    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [September 20, 1995]
    [Pages 1407-1410]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at Pueblo Community College in Pueblo, Colorado
    September 20, 1995

        The President. Thank you so much.
        Audience members. I love you----
        The President. I love hearing it. Thank you very much.
        Ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by thanking you all for making me
    feel so very welcome. Thank you, Dr. May, for opening your fine
    institution and for bringing all your students and a lot of the folks
    from the surrounding area here. Thank you, Governor Romer, for your
    leadership and your friendship. Ladies and gentlemen, I had the
    privilege of being a Governor of my home State for 12 years before I was
    elected President. I was never part of the Washington scene, but I knew
    quite a lot about what it took to be a Governor. And by the time I left
    office, most of us thought Roy Romer was probably the best Governor in
    the United States of America and was doing more for education than
    anybody else. Thank you, Diana, for your introduction and for the power
    of your example. You and your family are the best of what this country
    is all about. And I came here to talk about your future and the future
    of all the students here and, in fact, this entire country.
        I'm glad to be back in Pueblo. Anyplace where I can wear my cowboy
    boots and feel comfortable and has an Arkansas River is all right as far
    as I'm concerned. I also believe in community colleges. When I was a
    Governor I helped start several. I saw it open the doors of opportunity
    to people of all ages and all backgrounds. They are truly the community
    colleges, the most open and democratic and opportunity-filled
    institutions in the United States today. And I know I am at a good one
    today, and I'm proud to be here.
        You know, our country has come a long way in over 200 years because
    we believed that we could always make the future better, and we believed
    we had an obligation to try. Pueblo was established in 1862, and one of
    the county commission's first acts was to collect money for a school.
    They knew that education could be better than gold, way back in 1862,
    and in 1995 it is more important than ever before.
        I am here because the future of your education and those who come
    behind you is going to be affected by decisions which will be made in
    Washington, DC, in the next 2 to 3 months. All of you know that we are
    in a period of great change in our country. I believe that this

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    period will be written up by the historians as a period of most profound
    change in 100 years, since the time we became an industrial society from
    a rural and agricultural one. Today, we are becoming a global economy,
    an information-based, technology-based society. We know that, and we
    know we have to make some changes so that we will be able to benefit
    from all these things that are going on in the world.
        We know that one of the things we have to do is to provide lifetime
    learning for all of our people, to give everybody the opportunity to do
    well. And I've worked hard at that. I want to get more kids off to a
    good start at school. That's why we expanded Head Start. I want higher
    standards--[applause]--I want higher standards and smaller classes and
    more computers and other opportunities for our school students. That's
    what Governor Romer and I worked on Goals 2000 for.
        I want more opportunities for young people who don't go on to the 4-
    year schools to get good jobs with good prospects for the future. That's
    what the school-to-work program that your president talked about is all
    about. I want more scholarships, more opportunities for community
    services, and more affordable loan programs for young people to go to
    college and for people who aren't so young to be able to go back to
    college. It's important.
        Make no mistake about it, my fellow Americans, every dollar we spend
    investing in education has a big economic payoff not just for the people
    who benefit from it. Every year of education after high school today
    generates between 6 and 12 percent of higher income for the people who
    get it. But it's more important than that. It gives more dignity, more
    meaning, more possibility to people's lives, and it makes our Nation
    stronger. We know we must do this.
        I want to ask you today to think about all the things you know are
    going on in your Nation's Capital and the big argument we're having over
    the budget in terms of this fundamental fact: We're living in a global
    economy; what we can learn determines what we can earn. We have an
    obligation to pass on to the next generation a stronger, better America.
    We also have an obligation to balance the budget. That is part of
    passing on to the next generation a stronger, better America.
        And so I ask you to consider this: How should we do that? That's the
    big question, not whether we should but how we should. I think we need
    new ideas and our old-fashioned values. We need to make decisions about
    this budget rooted in our devotion to freedom and responsibility; to
    work and to family; to giving young people a chance to do better; to
    fulfilling our obligations to the elderly, the disabled, and to poor
    children; to finding common ground instead of cheap and easy political
    rhetoric; and to doing the right thing for the future even if it's
    unpopular in the moment. We have to create the right kind of future for
    the United States of America.
        We need to balance the budget. Your country never had a permanent
    structural deficit before 1981. In the 12 years before I moved to
    Washington as your President we quadrupled the national debt over the
    previous 200. There's no excuse for that. It's so bad now that the
    budget of your country would be balanced today if it weren't for the
    interest we pay on the debt run up in the 12 years before I took office.
    And we have cut the deficit of your country from $290 billion a year
    down to $160 billion in just 3 years. And it's the first time in 45
    years that we've been able to do that.
        So the question now is, how do we go all the way? How do we balance
    the budget consistent with our obligations and our values? I believe
    that we should balance the budget in the same way I've been reducing the
    deficit--by cutting other things and increasing our investment in
    education, because that will make us a stronger country as well.
        You know, almost half the people at this community college have Pell
    grants. I want to see more people have access to Pell grants, so more
    people with modest incomes can go on to college. Next year the
    University of Southern Colorado will join so many others around the
    country in participating in our direct student loan program, and this
    fine community college has applied to participate in it. Let me tell you
    what it does. The direct student loan program enables the Government to
    get rid of all the redtape, the banks, and the middlemen and all the
    excessive costs from the student loan program, to send money directly to
    a school to give to the students at lower costs with better repayment
    terms, receiving the money more quickly.
        Every school I have talked to that has participated in this program
    loves it because it's a lower cost for the school, lower cost for the
    students, and there are many more options to repay. One of the most
    important things about this direct loan program is that a young person

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    can repay his or her loans based on a percentage of the income they earn
    when they go to work. So you never need to fear that you can't afford to
    borrow money because you may not have a lot of money when you get out.
        I believe in the direct loan program. I believe in the Pell grant
    program. I believe in the AmeriCorps program, the national service
    program which enables people to earn money for college. Here in
    Colorado, you have young people working to keep kids out of gangs, to
    teach adults to read, to renovate vacant houses for working families, to
    clean up parks for children to play in, and in return, earning some
    money to go to school.
        And I also believe that we can balance the budget and have the right
    kind of tax cut. But I favor a smaller, more targeted tax cut for middle
    income American families to educate themselves and their children and to
    raise their children. Let's value childrearing and education. If we're
    going to have a tax cut, let's finance more people going on to school.
        The last thing I want to say is that I think we ought to have
    special educational opportunities for people who lose their jobs through
    no fault of their own. When I was--30 years ago when I was in college, 8
    in 10 people who were laid off from work were called back to the same
    old job as soon as the economy got better. Today, 8 in 10 people who are
    laid off from work are not called back to the same old job because the
    economy is changing.
        So I have asked this Congress to take about 70 different training
    programs the Government has, put it into a pool of money, and just
    simply give a voucher to a person who loses a job, worth up to $2,600 a
    year, to take to the local community college to get trained for a better
    life, a new start, a stronger beginning.
        If we do this and balance the budget, over the next 7 years, 20
    million more people will be eligible for lower cost, better repayment
    college loans. Three million more people will get the Pell grant
    scholarships that enable so many of you to be here. If we keep this
    commitment, we can have over 1.1 million people going on to college by
    the end of this decade, and we can do all that and balance the budget.
    The question is, will we?
        The debate we're having in Washington today--I want to emphasize
    again--is not over whether to balance the budget, it's over how to
    balance the budget consistent with the fundamental values of this
    country. A majority of people in the Congress have a plan that reflects
    very different value choices. If their plan prevails, we won't be able
    to help as many poor kids get off to a good start in school. We won't
    even be able to keep helping as many as we are now. We won't be able to
    help as many schools to achieve those smaller classes and higher
    standards and more computers in the classrooms. And we certainly will
    see it become harder and more expensive to finance a college education,
    which means not as many people will go. There will be no more
    AmeriCorps, no national service program. There will be over 4 million
    fewer people getting Pell grants over the next 7 years. The direct
    lending program that this school wants to get into is going to be either
    severely limited or abolished, and the application that you have to give
    all your people here a better chance to go on and succeed will never see
    the light of day.
        Now we learn that some in the Senate even want to charge colleges to
    process the Government loans. The president of the University of Kansas
    was quoted today as saying, ``That's like charging people who run
    grocery stores to handle food stamps.'' Can you believe that? They
    actually want to start making the community college pay just to have
    people here with college loans. They want to raise the interest charged
    to working families who take out loans to send their children to
    college. They also, believe it or not, want to do some other things
    which will dramatically undermine the ability of people to go to college
    and all told--listen to this--all told, will cost over $7 billion for
    students, their families, and their schools over the next 7 years.
        Now, this is not about money. This is not about balancing the
    budget. This is about what kind of country we're going to be and what
    our obligations to each other are. They have made three value choices in
    Congress. They say we have to balance the budget in 7 years, even if we
    could increase education and still balance it in 8, 9, or 10 years.
        Then they say we have to give a huge tax cut of $250 billion, half
    of it going to upper income people like me who don't need it and don't
    want it. But they're determined to give it anyway, even if they take it
    away from you and your education and your children's future. And they
    say that we're going to take some of this student loan money away from
    the stu-

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    dents and give it back to the banks and the middlemen, even though it
    raises the cost of going to college, provides more paperwork headaches
    for the schools, delays the loans getting to the students, and robs you
    of the option of repaying based on a percentage of your earnings. They
    say these interest groups didn't like it when they lost the money. We're
    cutting education, but we're going to give them some of their money
    back.
        Now, those are value judgments. This is not just about money. Our
    solemn obligation is to reward people who are willing to work to make
    the most of their own lives, to make sure that the enthusiasm these
    young people have shown us today becomes mirrored in brilliant,
    successful, happy lives that make America a stronger place and
    guarantees that their children will have an even better America to grow
    up in. That's what this is all about.
        So I challenge Congress to work with me to find common ground, to
    balance the budget without raising the cost of going to college to pay
    for a tax cut. It is not necessary, and it is not right. It is not
    consistent with basic American values. We can balance the budget, cut
    taxes for middle class people who need it to educate and raise their
    children, and still increase our investment in education. Let us do this
    the right way and advance what America really stands for. That's what
    this is all about.
        I saw a very moving picture in the newspaper here today of the trip
    that President Kennedy made in 1962. He came here to honor the citizens
    who had built Pueblo 100 years before, and he said this: ``I hope that
    those of us who hold positions of public responsibility in 1962 are as
    farseeing about the needs of the country in 1982 and 1992 as those men
    and women.'' Well, President Kennedy's generation was. They went to the
    Moon. They explored new frontiers of science and technology. They
    ensured that we would win the cold war. They advanced the cause of
    education and economic growth and world peace.
        In this day and age, the popular thing to do would be just to go
    along with all of this, because the popular thing is to tell you that
    your Government is the cause of all your problems; all Government is bad
    and all tax cuts are good. I know that would be popular. But friends,
    almost all the money the Government spends today is on medical care for
    the elderly and the disabled, Social Security, the national defense,
    interest on the debt, and education and other investments in our future.
    I want to cut it some more. I want to get rid of the things we don't
    need. I want to balance the budget. But the popular view is not right.
        Your Government is you. And we better invest in your education and
    your future. Twenty, thirty, forty years from now, the people who are
    sitting here on this great lawn will appreciate it if they know we
    balanced the budget and secured our financial future in a way that
    protected the educational future, the economic well-being, and the
    fundamental values of the United States of America. Let us resolve to do
    that and to do it together.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:33 p.m. on the College Center lawn. In
    his remarks, he referred to Joe May, president, Pueblo Community
    College, and student Diana Gurule.