[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.