    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [January 10, 1995]
    [Pages 29-31]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to Students at Galesburg High School in Galesburg
    January 10, 1995

        The President. Thank you. Wow! Thank you. Thank you very much. I
    don't know where everybody else in Galesburg is today, but I'm glad
    you're here. I'm glad to see you all. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.
    Thank you so much.
        I would like to begin by paying my compliments to the band. Didn't
    they do a good job? I thought they were terrific. [Applause]
        I also want to thank--I understand that you all heard the speech I
    gave. Is that right? No, yes? No? Somebody is saying yes; somebody is
    saying no. Anyway, I was over at the community college, as you know, and
    I met there with about 20 people who had either been students there or
    are now students there or who taught there or who hired people who
    graduated from there. And I went there to talk about education with the
    Secretary of Labor, who is not here with me, and the Secretary of
    Education, Dick Riley, the former Governor of South Carolina, who is
    here with me, and your fine Congressman, Lane Evans. I'm glad to see
    him. Give him a hand. [Applause]
        I would like to say, first of all, on behalf of myself and all of
    those who came with me from Washington today, we have had a wonderful
    welcome in this terrific community. And we're very grateful to all of
    you for that.
        I must say, when I landed at the airport and they told me that I
    couldn't take the helicopter to Galesburg, I'd have to drive, I was
    actually kind of happy because I got to drive across the farmland. And I
    looked at all the land, and it kind of made me feel--no, I liked it. It
    made me feel right at home. That's where I grew up.
        I would like--I want to say a couple of things about what I came
    here to talk about today, since some of you heard what I said and some
    of you didn't. I'll be brief, but I want to talk about it because I
    think it's important.
        When I ran for President in 1992 and I came here to Illinois and I
    went up and down the State----
        Audience member. To Peoria.
        The President. Yes, to Peoria and other places--I always knew it was
    a very big State, but when I visited Southern Illinois University in the
    southern part of the State, I looked at a map, and I realized I was
    south of Richmond, Virginia. And I said, this is a very big State and a
    very beautiful one and, of course, my wife's home. So I like it a lot.
        I believed then and I believe now that we are going through a time
    of great change which, if we do the right thing, will lead us to
    America's greatest days. I think the young people here in this school
    can live in the most peaceful, most exciting, most prosperous, most
    exhilarating times this country has ever known if we do the right thing.
        And if you look at what's going on in America today, it just
    reinforces in my mind the things I have always wanted to do. I worked as
    a Governor for 12 years, and I knew what my mission was in this global
    economy: I had to improve the schools, improve education for people of
    all ages, and get more jobs into my State.
        If you look at where we are as a country now, I ran for President
    committed to doing three things. I wanted a new economic policy so that
    the Government would be working with ordinary working people and with
    business so that we would be able to compete and win in a global
    economy, we'd be able to get good jobs and keep them.
        I wanted to change the way the Federal Government works. I wanted
    the Government to be smaller but more effective. I wanted it to be able
    to solve people's problems but to be flexible and creative and not waste
    money. And I thought we could do that, and I've come back

    [[Page 30]]

    to that. I think we've done a good job of making those changes.
        And the third thing I wanted to do was to institute what was my
    version of the Contract With America. I called it the New Covenant. I
    believe that we need a new sense in this country that the Government's
    job is to do what it can to provide more opportunity, but we need more
    responsibility from our citizens as well. If we're going to rebuild the
    American community, we have to have more rights and responsibility. And
    you can't have one without the other. If people go around being
    responsible and no opportunities ever come their way, they get tired and
    quit. But if you just give people things and they never act like
    responsible citizens, the whole country comes apart at the seams. What
    we need is more of both: more opportunity and more responsibility. And
    if we have it, we can rebuild America.
        Now, after 2 years, I can make this progress report to you. We had
    to first work on the economy. We had to bring the deficit down. We had
    to open some markets around the world to our goods and services because
    we were seeing people selling things in America who worked for wages we
    couldn't live on. We saw people losing jobs here and losing incomes. We
    had to open those markets around the world. Well, after 2 years, we've
    reduced the deficit by $700 billion. That's $11,000 a family in less
    debt for you and your future, $11,000 a family. And we've had more
    opening of markets to American products and services than in any period
    in our history. So we're moving. What have we got to show for it: 5.6
    million new jobs, the lowest unemployment rate in Illinois in 20 years.
    We are moving in the right direction.
        Now, we've changed the way the Government works. There are 100,000
    fewer people working for the Federal Government today than there were
    working for the Federal Government on the day I became President. We are
    going to reduce the Government now by over 300,000. It will be the
    smallest it's been since John Kennedy was President, but it's doing
    things. It's doing things. When you had the terrible floods here, the
    Federal Emergency Management Agency, which had been condemned for years
    as an ineffective agency, showed up here and was ready to serve the
    people in the middle of the worst emergency you've had in a long time.
    It delivered. It worked. That's the kind of Government we need, smaller
    but effective and strong and there.
        Third, and maybe most important, we tried to expand opportunities
    for communities and individuals in a way that would enable people to
    take responsibility for their own lives. That's what our crime bill is
    all about. The crime bill that Lane voted for will reduce the size of
    the Federal Government by 270,000 over 5 years and take every penny of
    that money and give it back to you and your local community to hire more
    police, to have drug treatment and drug education programs, to do things
    that will lower the crime rate. And everywhere I go in America, law
    enforcement officers or mayors come up to me and say, ``We're going to
    lower the crime rate because of that crime bill. Thank you very much.''
    That's the kind of thing we ought to be doing.
        And I hope, let me say, I hope when the new Congress gets around to
    debating welfare reform, that's what I hope they'll do with welfare
    reform. The problem with welfare is not that it is so costly; it's only
    about 3 percent of our national budget. The problem is that it
    encourages dependence instead of independence, encourages welfare
    instead of work. What we want is not a program that punishes poor people
    but that requires poor people to take those steps that will enable them
    to move from welfare to work, to be responsible parents and responsible
    workers, not punishment but reward.
        So we did that for 2 years, but there's still a real problem in
    America. Why are a lot of people not very happy? Because most Americans
    still have not felt any personal benefit from this economic recovery.
    This is a new thing in our history, and all the young people here should
    listen to this. We created all these new jobs in America with these
    productive American industries. Why aren't people happy? Because their
    wages aren't going up, right? And because a lot of people still feel
    uncertain about their jobs, and because another million Americans lost
    their health insurance last year who are in working families, and
    because millions of Americans are worried about their pensions. All
    these changes are going on, and people don't feel secure even when we
    create more jobs.
        Now, how do you raise wages? There are only three ways to raise
    wages: You have to get more high-wage jobs in the economy. You can take
    less out of the pocketbooks of middle class wage earners and let them
    keep more of

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    the money they do earn. Or you can increase the education and skill
    level of people.
        Now, let me say, we're getting more high-wage jobs into the economy.
    And I want to support a middle class tax cut like the one I have
    outlined in the middle class bill of rights that will give people more
    take-home pay. But the most important thing of all is to do it in a way
    that will support the mission of education and training, not only for
    our schoolchildren but for the adults I met at that community college
    today, because we know now that for the first time in history, we're
    going to have economic recovery and job creation that don't benefit
    ordinary people unless we can raise the education levels of all the
    people in the United States in the work force, the adults. That means
    we've got to get more people to the colleges, more people back to the
    community colleges. We've got to help people work and train and raise
    their kids at the same time. That's what I talked about today.
        Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, I hope you will support
    these ideas because they're American ideas. Let's give a tax deduction
    for the educational expenses that people have after high school, whether
    they're in a college or a community college. Let's let working people
    invest in an IRA, an individual retirement account, but be able to
    withdraw money from that tax-free for education, for health care, for
    caring for their folks. Let's give tax relief to working people for
    their children in their homes so they can help be successful parents and
    successful workers. And finally, I propose to take all these Government
    programs that are paid to train people and consolidate the money. And if
    you qualify because you're unemployed or because you're a low-income
    person, if you want to go to school, I propose, in effect, letting you
    send a check to the local community college and not having to go through
    all these Government programs and redtape. Just go to school, get the
    education, go forward. Just do it.
        Now, folks, these are good ideas. They're American ideas. I don't
    care who gets credit for it, but I want us to do them. There is no party
    label that will change the reality that the most important thing we can
    do for Americans is to give everybody a good education, give people the
    skills to compete and win in this global economy, and give not only our
    schoolchildren but their parents and their grandparents, if they need
    it, the ability to go back to these community colleges and get the
    skills to have a better life and a stronger life and do a better job for
    themselves and the rest of this country. That is the most important
    thing we can do to lift the income of the American people.
        So, that's what I said over there, but I took about 5 minutes longer
    to say it. I care about you and your future. My job is to make sure that
    when all these young people get out of this high school, the American
    dream is alive and well; this is still the strongest country in the
    world; we are still a force for peace and freedom and opportunity. But
    in order to do it, you, every single one of you has got to make a
    commitment that we are going to develop the capacity of our people.
    That's how we're going to win. That's how we're going to get wages up.
    That's how we're going to bring security back. That's how we're going to
    bring this country together again. That's how we're going to do it. And
    we can with your help.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:23 p.m. in the gymnasium.