[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[March 14, 1994]
[Pages 448-450]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



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Remarks to the Community in Boston
March 14, 1994

    Thank you so much. Thank you for this wonderful, warm welcome to 
this magnificent old city that is forever young. I am so happy to be 
back here. I'm thrilled by this enormous crowd, honored by your 
enthusiasm and support, your concern, and your commitment for your 
country. I thank all those who are here with me, your State attorney 
general; your State auditor; the State chair of our Democratic Party; 
your wonderful new mayor, Mayor Menino, it's nice to see you; 
Congressman Moakley, who said that you can tell how much I love 
Massachusetts by how many times I come to his congressional district--
that's a good political remark if I ever heard it--[laughter]--
Congressman Markey, Congressman Meehan who are here. I want to say a 
special word of thanks to your two United States Senators, first to John 
Kerry for his steadfast leadership to try to help us pass a crime bill 
in the United States Congress that is both tough and smart, that gives 
our young people something to say yes to while we're being tougher on 
crime, that takes assault weapons off the street and puts policemen on 
the beat and gives our kids a better future. I thank him for that, and 
so should you. I also thank him for the work that he has done in putting 
the credibility he justly earned as a valiant veteran in the war in 
Vietnam on the line to help us reconcile with Vietnam and move forward 
to a new chapter in our relationship with that country and get a full 
and fair accounting of all of our MIA's and POW's. And I want to thank 
Senator Ted Kennedy not only for his warm personal support but for being 
the lion, the champion, the stalwart of the elemental principle that 
health care is a fundamental right and every American ought to have it. 
He's been fighting for that for almost two decades now, and he has the 
President by his side. And we're going to get it done this year.
    My fellow Americans, I have just come from Detroit, a city which was 
racked during the 1980's with massive job losses in the automobile 
industry, a city which is rebuilding itself even as our car industry 
comes back with increasing productivity and quality, taking back market 
share all across our country and in other countries. We have there going 
on now a conference of the world's great industrial nations, where the 
finance ministers and the commerce ministers and others have come 
together to discuss this vexing question: Why is it that all the wealthy 
countries in the world are having trouble either creating new jobs or 
rewarding their workers with higher incomes? This is not just an 
American issue.
    But I can tell you I was proud to go there today and say to them, 
``You said to us for years we should bring down our budget deficit; 
well, we have. The other guys talked about it, and we did it. And if the 
Congress passes our budget this year, for the first time since Harry 
Truman was President, the deficit will go down for 3 years in a row.'' 
And what has happened: low inflation, low interest rates, high 
investment, over 2 million new jobs in the first 13 months of this 
administration, 90 percent of them not in Government but in the private 
sector. I know there is more to do, but we are making a beginning.
    I also want to say that we are doing what we can to give our young 
people access to the education and training they need. With the 
leadership of Senator Kennedy and others last year, we completely 
rewrote the student loan law, a very important issue in this bastion of 
higher education, so that when this law becomes fully effective, our 
young people will be able to borrow money to go to college, whether they 
are middle class or poor, at lower interest rates and pay it back on 
easier terms not based on how much they borrowed or loaned but also 
based on how much they make when they go to school, so they will never 
be discouraged from borrowing the money to go to college and get the 
education they need.
    Finally, last year we did something that I was inspired to do by all 
these wonderful young people from City Year, we passed a national 
service program. This year there will be 20,000 more like them all 
across the country and year after next, 100,000 more earning credit 
against college, solving the problems of this country, building up 
America instead of tearing it down. And let me say, the most important 
sign I saw of all the wonderful signs you held up today was the sign the 
young people from City Year had

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on that boat. They said, ``Thank you for believing in the youth of 
America.'' I do, and I think you do, too.
    My fellow Americans, this year we have much work to do. In the 
Congress, we are working on totally revamping the unemployment system of 
our country so people can begin to get new training from the moment they 
lose their jobs. We are working on reforming the welfare system so that 
more people can move from dependence to independence, can be successful 
parents and successful workers. We are working on a dramatic change in 
our criminal justice initiatives, as Senator Kerry said, to put another 
100,000 police officers on the street, take assault weapons off the 
street, stiffen our ability to get guns out of the hands of people who 
should not have them--the Brady bill is already beginning to work in 
that regard--and provide alternatives for first-time youthful offenders 
so they will have a better future. Those are the kinds of things that we 
are doing.
    And finally, as Senator Kennedy said, we are going to do our dead-
level best this year, and I believe we are going to make it, to finally, 
finally, finally join the ranks of every other advanced nation in the 
world and give our American families health care security that is always 
there, that can never be taken away from them.
    I know there will always be problems that we have to address, with 
all the changes that are coming on into our economy. On the way over 
here, I spoke with your congressional delegation about the difficulties 
that the fishermen in Massachusetts and New England are facing. Let me 
tell you something: We are going to make sure that you do not become an 
endangered species. You have earned the right to go forward, and we will 
work on that. We have defense workers from Connecticut to California who 
are threatened, and we are working on that. But what I want to tell you 
is, we are going in the right direction, and we can keep going in the 
right direction if we remember to keep our eyes on those things which 
really matter and if we do not become diverted.
    Just before I got on the plane to come here, I visited a fascinating 
plant in Detroit, owned by a man named Roger Penske. You may know him 
because his teams have won eight Indianapolis 500 races. But let me tell 
you what he did. This plant was about to be closed several years ago. He 
went in and bailed it out, made an agreement with the union that they 
would solve all their problems together. Grievances on the plant floor 
dropped to virtually zero. A new spirit of partnership took over. They 
began to sell their diesel engines all around the world. They began to 
increase production and sales. They hired more people. And today, this 
plant that was on the verge of being closed, with 3,000 people losing 
their jobs, have doubled their sales, added employment. They have the 
best labor-management cooperation anyone can imagine.
    Do you know how they did it? They did it because fundamentally they 
were interested in building up one another. They recognized the dignity 
of every man and woman in that plant. They understood that people wanted 
to be able to be successful as workers and as parents, building their 
families and their future. And by doing that and focusing on that, 
everything else worked out all right. I tell you today, my friends, if 
we can go back to Washington and wipe away all of the forces that seek 
to demean, to divide, to downgrade, and just focus on the spirit and the 
hope and the dignity that we see in the faces of these young people 
here, we could solve the problems of this country and do it in short 
order. That is what we ought to be about.
    And I pledge to you that I will honor the support the people of 
Massachusetts gave me in 1992. I will honor the signs that greeted me 
here today. I will never forget the spirit, the drive, the imagination, 
and the talent that the people of this State have. And when I go back to 
Washington, I will be there working with your friends here to make sure 
that we restore the kind of spirit and dignity and possibility to our 
National Government that will make it possible for us to keep this 
economy on the move, to pass health care and a crime bill and welfare 
reform and redo the unemployment system, and do all those things that in 
the end will just allow all of us to live up to the fullest of our God-
given potential as one united nation, moving into the 21st century, with 
the kind of pride and success that you deserve.
    Thank you very much, and God bless you all. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:42 p.m. at Rowes Wharf, a commercial and 
residential development. In his remarks, he referred to L. Scott

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Harshbarger, Massachusetts attorney general; A. Joseph DeNucci, 
Massachusetts auditor; Joan Menard, Massachusetts Democratic Party 
chair; and Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston.