    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [March 18, 1998]
    [Pages 397-401]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Carpenters Joint Apprenticeship Training Center in
    Las Vegas, Nevada
    March 18, 1998

        The President. Thank you. It's a good thing we've got a 22d
    amendment, or I would run again. Thanks for saying that. Let me begin by
    saying that when Maggie Carlton was talking,
    I leaned over to John Sweeney and I said,
    ``John, I'd give anything if we could just get her speech on television
    tonight. That's the America we're trying to build for everybody.''
        I know that your husband and your daughters were proud of you, but I
    think every working man and woman out here was proud of you for what you
    said and what you represented. Your family is living proof that if we
    reward people for their work, if we enable people to succeed at work and
    at home raising their children, if we give them the chance to be good
    citizens, then America is going to do very well indeed.
        I want to thank the others up here on this platform with me. I want
    to thank John Sweeney for his brilliant,
    energetic leadership of the labor movement. He has been terrific. I want
    to thank Doug McCarron for his
    leadership of the carpenters and his ever-present willingness to let me
    know exactly what he thinks I should be doing on every issue. [Laughter]
    I want to thank Bob Georgine for many
    things, but I want to congratulate him most recently on helping to bring
    about the major labor agreement in Nevada between building and
    construction trade workers, Bechtel, and the Department of Energy, and
    so many other triumphs on behalf of the working people he represents.
    Thank you.
        I am especially indebted to Linda Chavez-Thompson, the executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, for her
    membership on the President's National Advisory Panel on Race in our
    attempt to build an America in the 21st century where we all get along
    and work together across all the racial and ethnic lines that divide us.
        Let me also say I am profoundly grateful to my former colleague and
    longtime friend, Governor Bob Miller; and to
    Mayor Jan Jones who was such a great
    friend of my mother's, as well as a friend of mine, for their personal
    kindness to me, and their leadership here in this great city and State.
    You are very well served, and I know you know that.
        I brought a lot of folks with me today from the administration, but
    three in particular work with the labor movement. I thank the Deputy
    Secretary of Labor, Kitty Higgins, and Maria Echaveste and
    Karen Tramontano coming from the White
    House. They've worked with a lot of you, and they do a lot of work for
    you, whether you know it or not, every day. And I'm very proud of them.
        Now, you know, I took a tour of what goes on here before I came out,
    and I told some of the folks on the tour--I thanked Bill Howard and Paul Sonner, who was the
    instructor in the classroom I visited, and all the people who are in the
    Joint Apprenticeship Training Center today who helped to enlighten me
    about what you're doing. But I told some folks that 30 years ago I
    actually spent a summer building houses, and I decided I didn't want to
    work that hard, which is how come I got into politics. [Laughter] It
    didn't strike me as being any easier now than it was 30 years ago.
    [Laughter]
        But there are a lot of interesting things going on in this program.
    I hope, for example, that just my presence here and the fact that so
    many members of the media came with us will lead

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    people to know that more and more construction is now being done with
    reprocessed steel instead of wood in homes and hotels and other things.
    And that has enormous environmental and energy implications for the
    future, if we can make that work, and that you are being trained to do
    that work.
        I do feel that I learned enough today to go home and build a two-
    bedroom house for Socks and for Buddy, and that's what I intend to do.
    [Laughter] Unfortunately, when I do it, I won't earn the union wage, but
    I will have your knowledge.
        Let me say to all of you that, first, I just want to thank you for
    giving me a chance to be here. You know, every now and then, you just
    have to get out here in the country; it helps the President to remember
    why he ran, what he's trying to do, and for whom he is really working.
    And I have seen all of that here today.
        You here have shown me a model of two-by-fours and teamwork; a model
    for the Nation of cooperation between business and labor; cooperation of
    crafts across generations, adapting old-fashioned values to today's
    workplace. There are just 653 days left in the 20th century; there are
    just 653 days left in this whole millennium. This century will be
    remembered as a time when millions of working men and women fought for
    and won basic freedoms too long denied them: the right to safe
    workplaces; the freedom to organize; the ability to put an end to
    abusive child labor; the right to have health insurance and retirement
    and earn a decent wage for labor. Working families across our country
    gained their voice in the 20th century, and in so doing, they built the
    greatest middle class in human history.
        Now, what will happen in the new century? Well, what will it be
    like; how will it be different? The first thing we know is that things
    will change more and faster for all of you in the new century than it
    did in the old one. The sheer volume of knowledge is changing--is
    doubling, doubling, every 5 years. When I became President there were 50
    websites on the Internet--50--5, 0. Now, 65,000 are being added every
    hour. So your life is going to go by at a faster pace.
        The second thing you know is that it will be more global. We will be
    in a global economy, but we will also be in an increasingly global
    society. If you doubt that, just look around the room here. If we had
    had this meeting 10 years ago----

    [At this point, a member of the audience interrupted the President.]

        Audience member. Shut up!
        The President. Couldn't have said it better myself. You ought to run
    for office. [Laughter]
        Now look around; if we had had this meeting 10 years ago, think how
    differently this crowd would have looked. So the world is changing. The
    way we work, the way we live, the way we relate to each other. What will
    happen in this new century? What will happen if technology dominates
    more? We won't run out of work; we'll have different kind of work. The
    unemployment rate today is very low, but there are almost 400,000
    vacancies in America in computer-related jobs. So we know that things
    will change more and we'll have to educate and train more. And even old
    jobs will be done in new ways.
        But we also know that, if we do it right, we've got a chance finally
    to include all working people in the American middle class. We've got a
    chance to bring dignity to the lives of all people. We've got a chance
    to give every child the chance to live up to his or her God-given
    abilities. In short, we've got a chance to bring the American dream home
    to everybody who will work for it. And we ought to seize that chance.
        That's the American dream that the employees of Frontier Hotel spent
    6 years, 4 months, and 10 days fighting to achieve. And this is
    important. But maybe even more important, it's the American dream that I
    learned again today up in that classroom I just visited. It's the
    American dream that I learned again today that union members want for
    all working families.
        I see it in Washington. John Sweeney has
    a relatively small percentage of the membership of the AFL-CIO that will
    get a direct benefit when we raise the minimum wage again. But he works
    for it just as hard as if 100 percent of his members were going to be
    benefited by it, because he knows it's the right thing to do.
        And today, when I was in that classroom upstairs, you know what the
    students were learning in the classroom? They were learning about how
    much of their base pay is in fringe benefits--what's retirement, what's
    health care, what's continuing education, what does all this money

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    go for? And they asked me questions about Social Security and how we
    were going to make sure that private pensions were secure. And I talked
    to them about what we've been doing on that the last 5 years.
        And they asked about health care and how working families got along
    that didn't have any health insurance, and why we didn't have health
    insurance for every single working family. And I said, ``If it had been
    up to me and the AFL-CIO, every working family would have health
    insurance today, and we ought to see it.'' I only wish my wife could
    have been upstairs to hear that conversation about health care.
        And they asked me about how people got along who didn't make as much
    per hour as they earned in fringe benefits alone. One young man said,
    ``There are people building houses in other places who don't make as
    much per hour as we get in fringe benefits. How do they get along?'' And
    so we talked about how we try to help them with the family and medical
    leave, how we tried to help them with different changes in the health
    insurance laws, and how we tried to help them with changes in retirement
    systems.
        But I asked that group of young people when I left, I said, ``I just
    hope you'll never forget this, because we've got to make sure every
    family can succeed at home and at work, and as long as people like you
    care about people who aren't making as much per hour as you get in
    fringe benefits, we'll keep making it better for them.'' And I hope all
    of you will always feel that way.
        Now, let me just say very quickly, I want to talk to you about
    what's going on in Washington that will affect your future and ask you
    for your help. These are good times for the country. We're going to have
    the first balanced budget in 30 years. And 15 million new jobs in 5
    years, the lowest unemployment in 24 years, the lowest crime rate in 24
    years, the lowest welfare rolls in 27 years, the lowest inflation in 30
    years, and the highest homeownership in the history of the United States
    of America. That's the time we're living in.
        But what I want to say to you is, you don't have to be a carpenter
    to know that you don't fix the roof when it's raining. You fix the roof
    when the sun is shining. The sun is shining on America. But as long as
    there are people who don't have jobs, as long as there are people who
    can't make a decent living, as long as we don't have a system which
    guarantees lifetime high quality educational opportunities, like I saw
    there today, to all working families, the roof of America's house is not
    as strong as it ought to be.
        So what I came here today to tell you today is, this is a great
    time, but let me say again, it is changing fast. And we have to think
    about the challenges that all of you are going to face 5 years from now,
    10 years from now; what will your children face 15 and 20 years from
    now? And we have to do those things today, while we have the confidence
    and the strength and the prosperity to do them, that will secure the
    future of our children tomorrow in a new century.
        One of the main reasons I wanted to be here today is that I think
    all of you know instinctively that the most important thing we can do,
    in a world where the volume of knowledge is doubling every 5 years, is
    to give every person a world-class education and every adult access to
    education and training for a lifetime.
        Now, we've made a lot of progress in the last 5 years. When we
    started on--the Vice President and I started to try to hook up all the
    classrooms and libraries in the country to the Internet by 2000. We
    started in '94; only 34 percent of our schools were hooked up. Today, 75
    percent are. We're doing better. We've got 900 colleges out there with
    young people earning work-study funds by going into our grade schools
    and teaching our kids to read, to make sure everybody can read
    independently by the end of the third grade. That's important.
        And perhaps most important to all of you with children, we can
    literally say now--this is what we've done in the last year: We passed a
    $1,500 tax credit for the first 2 years of college; tax credits for
    junior year, senior year, graduate school; adults going back for further
    job training; an IRA you can put money into, withdraw from for your
    kid's education with no tax penalty; tax deductions for interest on
    student loans; 300,000 more work-study positions. People can go through
    our national service program, AmeriCorps, and earn money to go to
    college. We can literally say now because of the changes we've made in
    loans, in scholarships, and tax breaks, we have opened the doors of
    college in America to everybody who's willing to work for a college
    education. That will revolutionize their future.

    [[Page 400]]

        But let's be candid with one another. Everybody with an informed
    opinion knows that America has the best system of colleges and
    universities in the world. There are literally 300, maybe 400--maybe
    more--places you can go and get a world-class undergraduate education in
    this country. But no one thinks we have the best elementary and
    secondary education in the world. Now, we have a lot of great teachers;
    we have a lot of great schools; our students are just as smart as
    anybody anywhere. But nobody thinks it's the best in the world. One of
    the reasons is we have a very diverse student body; we have local
    control of the schools; we have three different sources of funding from
    the State, Federal, and local government; and we don't have any national
    standards of what people should know or measurements of it.
        So I think we need more grassroots reform, but we ought to have
    national standards and voluntary national exams. We ought to spend more
    money to give smaller classes. We ought to make sure that in these
    places where they're overflowing with students and the school buildings
    are old and breaking down or the kids are out in housetrailers, they're
    in decent classrooms.
        And I have offered a plan this year to hire 100,000 more teachers to
    take class size in the first 3 grades down to an average of 18 students
    per class; to make child care of higher quality and more affordable; to
    help schools stay open after instruction hours are over because most
    kids get in trouble after school closes down and before their parents
    get home from work; to rehabilitate or build 5,000 new schools in the
    country; and also to provide greater health and retirement security to
    people who have put a lifetime of work in.
        Now, these are very important things. We have a balanced budget now;
    we can afford to do these things. But there are some troubling signals
    coming out of Washington that the Republican budget may not embody this
    commitment to education and our future. The budget they're talking about
    does meet my goal of achieving a balance and not spending any of the
    surplus until we fix Social Security. But it shortchanges our Nation's
    future. We're not fixing the roof for the 21st century, because from
    Head Start for young children to Pell grants, from job training for
    older workers, our commitment to education is under fire.
        I need your help. This ought not to be a partisan political issue. I
    can remember a time when, on education, both parties were foursquare for
    investing in the future of our country if we had the money. I'm telling
    you, we've got the money; it's time to invest in the future of our
    country and education.
        And if the Republican budget says no to new teachers and smaller
    classes, no to modernizing our schools, no to investing in higher
    standards for our children, the American people should say no to that
    budget. Give us a budget that will prepare our children for the 21st
    century.
        There are a lot of other things that I'd like to ask you to help me
    with, and I won't bore you with all of them, but just let me mention a
    few. We've got people in this country between the ages of 55 and 65 who
    worked hard all their lives and have lost their health insurance, and
    they're not old enough to get Medicare. And generally, they're in three
    categories. They are people who are married to folks who are old enough
    to be on Medicare, and so when their spouse got on Medicare the family
    lost their health insurance and the younger spouse has no health care
    and can't afford to buy any.
        They are people who lost their jobs, and they're over 55, and they
    can't afford just a single person's health insurance. They're people who
    took voluntary early retirement who are over 55, who were promised by
    their employers they would have health insurance and then the promise
    was broken. I think we ought to let those people and their families--
    help them to buy into Medicare at cost. It will not hurt you; it will
    not hurt Medicare; it will help hundreds of thousands of people.
        Two years ago, we raised the minimum wage, and it was a good thing.
    And 2 years ago when we raised the minimum wage, people said, ``Oh, this
    is terrible. It will bring on inflation, and it will slow down job
    growth.'' And in the 2 years since we raised the minimum wage, inflation
    has gone down, and job growth has gone up. It's good for America to pay
    people at a decent wage.
        The minimum wage in real dollar terms is still lower than it was 20
    years ago; it's still lower than it was 20 years ago. With our economy
    as strong as it is, with job growth as good as it is, we can afford to
    increase the minimum wage by a dollar over the next 2 years, and I think
    it's the right thing to do.

    [[Page 401]]

        I also want you to know that we have to continue in Washington to
    fight for the right to organize and to function in a union that will
    permit you to have a life you enjoy. We know that workers in unions
    typically have not only higher pay, but have access to higher skills,
    better continuing education, which is good for the rest of the country.
    You make the rest of us stronger as you learn more new things and do
    more new things and continue to push us in the future. There is a bill
    now in Congress that would let businesses fire or refuse to hire union
    organizers. If it passes, I'll veto it. But you ought to help me do this
    in the first place. [Applause]
        But let me say--I thank you for that cheer. But what you really want
    is to never even have to think about cheering for something like that
    again. Because what really works--what really works is when we all work
    together. You can help management make a bigger profit. You can help the
    owners of every enterprise earn more money. You can make the private
    sector stronger and help create more jobs if we will cooperate in a
    spirit that says we have to reaffirm the dignity of the people who work
    for us day-in and day-out. They ought to be able to raise their children
    in dignity. They ought to be able to educate their children. They ought
    to be able to know that when their kids get sick they can go to the
    doctor. They ought to be able to know that when they come of age, they
    can go on to college. We ought to live in the kind of country that says
    we are going to make the future better for our children, and we are
    going to honor our parents.
        On my wall in my private office on the second floor of the White
    House, I have a letter written before I was born to my aunt in Texas by
    the man who was then the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sam
    Rayburn--legendary Speaker of the House of Representatives from Texas.
    And he wrote my aunt a letter when my father was killed in a car wreck.
    My aunt gave me that letter last year, 50 years later. But I see that
    letter all the time, and it reminds me not only of my family ties but of
    Sam Rayburn and the kind of leadership he gave to our country. Sam
    Rayburn said something about politics that all of you especially should
    always remember. He said, ``Any old mule can kick a barn down. It takes
    a carpenter to build one.'' And what I'm trying to do is to hold down
    the barn kickers--[laughter]--and lift up the builders. I want you to be
    with me.
        Thank you. Bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:35 p.m. in the training center shop
    area. In his remarks, he referred to Maggie Carlton, member, Culinary
    Workers Union Local 226, who introduced the President; John J. Sweeney,
    president, Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice president, and Robert
    Georgine, Building and Construction Trades Department president, AFL-
    CIO; Douglas J. McCarron, general president, United Brotherhood of
    Carpenters and Joiners of America; Gov. Bob Miller of Nevada; Mayor Jan
    Laverty Jones of Las Vegas; and Bill Howard, apprenticeship coordinator,
    and Paul Sonner, instructor, Carpenters Joint Apprenticeship Training
    Center.