    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [February 14, 1995]
    [Pages 209-213]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at San Bernardino Valley College in San Bernardino, California
    February 14, 1995

        Thank you for that wonderful, wonderful welcome. Thank you, Dr.
    Singer, for your introduction. I know the Secretary of Education,
    Secretary Riley, has already spoken. I'm glad to be here with him. And I
    thank the mayor for being here and Dr. Bundy. And let's give the
    Etiwanda High School Band a hand. Didn't they do a great job? Great job.
    Thank you. When I heard them playing ``Hail to the Chief'' outside I
    thought they'd transported the Marine Band from the White House here,
    they were so great. They were great.
        I'd also like to recognize a couple of other groups that are here.
    First of all, I want to thank the members of our national service
    program, AmeriCorps, who are here. They're over there. And I want to
    thank a representative group of incredible people who just spent about
    an hour with me, talking to me about this institution, how it has
    affected their lives and your community and the remarkable partnerships
    that are being made and the dreams that are being made to come true. I'd
    like for all the people who were just in the little roundtable
    discussion with me to be recognized. They're over here somewhere. Where
    are they? There they are. [Applause] Thank you. They were great. I feel
    that I know a lot more about you now because I listened to all of them,
    and believe me, they put you all in a very good light.
        I want to talk to you today about the importance of this community
    college and education in general, not only to your future but to the
    future of our country, what it means and what we should be doing about
    it. I met a lot of folks already here today that represent what I think
    America is all about, people who are coming together around the idea of
    education without regard to their race, their income, their background,
    what country they were born in, what situation they're in now just
    because they want to make the most of their own lives and make a
    contribution, live up to the fullest of their God-given abilities. And I
    really think that's what we ought to be supporting.
        The reason I worked so hard for the national service program that
    you see all these young people in is because I believe that we ought to
    be helping young people to find ways to earn money for education and
    contribute to the strength of their communities at the same time.
        I ran for President because I was worried, as we come to the close
    of this great century, that we wouldn't be able to guarantee the
    American dream for all people moving into the 21st century and we
    wouldn't be able to make sure America was the strongest country in the
    world, and I believe those are the two jobs the President has to do. And
    I believe the way we should do that is what I have called the New
    Covenant. We should create more opportunity; we should insist on more
    responsibility from all of us; and we should work to build our
    communities at the grassroots level, where the real strength of America
    is.
        Now, there's been a lot of debate in our country now in two separate
    elections, in 1992 and 1994, about what the role of Government is and
    whether Government is bad or good inherently. My answer to you is that
    we need a different kind of Government for the 21st century and that
    your National Government has three major jobs. One is, we should expand
    opportunity while shrinking the Federal bureaucracy and the burden it
    imposes. Two, we should recognize that the Government can't support
    everybody, but it should work to empower people to make the most of
    their own lives. And three, we should work to enhance the security
    Americans feel not only in terms of what goes on beyond our borders but
    here at home as well. More opportunity, more empowerment, more security:
    that is what we should be about in the National Government.
        Now, if you look at what this national service project does, they're
    working in the San

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    Bernardino forest, people who are helping to clean up the forest,
    maintain it, strengthen it, keep it there for our children and our
    grandchildren, make sure it's an important resource. Last year there
    were 89 young people in this program in south Texas who immunized
    102,000 infants to help them live, and all of them earned money on their
    education. Sixteen of these young people work at Berkeley, helping 750
    of their classmates to tutor middle-school students. These are the kinds
    of things that are going on all over America, and I think it emphasizes
    what I'm saying. For a small amount of Federal money we have increased
    opportunity with no bureaucracy. This is all done at the grassroots
    level.
        We have certainly empowered these young people to make more of their
    own lives, and we are clearly going to be a stronger country because we
    have more people getting an education and more people preserving the
    environment, making our kids healthier, making our country stronger at
    the grassroots level. That is what I am trying to do. And I want to talk
    to you today about what that means for education in general, and
    especially for community colleges like this one, which are the key to
    the future of the American economy and the ability to preserve the
    American dream for all people.
        Let me give you an example of what we're trying to do in another
    area on security, and then I'll come back to education, because I want
    to make sure that you understand exactly how I'm thinking about this. I
    welcome the call of the new Republicans in the Congress to cut the
    Government, but I--now, wait a minute, you all don't get into a partisan
    fight already; wait until the end of the speech. [Laughter] For the last
    2 years, we've been doing it without any help. I'd like some help. I'd
    like some help. But what is the purpose of this? That's what I want you
    to think about.
        Now, there are now over 100,000 fewer people working for the Federal
    Government than there were the day I took office. We have shrunk the
    Federal Government. If they don't pass a single law this year, we will
    reduce the size of the Federal Government by over a quarter of a million
    because of the budgets adopted in the first 2 years of my term, and
    we'll make the Federal Government the smallest it's been since John
    Kennedy was President.
        Now, what do we do with the money? What are we doing with the money?
    We cut, already, over $600 billion from the deficit, and we're going to
    cut more. I've just sent a budget to the Congress that cuts more
    spending from the deficit. What are we doing with the money? We propose,
    first, to reduce the deficit and, secondly, to increase investments in
    the areas that I mentioned, to increase investments that would create
    more opportunities--jobs; that would empower people more--education; and
    that would enhance security--things like the crime bill.
        If you just take the crime bill, for example, I said when I ran for
    President--I came to California and campaigned--``Vote for me, and I
    will reduce the size of the Federal bureaucracy by 100,000 and we'll put
    another 100,000 police officers on the street.'' And that's exactly what
    we've done, except we reduced the size of the Federal Government by
    270,000 and used it to pay for police officers, prisons, and prevention.
    We passed that crime bill last year with a bipartisan majority. After 6
    years of partisan haggling and scrapping around and people throwing
    words at each other, we actually passed a bill. And since October, we
    have put--but I only was there a year and a half, you understand--
    [laughter]--but since October, we've put 16,000 police officers out,
    16,000. And we've got 17 right here in San Bernardino, new police
    officers.
        Listen to this: We did it with a one-page form, eight questions that
    could be faxed in; nobody had to hire consultants. And of all the
    communities in America with police officers, every size, including those
    with just one, one-half of all the communities in America have already
    applied for help under this program because it's a good program, it
    works, and there's no hassle in it. That's the kind of Government we
    ought to have, a leaner, not a meaner Government that makes sense and
    makes people more secure. We're under budget, ahead of schedule, moving
    forward.
        It took 6 years to pass the bill. I started working on it when I got
    elected; we got it done. In only 6 weeks of this new Congress, the new
    majority in the House of Representatives is trying to wipe out the crime
    bill and pass two block grants, to cut back on the money that goes to
    police and to prevention, to put it all in one package, send it to the
    States and say, you all do whatever you want to with it, and to put more
    money into the prison system. Now, here's the interesting thing--wait a

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    minute, don't get into a partisan fight, just listen to me make my
    piece. [Laughter] Every police organization in the country, including
    those that are overwhelmingly Republican, has endorsed our position to
    leave it alone and let it work. This is not a partisan issue.
        So the people in the House said, ``I don't care what the police
    said. I don't care what the people working in the community said. I
    don't care what the evidence shows. This is what we're going to do.
    We're determined not to spend any money on prevention. If the States
    want to do it and not put police on the streets, that's their business.
    And here's the money, build the prisons, or else.'' Now, what I believe
    is that we still have a chance to keep this a bipartisan issue. And I'm
    going to do my best to go into the Senate and to work with people who
    understand law enforcement, who will listen to people who are out here
    on the streets every day trying to save these kids and save our
    communities and save our streets and keep this bill intact so we can put
    the police on the street and have the prevention programs.
        But I will not--I will reiterate what I said Saturday--if I have to,
    I will veto any bill that attempts to undermine the commitment that we
    made last year after 6 years. But it need not be a partisan issue. It
    ought to be an American issue. And that's what I say to you about
    education. What are we going to do in this day and time? What is our job
    in Washington that affects you way out here in the Inland Empire when it
    comes to education? What is our job when it comes to helping to raise
    middle class incomes and let people in the under class work themselves
    into the middle class? What is our job, and what is the problem?
        You know, if anybody told me 2 years ago that we would be able, in
    the space of 2 years, to bring the deficit down over $600 billion and
    have a hand in creating almost 6 million new jobs, I would have been
    very happy to hear that. In 1994, we had the best year for economic
    growth in a decade and the first year in a long time when all 50 States,
    including California that's been through so much, had economic growth.
    What is the problem?
        The problem is, a whole lot of people have jobs but their incomes
    aren't going up. They don't feel secure at work. They're afraid they
    can't keep their health insurance, or they don't have it now. We had 8.5
    million people worried about their retirement until we passed a reform
    of the retirement guaranty system late last year. So in this global
    economy the good news is, there are more people in America becoming
    millionaires than ever before. That's good news. The good news is, there
    are more people with an education doing exciting things than ever
    before. The bad news is, if you don't have the skills you need, you can
    work harder and harder and harder for less and less and less, right?
        So when you have a good news-bad news story, you have two choices.
    You can tell a joke about it, but if you're President, that doesn't seem
    to be a particularly good option. [Laughter] The other choice you have
    is to try to make more good news and less bad news. And the only way to
    do that, I would argue to you, is to make sure we give all of our people
    access to the education and training they need to compete and win in
    this global economy, so when they work harder, they'll be rewarded for
    it and not punished for it. That is what we have to do.
        Now, I want you to focus with me just for a minute, therefore, on
    two big issues, what we ought to do in this year and what we should not
    do. I think we ought to give some tax relief to hard-working middle
    class people who haven't felt the benefit of the recovery. But the
    question is, what kind, and will we pay for it? I do not think we should
    increase the Federal deficit. That's been a big problem. We've gotten it
    down. We ought to keep bringing it down, not exploding it.
        Secondly, I think that the best tax relief is embodied in what I
    call the middle class bill of rights because it rewards work and family.
    It gives tax relief for people raising young children, and it gives tax
    relief for the cost of all education after high school, which I think is
    important. You think about it, you can deduct the cost of interest on
    your home if you have a home. But in the information age, if you don't
    have an education, you may never get to a home. So why shouldn't we let
    people deduct their education costs? It's a good investment. We also
    propose to let more people get an IRA, an individual retirement account,
    and withdraw from it tax-free for the cost of education. I think that's
    what we ought to be doing.
        And finally, I had a lot of questions earlier about unemployment;
    one gentleman talked about his father being unemployed. We have scores
    of different Federal training programs that you have to wonder, are you
    really qualified

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    for or not? And what we propose to do is to create a ``GI bill'' for
    America's workers by taking 70 of these programs, putting them in one
    big pot and saying, ``If you're unemployed or if you're working for a
    really low wage and you're eligible for Federal help, instead of having
    to figure out how to enroll in one of these programs, qualify, we'll
    send you a voucher. Show up at this community college. We'll send them a
    check.'' That's the way it ought to be done.
        We're also taking the savings from cutting out all of these
    programs. In the Education Department alone, Secretary Riley has
    abolished 13 programs, reduced 38 others, and consolidated 70 more, in
    the Education Department. We took the savings and put it into more funds
    for Head Start, more funds for apprenticeship programs for people who
    don't go on to 4-year colleges.
        I met a young woman today, and a police officer who is working with
    her, who's in one of these programs that we now see people desperately
    trying to set up all over the country, training young people in high
    school, giving them work experience, letting them see what it's like,
    giving them a chance to look forward to a job in the workplace.
        You know, not everybody has to go to a 4-year college, but everybody
    needs to get out of high school and have access to at least 2 years of
    further education. And one way to do it is to abolish the artificial
    distinction between learning and work by bringing the workplace into the
    school, the education into the workplace, and doing it everywhere in
    America. So we've put some more money into that.
        The other thing we have sought to do is to make available college
    loans on better repayment terms and lower costs to more people, through
    the so-called direct loan program.
        This is an amazing thing. I want you all to--this is an amazing
    thing. When I became President, I discovered that we were spending about
    $3 billion a year in your money because of people defaulting on their
    college loans. I discovered we were spending a fortune because the
    college loan program was a guarantee program. So you'd go to a bank, and
    if you qualified, the bank would give you a note. And if you didn't pay
    it back, we'd give them the money. So they didn't have much incentive to
    see that you paid it back, because we were going to give them the money.
        And we discovered if we started loaning the money to people
    directly, these good things would happen if it could be properly
    managed: We discovered we could loan the money sometimes at lower
    interest rates and always at lower fees. We discovered that we could
    give people a lot of options about how they repaid it so that when you
    get out of school, if you take a job that doesn't pay much money and
    you've got a lot of loans, you could pay it off as a percentage of your
    income instead of having to pay an amount you couldn't afford to pay. We
    discovered we could cut the bureaucratic paperwork and hassle for the
    colleges by more than half. And we discovered, miracle of miracles, if
    we didn't have to pay a middleman and we started collecting on these
    student loans, we could actually lower the cost to the taxpayers.
        It almost doesn't make sense: lower costs to students, lower costs
    to taxpayers. But this plan has already saved in the budget about $5
    billion, and if we can send it to all colleges and universities in the
    country, it can lower the deficit by $12 billion and lower the cost of
    loans to every student in America with a student loan. That's one of the
    most important things we have done, and we need to do it.
        Now, here's the political problem that you need to be a part of.
    We're having a big debate up there: Everybody wants to cut the size of
    Government, everybody wants to reduce the deficit, and everybody has got
    a different idea for a tax cut. But some people in the new Congress
    believe that one of the ways they can reduce the deficit is by
    increasing the cost of student loans to people who don't have to pay
    interest on the loan while they're in school now. You know about the
    loan subsidy; a lot of you are probably eligible for that. That will add
    20 percent to the cost of student loans.
        I'm against it. That is not the way to cut the budget. That is not
    the way to pay for a tax cut, to increase the cost of going to college
    to people. We need more people going to college at lower cost, not fewer
    people going to college at higher cost. And I hope you will support
    that.
        The other idea--this is unbelievable to me--is we got this program
    working to lower the deficit, lower the cost of student loans, and there
    are some people in the Congress who want to limit the number of students
    in this country who can get these direct loans to 40

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    percent of the colleges in America. Why? Because the people that are in
    the middle who get the money don't like losing it. I mean, it's not a
    bad deal: I loan you money; you don't pay me back; I get a check from
    the Government. But it didn't work very well.
        Secretary Riley, since he's been there as Secretary of Education,
    has cut the cost to the taxpayers of college loan defaults from $2.8
    billion a year to $1 billion a year. We're collecting the loans. We're
    doing it right, and we ought to keep going.
        So what I want to ask you to do is, without regard to your party,
    and maybe--especially if you have never voted before--I want to tell you
    something: You've got a big stake in this debate that's going on in
    Washington. And it is a good and healthy debate in some ways. We do need
    a less bureaucratic, more creative, more entrepreneurial, more flexible
    Government in Washington as we move into the 21st century. We do need
    more responsibility put down to the State and local levels. What's the
    best institution you know? The community college. Nobody from Washington
    is telling you what programs to have, what to do, who to sign up for--
    nobody. You're doing this. It's a community-created institution. We do
    need to change the nature of the Federal Government. We do have to keep
    cutting Federal spending.
        But the key to our future is whether we educate everybody, so we
    don't need to cut investment in education. And we do need to do things,
    I will say again, that enhance security, empower people to make the most
    of their own lives, and expand opportunity. That is education,
    education, education. We should not turn back on it.
        Thank you very much. God bless you. We need your help. Please
    support it. Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:45 p.m. in the Snyder Gymnasium. In his
    remarks, he referred to Dr. Don Singer, president, San Bernardino Valley
    College; Mayor Tom Minor of San Bernardino; and Stuart Bundy,
    chancellor, San Bernardino Community College District.