    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [February 16, 1996]
    [Pages 275-280]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Community in Wilkes-Barre
    February 16, 1996

        The President. Thank you very much.
        Audience member. We love you!
        The President. Thank you.
        Audience member. Hillary, too!
        The President. Thank you very much.

    [[Page 276]]

        I want to begin by saying that Patrick Murphy did not have the
    easiest job in the world today and that all of his fellow students who
    stood up and cheered him may have made it a little harder even.
    [Laughter] But he hung in there, and he did it very well. And he spoke
    powerfully about this community and his people. I think we ought to give
    him another hand. [Applause]
        Father Lackenmier, I want to congratulate you on the 50th
    anniversary of King's College. You know the Vice President was in
    Pennsylvania just a couple of days ago to celebrate the 50th anniversary
    of the first computer, ENIAC, over in Philadelphia. So Pennsylvania now
    has three 50-year-olds: ENIAC, King's College, and me. When your
    president said that King's College was 50 and so was I going to be 50
    this year, I looked out at all the students, and I thought, it looks a
    lot better on you than it does on me. [Laughter]
        I was delighted to be here today to review the flood damage and hear
    a progress report with your two United States Senators, with Governor
    Ridge, with Congressman Holden, who is also here and does a very fine
    job for his district and Congress, and with Congressman Kanjorski who
    spoke today so well. I can tell you there aren't very many people in the
    Congress that are as effective, as persistent, downright nagging--
    [laughter]--in advancing the interests of the people of their district
    as Paul Kanjorski. You are very well served. He is always nice, he is
    always dignified, but he is utterly relentless in your behalf, no matter
    what the issue is.
        And I want to congratulate your young mayor, Mayor McGroarty. It's
    been a long time since I met a public official with so much energy and
    enthusiasm. I don't know if he ever sleeps. And if we could bottle
    whatever it is he has and reproduce it, we wouldn't have to build any
    power plants in America for 10 years. [Laughter] I think he's got a
    great future.
        I also want to thank all the Federal officials who are here with me
    and, in particular, the gentleman who is behind me, James Lee Witt, the
    Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who's been spending
    more time with you and more time in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho than
    he has in Washington, DC, in the last several weeks. He is the kind of
    person, I think, that reflects the very best in our National Government:
    the true spirit of public service.
        And all of the Federal officials here, including the local
    representatives of all of these agencies, I want to thank them as well.
    They have enjoyed having the opportunity to work with you in this
    difficult time.
        I'd like to say one more word about Patrick Murphy, because it makes
    the point I want to make. I'm not going to make fun of him anymore. When
    this disaster was imminent, he and his brother, J.J., led fellow
    students to help fill and pile sandbags. A lot of other young people did
    that as well. Some of the young AmeriCorps volunteers who were
    introduced, our national service volunteers, also worked on that
    program. As a lot of you know, the AmeriCorps program is now headed in
    Washington by your former Senator, Harris Wofford, who also helped to
    create the Peace Corps. I want to say that we need to find ways to
    multiply the spirit shown by Patrick Murphy, by the AmeriCorps
    volunteers, by the students of King's College, if we're going to meet
    our country's challenges.
        A couple of days ago, I was out in Washington State and Oregon
    viewing the floods there--you may have seen the films--and I went into
    the home of a 70-year-old man. He and his wife had literally just lost
    everything they had. He was hard of hearing, and he even lost his
    hearing aid in the flood; the water washed it away. And I thought to
    myself, how do you start over when you're 70? I was walking down the
    street toward this man, and I thought, how will he feel when I come
    there? And he said to me, ``I'm so glad to see you. And I've never met a
    President before, but maybe it wasn't time. This is the first time I've
    ever been able to invite a President into a home with an indoor swimming
    pool.'' [Laughter]
        You know, this is a pretty great country. And the man went on and
    introduced me to his wife and his two daughters and his granddaughter.
    And he was raving about how all of his friends and neighbors came to his
    aid. And they were talking about a man I later met who was a retired
    utility company employee, a naturalized immigrant from Norway, who had
    worked 8 hours with a jackhammer--well up in his sixties--with a cracked
    rib. I don't know if any of you have ever tried to hold a jackhammer in
    the proper place before, but it isn't easy if you're young, strapping,
    strong, and you can breathe well.
        But I was looking at all these people--we were having this talk, and
    when I left this man's

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    home, I said, ``I'm really impressed with your sense of humor and the
    way you and your wife are handling this.'' He said, ``As awful as it
    is,'' he said, ``it's wonderful. Look at how we're all behaving.'' He
    said, ``Don't you wish we could be this way all the time?''
        So I say to the people of the Wyoming Valley, to all the communities
    that were hurt so badly, to the people in the rest of Pennsylvania who
    suffered so greatly, all of the members of the families of people who
    lost their lives and those who have suffered heartbreaking losses: Our
    country has been very moved by your spirit and by what you have done.
    Our country has been very moved by individual examples of courage.
        Just a few moments ago, I was meeting in a roundtable with some
    people who worked in this flood and some of your local officials. I met
    young Eric Malone, who is behind me, a 19-year-old world champion jet
    skier who lives just outside Altoona who found out you could run a jet
    ski in a raging flood and saved a lot of lives as a result and risked
    his own life. And I thank him for doing that. I asked him if he would
    give me a ride on his jet ski, but only on a calm lake. [Laughter]
        I want to thank Dr. Christopher Breiseth, the president of Wilkes
    College, who is with us today--[applause]--some of his students are
    there, I guess--for the difficult work he had to do in evacuating his
    school. I want to thank Jean Wilde from Mercy Hospital, who evacuated
    people there. And you know, you always think of a hospital taking people
    in. Can you imagine the psychological pressure of evacuating a hospital,
    the one place every community looks to be a pillar of strength and
    security and hope? I want to thank Jim Siracuse, the Luzerne County
    Emergency Management Director, who coordinated the evacuation of 100,000
    people.
        I'll tell you, folks, when something like this happens, because news
    is instantaneous, I've become just almost like another American. I get
    most of my information off of breaking television news. And all of
    America was watching you and pulling for you, and we never knew, I don't
    think, how serious this was even with all the gushing water we kept
    seeing until we learned that you had to evacuate 100,000 people. That
    got America's attention.
        There are so many others I would mention if I knew them or if we had
    the time. I just want to say that I applaud all of you who looked beyond
    your own needs to help others and to help people get through this
    crisis. You have really shown us, as that elderly gentleman in
    Washington said, that America can rise to its challenges and show its
    best self. And I thank you for that.
        I do want to say something to all the people in Pennsylvania who
    tried to be good friends and good neighbors to those who suffered
    losses. Mr. Witt and I worked together for years in Arkansas, where I
    was the Governor. We saw whole little communities buried in floods.
    We've rescued people off the roofs of their house. We have a State with
    the highest per capita incidents of tornadoes in the country. I have
    seen whole communities decked by tornadoes. I have seen wind blowing so
    hard that literally thin sheets of paper were going so strong they
    pierced the bark of trees. I've seen trucks in the tops of trees and
    houses moved half a block off their foundations with the foundations
    apparently untouched. And of course, I have seen a lot of people who
    lost everything. And I would just say this: For all the wonderful things
    you have done, it's important to remember that the people who really
    sustained great losses were more or less in shock for the first several
    days after it occurred. And a lot of the most difficult times will come
    now and maybe even a week or two or a month from now.
        So I ask you to remember that, because this is something the Federal
    Government can't do, that one-on-one personal commitment it takes to get
    people all the way through a tragedy. I will say this: I know that the
    work of rebuilding and repairing this State is not over when the flood
    waters go down or when the emergencies have passed. And I do want to
    assure you that we will do everything we can to continue to do our part
    until this State and all its communities are completely rebuilt. I know
    that about 32,000 people registered for help through FEMA at the 800
    number or one of our disaster centers, that we've had over 19,000 home
    inspections already, that more than $23 million in payments have been
    applied for and dispensed through the disaster housing program.
        I want to compliment Denise Ginger, who is also up on the stage with
    me. She was at our roundtable, and she got her check within 2 days of
    her home inspection. And there it was, and she wasn't sure what it was
    for, because there it was 2 days later. And she was such an honorable
    person she would not cash that Government check until she made abso-

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    lutely sure what it was for. I told her if we had a million more
    Americans like her, we wouldn't have any problems in this country. And I
    thank her. Stand up there. Thank you. [Applause]
        We have approved more than 600 small business loans worth about
    $10\1/2\ million to help small businesses and individual homeowners and
    renters and nonprofit organizations and some not-so-small businesses as
    well. The Department of Transportation has now committed over $20
    million. I told the mayor today that we were going to give him $400,000
    to fix that canal along Parkin Street where I was to make sure that it
    doesn't break again and that it is still protection against the floods.
        We are going to keep working with you until this job is finished.
    That's what we did in working with Florida and California and the States
    along the Mississippi River. And we want to do what Congressman
    Kanjorski says; we want to prevent these problems from coming again.
        In 1993, in the wake of those horrible floods, those 500-year floods
    in the Middle West, the Congress passed legislation that I strongly
    supported to enable us to take up to 15 percent of the value of the
    disaster payments to the State when something like this happens, to be
    spent on mitigation to try to protect people against it recurring. I
    said today I was very encouraged by my conversations with the Governor.
    When we get a Pennsylvania State plan, we will look forward to putting
    that money in here, and we want to see people protected from having to
    go through this again. So far as we can, we will work with you until
    that job is done as well.
        I'd like to close with a few words that refer to some of the things
    the president of this college talked about in his opening remarks. If
    you look at what happens in this flood, you know that when our country
    works together, we never lose. If you ask me what is the lesson that you
    have learned most clearly in the last 3 years and a few weeks as
    President, I would have to tell you that that is the lesson I have
    learned. The era of big Government is fading. We now have the smallest
    Federal Government we've had in 30 years.
        All big organizations are going through changes. We see that
    everywhere. It's part of the information and technology revolution
    that's going on. We don't need large, big, centralized bureaucracies to
    solve grassroots problems or to perform big, national functions; we know
    that. But that does not mean that we can go back to a time in America
    where people were simply left to fend for themselves.
        One of the great and enduring contributions of the Catholic Church
    to this country are the Catholic charities and the mission you see in
    every Catholic college and university in this country of service, of
    understanding that we are all stronger when we help each other to live
    up to our God-given capacities. And that is something every American
    must remember as we move into this new age.
        We are working to balance the budget in Washington. We should do
    that. We never ran a permanent deficit in this country just all the time
    until about the early eighties. We've cut the deficit in half in the
    last 3 years, and we ought to finish the job. But we ought to do it
    consistent with our values, which include our responsibilities to each
    other, to our parents, to our children, to families who have disabled
    children. That's what we ought to do.
        If you look at the challenges that I tried to set before our Nation
    for the future in the State of the Union Address, in every single
    instance, there is something for everyone to do, including your
    Government; it should be smaller, but it should not be weak. When the
    floods come, you don't want FEMA and the Small Business Administration
    and the Department of Transportation to be weak. When we argue to open
    markets so our people can get a fair deal in selling their goods and
    services abroad, you don't want a trade program that is weak.
        And when people tell you that Government is inherently no good, just
    remember this: In the last 30 years, we have spent one-half of your
    money, one-half of the taxes that you've paid to the Federal Government
    on three things: national defense, Social Security, and Medicare. What
    did you get for that? We won the cold war; the poverty rate among
    elderly people was cut in half; and if you live to be 65 and you start
    drawing Medicare in America, elderly people have the longest life
    expectancy of any group of elderly people in the entire world. I think
    we got our money's worth.
        Part of my college education was paid for by a national defense
    education loan. I was proud to pay it back on time with interest, but I
    was proud to get it, too. I think America was better off because people
    in my generation were able to get help to go to college. And

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    these young people today live in a time when the percentage of a
    family's income, a middle-class family's income, required to finance a
    college education is far greater than it was when my generation went to
    college.
        So I say to you, we should invest in scholarships for children who
    need it. We should invest in the college loan program. We should do
    that. I have sent a budget to the Congress consistent with the balanced
    budget plan that will let a million young people engage in work-study
    programs so they can help to work themselves through college and that
    would give our families a tax deduction for the cost of college tuition
    up to $10,000 a year. I think that's the kind of thing we ought to have.
        So I ask you to think about these challenges that we face. How are
    we going to build stronger families and give every child a childhood?
    How are we going to guarantee quality education to all Americans? How
    are we going to declare or develop a system for economic security for
    working families?
        You know, this is an amazing economy we have. We have more new
    businesses started every year than ever before. The last 3 years, every
    year broke a record. We have more new self-made millionaires than ever
    before; not people who gave them anything, people who used the
    opportunities of this age. But we also have more than half of our wage
    earners working harder without ever getting a raise. And we have in a
    lot of big companies people who got downsized in these corporations who
    now don't know what they're supposed to do, and we have to find things
    for them to do.
        So what we have to do is to find a way consistent with our values to
    keep the economy going, to keep creating more jobs, but to do it in a
    way that enables every American working family to benefit from that,
    consistent with our values. And we know if we grow together that we'll
    all be better off.
        If everybody has a chance, we're all better off. That's the kind of
    thing I want you to think about. Every single challenge, you have to ask
    yourself: What should I be doing about that; what should my community be
    doing about that; can my church, can my synagogue do something about
    that; should my State do something about that; should my Nation do
    something about that, whether it's a challenge for more jobs or safer
    streets or a cleaner environment or working to keep the world more
    peaceful and secure for our children and their future? We have to do
    everything we can to work together. And I'm doing what I can to see that
    this Government continues on its course of reform and does more every
    day to earn your trust and respect.
        But I just want to say this: Did you ever notice how there are no
    cynics in a flood, there are no cynics in a tornado, there are never any
    cynics in a natural disaster? Why? Cynicism is a luxury you cannot
    afford when you have work to do. One of the things I want to say to you
    is that these young people and their enthusiasm today, and those four
    young people doing their service through AmeriCorps, that's what makes
    this country great, the spirit of people like this young man. He could
    have said, ``I'm 19 years old. I've got 60, 70 years to live. I like
    riding my jet ski and winning prizes. Why should I risk my neck putting
    that jet ski in a raging river?'' He could have stayed home, and no one
    would have ever known the difference--no one.
        That is the way we ought to live every day. It really bothers me
    when I hear people say, well, they don't believe in our country, and we
    can't make progress, and everything's not going to get better, and none
    of these people we put in office are any good. That's a bunch of bull.
    And it's a lousy excuse for inaction. It's a lousy excuse for inaction.
        Just remember something. I have one opportunity that none of you can
    ever have unless you get to be President, and it has nothing to do with
    me. Whenever I leave the borders of the United States of America and I
    go to other countries and I see people cheering, they are not cheering
    for Bill Clinton, they are not even cheering for the President, they are
    cheering for America.
        I cannot possibly convey--I don't have the words to tell you what it
    feels like to represent all of you and to be the country in the eyes of
    people from other lands. But I can tell you this: They know we're a
    pretty great place. John Kennedy said once, in the middle of the cold
    war, that freedom has many difficulties and our country was far from
    perfect, but we never had to put up a wall to keep our people in. And I
    want all of you to remember that.
        I believe that the young people at this college are facing the
    greatest future, the greatest age of possibility our country has ever
    known. But every one of us knows that we have enormous challenges. There
    are a lot of people fulfilling their dreams, but we have to make the
    Amer-

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    ican dream available to everybody willing to work for it. There are a
    lot of people who are doing well, but there are still things that are
    dividing our people when we ought to be pulling together and being
    united.
        And when you are tempted to give up on your country or to give up on
    yourself or to give up on your community or to give up on some problem
    you're facing in your family, remember this flood. And remember how
    people just showed up and did what they were supposed to do. Remember
    how courage seemed ordinary and how cynicism was a luxury nobody could
    afford. And if you can recapture that, then your community, your State,
    and your Nation will have a future that is better than anything that has
    happened so far.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:30 p.m. in the gymnasium at King's
    College. In his remarks, he referred to Patrick Murphy, student
    government president, and Rev. James Lackenmier, president, King's
    College.