    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [June 27, 1995]
    [Pages 960-962]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to Students at Portland State University in Portland
    June 27, 1995

        Thank you very much. First, President Ramaley, thank you for having
    us here at this wonderful campus. You know, I used to be a college
    teacher. My wife and I started out our married life teaching at the
    University of Arkansas in the Ozark Mountains. And I was looking at all
    of you under these beautiful trees, thinking there are a lot of days
    when I might like to be back here working for you here. This is a very
    wonderful place, and I thank you for having us here.
        Thank you, Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse, for being here with us
    today and for your leadership, your vision, and your conscience. I can
    tell you all you are very, very fortunate to be represented by one of
    the most truly extraordinary individuals in the United States House of
    Representatives in Elizabeth Furse.
        I want to thank Governor Kitzhaber, and I want to thank Mayor Katz,
    who I believe is over there--thank you, Vera, you've been great. And
    Portland has been wonderful to us. I've never had a bad day in Portland,
    Oregon, and I certainly didn't today. This is wonderful.
        And you know, the Vice President really is funny, isn't he?
    [Laughter] You should have seen him back here when Elizabeth was
    introducing him and saying how intelligent he was and how energetic he
    was and how funny he was. And I whispered in his ear right before he
    came up, I said, ``Next thing she's going to say is how pretty you
    are.'' [Laughter] But she restrained herself, and he was able to compose
    himself and give that wonderful speech. Let me say that our Nation has
    been very lucky because there's no doubt that in the entire history of
    the Republic, Al Gore is the most effective, influential person ever to
    be Vice President of the United States.
        Let me tell you just for a minute what we were really doing here
    today at this regional economic conference. We were worried about what
    Oregon and what the Pacific Northwest will be like for all you young
    people here in the audience. We were worried about how we can guarantee
    a future, how we can move into the next century with the American dream
    alive and well and with the leadership and values of our country secure,
    in a world that is full of possibility and full of uncertainty.
        You know, most of us who are my age and older, we've lived most of
    our lives and our course is pretty well set. And we have been very, very
    blessed to grow up in a country and to have the opportunities that
    America has offered for all the decades since the end of the Second
    World War.
        Now, at the end of the cold war, the dawn of the global economy, the
    information age, moving into a new century, into a new millennium, we
    look out at a world that is changing so rapidly, that is full of untold
    possibilities but also some pretty troubling developments; a world that
    has left a lot of people feeling robust and secure and hopeful and eager
    for the future and a world that has left a lot of people feeling at a
    minimum kind of confused and uncertain and concerned about their future.
        If you go back and ask yourself, what is the responsibility of the
    President and what is the responsibility of the citizenry of the United
    States, you can do no better than to go back to the documents of our
    Founders, who believed that we are all created equal and endowed by our
    Creator with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
    That means that at any point in history, but particularly at those
    points of great change, our responsibility is to do what is necessary to
    help us make the most of our lives. All of us, without regard to race or
    region or income or background or religion, have the right to make the
    most of our own lives. That is the challenge that is facing us here
    today.

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        And I believe that that challenge requires us, number one, to create
    more economic opportunity, more jobs, and higher incomes; number two, to
    give people the tools they need to develop their God-given abilities;
    number three, to promote the security of the United States at home and
    abroad; number four, to preserve the natural heritage of the United
    States that has brought us to this point and that we want to pass on to
    our children, our grandchildren, and our grandchildren's grandchildren.
        And finally, in a world which is increasingly fast-changing and
    decentralized, it requires those of us in the National Government, to
    use the Vice President's term, to literally reinvent the way the
    Government works, to set a course, to pursue the right priorities, but
    to make sure that people at the grassroots level can make the
    fundamental decisions affecting their own lives and can look across the
    table at people who are different from themselves and work out those
    differences in a spirit of genuine friendship and good citizenship.
        These are the thing we have tried to do in the last 2\1/2\ years,
    and these are the things that will take America into the 21st century.
        I just want to close by asking you to think about one or two very
    important issues. We're in a big debate in Washington now, not only
    about how to balance the budget--that's the good news; most people agree
    that we should do it--but about the fundamental purposes of Government.
    There are those who say today that the Government is intrinsically
    destructive of our way of life and has no role other than national
    defense, tax cuts, and eliminating whatever you have to to balance the
    budget as quickly as possible.
        There are those of us who beg to differ, who believe that the
    Government is nothing more than the expression of the American people
    and that when it works best, its fundamental duty is the duty of
    partnership, to help people do things together that they cannot do on
    their own. That is a debate I hope you will side with us on.
        There are those who believe, for example, that it's a very nice
    thing if you can preserve the environment but not worth getting the
    Government involved. And then there are those of us who believe we have
    to find the best grassroots way we can to enable the American people to
    make a decent living for themselves and their children but to do it
    while preserving the heritage that God has given to Oregon, to the
    Pacific Northwest, and to our entire country, indeed, to our planet.
        There are those who believe that all of our problems are personal
    and cultural. That is, if we would just get together and get our act
    together and do what is right and stop messing up, that we wouldn't have
    any problems in this old world. And there are others who believe that
    our problems are basically economic and political and the Government has
    to step in and do something.
        Now, if you look at the Scouts, the VISTA, the MESA, all the groups
    that are here, what do all these groups do? What are all these young
    people doing? Why does national service work? Because we know at some
    level, unless people are raised with good values and unless they can
    take responsibility for themselves and do the right things and make the
    most of their own lives, there is nothing anyone else can do to give it
    to them. No one can give you a good life inside. No one can give you
    good values. No one can give you the discipline to do the right thing
    and--[applause]--you have to do that for yourself. So we all know that.
        Let me tell you, I'm sure that no one would dispute me when I say
    that all of us have been given things in life that maybe we didn't even
    deserve. We've all been given a hand up from time to time. No person
    here today more than me knows that you do not achieve anything
    completely alone. So it is not either/or. We still need a country that
    cares about those of us who need a helping hand to do the right thing,
    who need a helping hand to make the most of their own lives, who need a
    sense of partnership to get through the difficult times that our country
    faces.
        Now, over the next 3 or 4 months, you will see a lot of the things
    that we talked about here today debated in your Nation's Capital. And I
    want you to think about what I have said and what you have felt today.
    Should we balance the budget? Yes, we should. Why? Because there's a
    difference in borrowing money to invest in business or to finance your
    college education or to buy a home, and borrowing money just because you
    want to go out to dinner at night. We've been borrowing money for both,
    and we've been so mixed up we couldn't tell the difference for too long.
    And as a result, we've been too dependent on other countries for funds.
    We have saved too little. We have

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    invested too little. And we have had lower incomes because we have run
    ourselves into too much debt.
        But there is a right way and a wrong way to balance the budget,
    because the Government's deficit is not the only problem in this
    country. There is also an education deficit in this country. There's a
    safe streets deficit in this country. There's an adequate affordable
    health care deficit in this country. There's a welfare reform deficit in
    this country. There are other deficits.
        Our proposal to balance the budget says don't cut education because
    that's important to our future as well. If we want good jobs and higher
    incomes, we should increase our investment in education, from college
    loans to Head Start, while we balance the budget.
        Our proposal says, of course we can't continue to increase health
    care expenditures at 2 and 3 times the rate of inflation; we have to
    slow it down. But be careful because there are a lot of people, the
    elderly, the disabled, the poorest children in our country, who depend
    upon Medicare and Medicaid for their medical care, and we dare not put
    them in a position to have to either give up health care or pay
    something they can't afford to pay when they don't have enough money to
    live on in the first place.
        And so we say, yes, let's have big cuts in other things; let's
    balance the budget. But if you balance the budget in 10 years instead of
    7, if you cut the size of the tax cuts and target them to middle class
    people for education and raising children and not just give tax cuts to
    people like me, who don't really need it, if you do that, you can
    balance the budget and increase our investment in education, be kind to
    the people who need health care help, from the smallest children to the
    disabled to elderly folks who don't have enough to live on, and still
    bring the American economy back and go into the 21st century with good
    jobs, higher incomes, and an educated citizenry, including all the
    little children in this audience today.
        You know, we all have preconceptions, and sometimes preconceptions
    can be bad things. They can be stereotypes about people and places. I
    always had a preconception abut Oregon that I think has been confirmed
    by all my trips out here. I always felt that the people of Oregon had an
    astonishing ability to maintain their idealism and be practical, to be
    practical and idealistic at the same time. That's why we were pleased to
    give Oregon permission to get out from under all kinds of Federal rules
    and regulations, to change its welfare programs to move people to work,
    to change all kinds of other programs, because we knew this was a State
    where people had good values and common sense.
        And so, I ask all of you join us in the fight to preserve education
    and balance the budget. Join us in the fight to develop the economy and
    preserve the environment. Join us in the fight to encourage people to be
    better citizens and to behave better and to have better values but also
    to give people who deserve it a helping hand and a hand up. In other
    words, keep your idealism intact. Bring your common sense to the table.
    Give power back to communities so that the young people here can have
    the kind of future, can have the kind of American dream that my
    generation took for granted.
        The 21st century will be the most exciting time in all of human
    history, especially for the American people, if we can bring to the task
    today the compassion, the values, and the common sense that I believe is
    at the heart of what it means to be a citizen of this great State.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 4:10 p.m. in the Courtyard at Portland
    State University.