[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 36 (Monday, September 11, 1995)]
[Pages 1506-1508]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Business Leaders Supporting Goals 2000 
and an Exchange With Reporters

September 6, 1995

    The President. Good afternoon. As you can see, I'm about to have a 
meeting here

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with some distinguished American business executives who support the 
idea that our most important agenda here in Government is to advance the 
cause of education, and they have in particular been good supporters of 
the Goals 2000 program in which 48 of our 50 States are now 
participating and which is the most grassroots-oriented reform program 
the United States Department of Education has ever promoted for 
improving the quality of education through reforms at the State, school 
district, and school level to provide more technology, to raise 
standards, to have smaller classes, to do a whole range of things that 
will make education better.
    There is a way to balance the budget without destroying the Goals 
2000 program. The proposed congressional majority budget would get rid 
of Goals 2000, and it would deprive 44 million students of the 
opportunities that they would otherwise have to be in more grassroots 
reform efforts.
    This Goals 2000 project is the result of the recommendations we've 
gotten over the years from business leaders, as well as educators and, 
frankly, the result of all of the work that Secretary Riley and I did 
for more than a decade in our previous jobs. And I very much hope it can 
be saved, and it is not necessary to balance the budget to back up on 
the education commitment. I think the partnership we've enjoyed, both 
the bipartisan partnership between Republicans and Democrats and the 
partnership between business and government that we've enjoyed in this 
education reform effort should not be destroyed, because it doesn't have 
to be to balance the budget.
    I'd like to ask Mr. Joe Gorman to make a couple of remarks about the 
program and then we'll go on with our meeting.
    Joe?

[At this point, Joseph Gorman, chairman and chief executive officer, 
TRW, Inc., made brief remarks supporting Goals 2000.]

    Q. Mr. President, are you also going to discuss with the CEO's the 
stagnant wages over the last two decades that you always keep talking 
about?
    The President. Every time I talk to business leaders I talk about 
that. But let me just say, as I've said on Labor Day, there are a lot of 
alternative explanations being offered for this, but one of the clear 
lessons not only for our country but for every wealthy country is that 
is we want to continue to raise incomes in a global economy, we have to 
raise the level of education of the work force. We've got to do it.
    There are some other things we can do and that I hope we will do and 
some things they can do and that many of them are doing, but if we don't 
raise the educational level of the American work force and if we don't 
set up a system of real reform for excellence in our public schools and 
then lifetime education afterward, nothing they or we do will achieve 
that goal.
    So I will say again, the purpose of balancing the budget is to 
remove the burden of debt off of our children and grandchildren and to 
free up more capital for private investment so that the economy will 
grow. The purpose of balancing the budget is not to shut the economy 
down by undermining our fundamental commitment to education. So the 
question is, how can we meet both objectives.
    I've presented a plan which does that, there are lots of ways to get 
it done, and that's what I think we're all agreed on, again without 
regard to party.

United Nations Conference on Women

    Q. Have you heard from the First Lady, sir?
    The President. Yeah, I had a nice talk with her. I've talked to her 
twice since she left for China. I talked to her after her speech. I told 
her I thought she had done a great job on the speech. I liked it very 
much, and she seemed very pleased with it, and she said that the women, 
the many thousands of women who were there gave it a very good response.
    We had a very--we had kind of a brief conversation; the connection 
wasn't the greatest because I was in an airplane.
    Q. Was there any concern about the treatment of Secretary Shalala?
    The President. Secretary Shalala spoke for herself on that. I 
thought what she said was just great. She'll do just fine. [Laughter]
    Q. Any public relations----

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    Q. Was there any concern that the First Lady's remarks might have 
any impact on the U.S.-Chinese relations?
    The President. No, I don't think so. You know, she said--what she 
said was what we have both said many, many times on the issues that 
affect China, and much of her speech pertained to conditions in other 
countries, not China, and some of it related to conditions in our 
country as well. So I thought it was a balanced speech. There was no 
attempt to single any country out. She stood up for the rights and the 
potential and against the abuse of women everywhere in the world.
    I thought that's what made the speech powerful, that there was no 
attempt to have a particular political agenda or single any country out. 
It was a very strong speech.
    Q. They know who they are.
    The President. I was proud of her.

Note: The President spoke at 2 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. A tape was not available for verification of the content of these 
remarks.