made it clear that we
    were going to try to attack this deficit, and after the announcement had
    been made after the election that the deficit over the next 4 years
    would be over $160 billion bigger than we were told before the election,
    since November, long-term interest rates have dropped. Millions of
    Americans have already benefited by refinancing their home mortgages,
    refinancing business loans. Many others will benefit by lower interest
    rates on car loans or consumer loans or student loans. If just someone
    here has refinanced a home loan since November, in all probability,
    depending on the size of the mortgage, you will save more in 1 year than
    you will pay in 4 years in the energy tax. I think it is worth it to
    keep the interest rates down and to drive the deficit down. But you have
    to decide that.
        There's a third way that we're trying to make some fundamental
    changes. Just as we stop wasting money on things we don't need, I think
    we do have to invest some in what we do need. A lot of you, just in
    order to get through this program, had to cut back on some of the things
    that you would like to have spent money on. A lot of you made meaningful
    financial sacrifices in your own family life just to get here today so
    you could wear the cap and gown. I know that. But you've been wise to
    make that decision. Because of the investments you've made

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    in education and training, in the years ahead you'll be able to do more
    of the things that you gave up doing in the last 2 years. You'll be able
    to provide more opportunities for your children. You'll be able to build
    a stronger family unit with a stronger family future.
        That's what we're also trying to do. This program offers dramatic
    increases in incentives for small businesses to invest money to become
    more productive and hire new people, to invest in research and
    development to find new products. It offers dramatic incentives to
    people to try to end the real estate depression that has gripped New
    England and southern Florida and California and many other places. It
    offers real incentives for people to invest in new businesses, the
    biggest in the history of America, for people to try their hand in
    starting new businesses. It offers an investment in new technologies, in
    defense conversion for all these people around America who have lost
    their jobs because of defense cutbacks. And it attempts to establish a
    transition from school to work so that everybody, by the time we finish
    this program, who graduates from high school who doesn't go to a 4-year
    college would at least have the clear opportunity to move right into a
    2-year program like this one, so they don't lose time becoming
    productive and able to earn the best wages they can earn. I think that
    is a good investment in our future.
        In other words, what I think our Government owes you is to move
    beyond the two dichotomies that have argued so long in Washington, in
    what I think is a very stale way. One says, ``Well, you're out there on
    your own, and all we've got to do is make sure we don't spend a nickel
    to see the cow jump over the moon.'' The other says, ``We'll take care
    of you. We can do things for you. Don't you worry about it.'' Neither
    one of those approaches is right. We can't entitle people to something
    that they won't work for. But neither can we turn our back on the plain
    responsibility of the United States to provide opportunity for people
    who will work for it. We have to empower people to seize what they are
    willing to seize. You have done your part; now we have to do ours.
        I want to emphasize again, for the majority of people who do not go
    on to a 4-year college, it is imperative that we join the ranks of the
    other high-wage countries and provide a system by which 100 percent of
    them at least know they have the opportunity to move into a program like
    the one that you have been a part of. It is imperative. Why? Because
    just as what you earn depends on what you can learn, what America does
    in terms of growing jobs depends on how functional all the people in
    this country are. We don't have a person to waste. There ought to be
    twice as many people here today as there are at this graduation
    ceremony. And if there were, the economy of New Hampshire and the United
    States would be stronger as a result.
        I also believe very strongly that the United States ought to make
    available, on terms everybody can afford, the funds that people need to
    borrow to finance their education to 2- or 4-year schools. And we have
    proposed to change the whole basis of the way the student loan program
    works: to lower interest rates, number one; and number two, to make
    available loans and then let people pay them back after they go to work
    and as a percentage of their income, so that people will not be
    discouraged from borrowing money today with the fear that they won't be
    able to pay it back if they get a job, especially if they get a job with
    a modest wage. You ought to be able to pay it back as a limited
    percentage of your income. It will make a huge difference.
        Now, I believe these policies together will restore the sense of
    optimism to middle class America that we need: the idea that we can
    create jobs, that people who work at jobs can raise their incomes over
    time if they continue to improve their education and their productivity.
    And if we can do that and deal with the health care issue, we can
    restore a sense of possibility to America.
        I don't pretend that this will be easy, that the progress will be
    uninterrupted, that nothing bad will happen. As I said at the beginning,
    some of what happens to us economically here in this country depends on
    what is happening to all these other countries around the world. A big
    percentage of the new jobs we've gotten in the last 5 years have come
    from trade. We won't get many if Europe and Japan are flat on their
    back.
        But a lot of what happens to us depends upon what we do here. And
    you're entitled, having done your part, to know that your Government has
    done its part. It may not happen overnight. A lot of these economic
    trends have been developing for 20 years. The political policies that we
    seek to change have been develop-

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    ing for a dozen years. And I must say, it is much easier to tell people
    that I'm going to cut your taxes and spend more money on everything than
    to say we're going to have to raise some money and spend less money on
    most things.
        A lot of the easy things have been done, but I want you to believe
    that we can do it. We have made a good beginning. Here's something that
    can affect you. After years of arguing, we finally passed the family
    leave bill that says you can get some time off when a baby is born or
    somebody's sick without losing your job. I signed last week the motor
    voter bill, which opens up the political process to easier registration,
    because another young student from New Hampshire got me to sign a card
    when I was here saying that I'd do my best to pass it if I got elected
    President.
        But changing this economy is a hard job. It requires a lot of
    discipline, and it requires our patience and concentrated effort, yours
    and mine, over a long period of time. But we can do it. We can do it.
        The work of change is never easy. But you have proved you weren't
    afraid to change. The average student here is 30 years old. I can
    remember when I was your age, a lot of people would have been
    embarrassed to go back to school when they're 30. Now we've got people
    going back to school when they're 70. And let me tell you something: You
    must remain unafraid to change. You must remain unafraid to change. Many
    of you will have to go through retraining programs when you're in your
    mid- to late fifties. You should look at that as a great opportunity to
    live a rich and diverse and interesting life. If we can do what we
    should do at the national level to reward the efforts you are making,
    then change can be your friend and not your enemy.
        The heartbreaking thing I saw in New Hampshire all during the
    primary season last year and in 1991 was how many people had been
    victimized by change. I cannot repeal the laws of change. No person can.
    Our common challenge is to preserve the values of work and family and
    community and reward for effort in the midst of all this change.
        You have done your part. You should be proud of yourselves today,
    and you should commit yourselves to continue to work to make sure that
    change is your friend and that you are rewarded for the extraordinary
    and courageous efforts you have made.
        God bless you, and good luck.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:05 a.m. In his remarks, he referred to
    college president Jane Power Kilcoyne.