Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/wh930511.zip/5-11B.TXT

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From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:[e-mail]  Tue May 11 20:14:54 1993
Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 15:51-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail],
Subject: President's REmarks at Fenton High School  May 11th, 1993

                         THE WHITE HOUSE

                  Office of the Press Secretary
                     (Bensonville, Illinois)
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                           May 11, 1993


                     REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                   TO THE STUDENTS AND FACULTY

                        Fenton High School
                      Bensonville, Illinois

9:55 A.M. CDT

         THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much, Brian.  Thank
you, Dr. Meredith.  And thank you, ladies and gentlemen.  I'm
glad to be here at this fine high school.  I should also note
before I begin that there is -- one of many reasons that I
decided to come here is that this high school is the alma mater
of an important member of my White House staff, Kevin O'Keefe,
who graduated from Fenton High School.  (Applause.)  Where are
you?  Where's Kevin?  He didn't have that gray hair when he was
here.  (Applause.)

         I met, in addition to your principal and your
superintendent, I met Charlotte Sonnenfeld on the way in here,
who said she was a teacher of Kevin O'Keefe, but was not
responsible for him in any way.  (Laughter.)

         I also want to thank a number of other people who
are here, including several members of Congress over here to my
left -- Bobby Rush, Luis Guttierrez, Cardis Collins, and George
Sangmeister.  I think they're all here.  And I want to thank
Richard Dent of the Chicago Bears for coming.  Stand up, Richard.
(Applause.)

         I also want to -- is Michael Cruz over there?  Is he
here?  No?  Where is he?  Here he is.  Come here.  This young man
was on the President's Town Hall Meeting with Students.  Did any
of you see it -- when I was -- did you see that?  And he became a
television star because he is a good student, he goes to school
in Chicago, and he said he was worried about the safety of the
schools and the streets.  And he asked the President to try to
make all the schools safe for students in every part of America,
no matter how tough the neighborhoods were.  And I was really
proud of him, so I invited him to come here today.  I think you
ought to give him a hand.  (Applause.)

         I know we've got students from other schools here.
Where are you, all the students from the other schools that are
here?

         AUDIENCE:  Booo.

         THE PRESIDENT:  Hey, hey.  (Laughter.)  No, no,
today's the day when you're supposed to welcome them here.
(Laughter and applause.)

         I want to say how very glad I am to be back in
Illinois where I met so many people who shaped the thoughts and
the feelings that I carried into the presidential campaign last
year.  People who asked me to fight for their families and the
future of their children, to help to fix our economy, to create
more jobs, to bring the terrible budget deficit down, to deal
with the health care and education challenges facing America.

         A lot of what I learned in that campaign last year I
learned from talking to people on the streets in the cities and
towns of Illinois, and I'm glad to be back.

         This week, some of the members of Congress whom I
hoped would be here are in Washington working on things of
importance to you.  Your two United States Senators, Paul Simon
and Carol Moseley Brown, are in the Senate today because they're
going to vote on the motor voter bill, which will make it easier
for young people to register and vote -- an issue that's been a
big issue for MTV and all the MTV watchers in the country who
want to make young people a bigger part of the political process.
(Applause.)

         And Congressman Rostenkowski and the other members
of his committee are back in Washington, working on a plan that
will help to bring the budget deficit down by over $500 billion
over the next five years, so that you can grow up in an America
that is not paralyzed by a crushing debt, as we have seen in the
last 12 years.

         But I don't want to talk just about those issues
today, I also want to talk about tomorrow, about your tomorrows
and about what it will take for you to make the most of the IN
future all of us who have already been in your place and school
are trying to make.

         I've spent a lot of my time in Washington, in fact,
most of my time, working on the economy and the health care
crises today.  Because I know that unless we can bring the
deficit down and invest in jobs and technology and building a
strong economy, America can't be what it ought to be.  And I
believe that unless we attack the problems of health care
security and coverage and the enormous contribution  that health
care costs are making to the financial problems of this country,
we can never restore real security to the American family, or
strength to the American economy, or reduce the terrible deficit
of this government so that we can bring our budget into balance.
So that's what I spend my time doing.

         But I also know that no matter what we do on these
issues, unless each and every one of you is a productive, well-
educated, well-trained citizen able to take advantage of the
opportunities of the world you will live in, but also able to
meet the highly competitive challenges of people from all over
the world who will be struggling for many of the same
opportunities that you want, that nothing I can do will change
your individual lives.  You have to do that.  And that's why the
provision of excellence in education and real educational
opportunities are so important.

         Those of you who have been able to go to this school
or the other schools here represented can leave your high school
with the confidence that you've had the opportunity to get a good
education.  But you should know that in the world you're living
in, the average young American moving into the work force will
change work seven or eight times in a lifetime.  And more than
ever before in the history of the country, what you are able to
do in your work life, what you are able to earn, will be directly
related not just to what you know today, but what you can learn
tomorrow.

         In the last -- yes, you can clap for that.  That's a
pretty good idea.  Thanks.  (Applause.)

         Now, in the last 12 years, there has been a dramatic
difference -- a widening, growing out between the earnings of
young people who have at least two years of good education after
high school in a community college, a good training program, or a
four year college degree, and young people who drop out of high
school or only finished high school.  The evidence is -- the
clear evidence is that in the world in which you will live, you
will need not only to make a personal commitment to learning and
relearning throughout your lifetime, but to getting at least --at
least -- two years of education beyond high school and hopefully
more.

         Now, more and more people have got this figured out.
College enrollments have grown up, explosive enrollment increases
at two-year community colleges and technical schools have been
seen -- young people have figured that out.  But there are still
some problems with it, one of which is purely financial.  The
college dropout rate is more than twice the high school dropout
rate, and one big reason is, a lot of people cannot afford to go,
or, having gone, cannot afford to stay.

         How many of you want to go on to some form of
further education when you get out of high school?  Raise your
hand.  (Applause.)  How many of you think you're going to need to
borrow some money or get a scholarship or have some financial
help to do it?  Raise your hand.  (Applause.)  I think it's nice
that you can be enthusiastic about that.  (Laughter.)

         You know, last year in Illinois alone, almost
180,000 educational loans were made.  Five million educational
loans were made in America last year.  Higher education is really
important.  It's important to you economically.  It's important
for reasons far more important than that, even.  It promotes
personal growth and gets you in contact with things that have
happened in the past, and ties you into this great civilization
of ours.  But it's all academic, to use an appropriate word, if
you can't afford to go and stay.

         Interestingly enough, the cost of a college
education is perhaps the only essential in a family's spending
patterns that has gone up more rapidly than health care in the
last 10 years.  And that's one big reason that the college
dropout rate has increased.  More and more young people have to
deal with this.

         On the average, in the country as a whole, tuition
fees and room and board cost $5,240 a year at public institutions
of higher education, and $13,237 at private schools.  The cost of
these educations has gone up 126 percent in the last 10 years.
That means that a lot of people who try to borrow money drop out
and then can't repay the debt; others borrow the money and leave
college with massive debts and don't know how to repay them.
Still, others might prefer when they graduate to be a teacher,
for example, but they're afraid they can't meet their loan
repayment schedule.  They might wish to be a law enforcement
officer, or a police officer; they're afraid they can't meet
their loan repayment schedule.

         That's a bad case of the tail wagging the dog.
People actually deciding what to do with their lives based on the
crushing burden of debt they have to get an education, the
purpose of which was to be free to choose to do whatever you want
to do with your life.  We can do better than that.

         One of the reasons that I ran for President is that
I wanted to change that because I know no economic policy, no
health care policy, no reduction in the deficit can change what
is in your mind and whether you are able to do well in the world
that you will live in.  You have to do that.  But my generation
owes it to you to give you the chance to be able to afford to get
a good college education, to go and to stay.  (Applause.)

         A couple of weeks ago I unveiled a plan to do that
based on four simple principals:  First, we ought to lower the
interest rates on the college loans that you borrow from -- that
you make.  (Applause.)  I don't know how many seniors here have
already looked into college loans, but if you want a college loan
that's guaranteed by the federal government, there's a lot of
paperwork involved and a lot of hassle.  That's because there are
a lot of extra costs in there, from middle men, from banks and
from corporations, who profit from the current loan program.

         Your Senator, Paul Simon, was the first person who
ever came to me well over a year ago to say that we ought to make
loans directly to students from the United States government in a
financially secure way so that we could cut out paperwork, cut
out all the time it takes to apply for them, and eliminate excess
profits from middle men.  Every student borrower can enjoy a
lower rate if we do this.  And if we adopt the plan that I have
basically developed in cooperation with Senator Simon and others,
we can save the American taxpayers $4 billion over the next five
years, and make loans available to you at cheaper rates.  I'd say
that's a pretty good idea.  (Applause.)

         The second thing we have to do is make it easier for
students to pay the loan back.  Today, the loan repayment
obligation is directly related to how much you borrow -- whether
you have a job or whatever your job pays.  What I want to do is
to give every American young person who borrows money to get a
two-year or a four-year education after high school the option of
paying the money back based on how much you make, so that you can
never be saddled with a debt burden greater than a certain
percentage of your income.  That way, there will never be an
incentive not to be a teacher, not to be a police officer, not to
work with kids in trouble, not to do whatever you want to do.
You will be able to pay your loan back because it will be a
percentage of your income.  Regardless of how much you borrowed,
we'll work it out so that the monthly payment is never too
burdensome.  That means nobody will be able to say they can't
afford a college loan.  (Applause.)

         The third thing we want to do is to give tens of
thousands of you the chance to earn credit against these loans
before you go to college or while you're in college, or to work
them off after you get out of college, not by paying them off,
but by serving your country in a community service program --
working with the elderly, working with other kids, working with
housing programs, working with things that need to be done in the
neighborhood or in nearby neighborhoods.  Or if you do it after
you get out of college, working as teachers or police officers or
in other needed areas in underserved communities in America.
Just think of it.  We could have tens of thousands of people who
could pay off their loans entirely by giving a year or two of
their lives to making their countries and their communities
better.  (Applause.)

         Finally -- this is the one kicker -- I hope you will
clap for this, too, because it's important.  (Applause.)  Wait
until you hear it.  (Laughter.)  A lot of people don't pay off
their college loans at all.  There is an unbelievable default
rate.  We lose about $3 billion a year from people who don't pay
their loans back.  Now, there's a reason for that, and I'll
explain it more later.  But one of the things we do, if we're
going to loan you the money directly, we're going to collect the
money directly, too, involving the tax records at tax time so you
can't beat the bill.  People who borrow money, once you make it
possible for them to repay it, should not be able to welch on the
loans.  That undermines the ability of children coming along
behind you to borrow the money.  People ought to have to pay the
loans back if we make it possible for them to do it.  Everybody
ought to have to do that.  (Applause.)

         Now, this will make it possible for millions of
young people to borrow money to go to college.  I don't propose
to weaken the Pell Grant programs and the other scholarship
programs; we want to keep strengthening them.  But this will make
it possible for millions of people to borrow money, never have to
worry about whether they'll be able to pay it back.  You won't
have to pay it back until you go to work.  When you do go to
work, you can pay it back as a small percentage of your income.
You will have to pay it back, and will do it all at lower cost.
This will open the doors of college education to millions of
Americans.  (Applause.)

         Now, you might ask yourself:  Well, if it's that
simple, why is this man here talking to me about it?  Why don't
you just go do it?  Here's why.  A lot of people are doing well
with the present system.  They're making a lot of money out of
the present system.  There are 7,800 lenders today, people making
the student loans.  There are 46 different agencies that
guarantee these loans against failure.  Then, there are all these
people who service the loans and who buy the loans in big
packages in ways that you couldn't even begin to understand,
probably, but they're all making good money in ways that you
couldn't even begin to understand probably, but they're all
making good money out of the present system.  It's confusing and
it's costly, and the more money that goes to other things, the
less money that's available to provide low cost loans to the
students of America.

         Typically, the student takes out a loan from a bank
and then the bank takes the note that you sign when you get the
loan and sells it to a corporation.  The corporation then makes a
profit by packaging the loan to someone else.  And the loan is
ultimately guaranteed by whom?  All of us, the American
taxpayers.  So nobody can lose any money on it.  Now, the biggest
middle man in the whole thing is called Sallie Mae, the Student
National -- the Student Loan Marketing Association.  Last year,
lenders made a total profit of $1 billion on student loans.
Sallie Mae made $394 million.  And between 1986 and 1991 --listen
to this -- this is a group that helps us get student loans,
right, which should not be a big profit-making operation -- the
costs of this corporation went down by 21 percent and its profits
went up by 172 percent.  But you didn't get the benefits of it;
someone else did.

         Interestingly enough, banks make more profits and
more guaranteed profits on student loans than on car loans or
mortgages, but there's no risk.  They don't have to worry if the
student doesn't pay back the loan.  Why?  Because the government
will send them 90 cents on the dollar.  And as all of you know if
you follow this at all, there's not much incentive for a bank to
come recover the loan because it costs more than 10 percent of
the loan to hire a lawyer and go through a lawsuit and file all
the papers and do all that.  So every year, the government just
writes a lot of checks to people for the loans that students
don't repay.  The taxpayers foot the bill and that's all money
that we can't spend loaning money to you and people like you to
go to college.

         The system is not very good.  The lenders do well,
but the people who need to borrow the money for a college
education are hurt as a result.  And the taxpayers get hit coming
and going.  Not enough money made available for student loans,
too much money going out to increase the deficit by paying off
loans that never get repaid.

         So, you might say, why don't we change this?
Because in the system we have, the people that are making plenty
of money out of the present system will fight it.  And they will
hire lobbyists who make their money by trying to influence the
Congress.

         No sooner had I even mentioned changing this system
than Congress was deluged with lobbyists.  The biggest
organization, Sallie Mae alone, supposed to be in the business of
helping you to get money to go to college, has already hired
seven of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington to try to stop
this process from changing.

         Now, there are a lot of people in Washington who
want to keep the status quo.  A lot of people don't want to lower
the deficit, either.  How did we get such a big national debt?
How did the debt go from $1 trillion in 1980 to $4 trillion in
1992?  Because we cut --

         AUDIENCE:  Republicans.

         THE PRESIDENT:  No, because we did what was popular.
It wasn't just the Republicans; they had the White House -- but
let's be fair.  Because how do you run up a big deficit?  How do
you run up a big deficit?  The President proposes and the
Congress disposes, and it was -- it's popular in the short run to
cut taxes and increase spending, right?  I mean, that's popular.
It's easy.  I'll cut your taxes and send you a check.  That's
good, right?  The problem is, is that at some point you run up
debt after debt after debt after debt.

         So what am I trying to do?  What's not popular?  I'm
trying to cut spending and increase taxes -- mostly on very
wealthy Americans, but not entirely.  Because we all have to try
to recover our financial future.  And I'm trying to do it in a
way that preserves some money to invest in your education  and
new technologies for your jobs.  But there are a lot of people
who are making money out of a system that cuts taxes and
increases spending, and it's not very popular to raise the money
and cut the spending.  That's the way it is here.  There are a
lot of people who are doing very well out of this system.

         Now, why am I telling you this?  Because it is your
future on the line, and if you would like to have a system in
which it is easier to borrow money to go to college, two or four
years, and which it will be easier to pay it back, and in which
more of your tax money will be spent to benefit you and your
education and your future, then you need to tell your members of
Congress, without regard to their political party, that you would
like to have a better future, and this is a change that you want
made.  (Applause.)

         This country is a very great country.  It has been
around for more than 200 years because every time we had to make
real changes, we did it.  Now the challenges we face are very
much within our borders.  It really bothers me that there are so
many kids every year who are lost to the future as well as to
themselves because of crime and drugs.  It really bothers me that
so many people drop out of college and don't get the future that
they ought to have just because of the money involved.  It
bothers me that we spend so much more than any other country in
the world on health care, but we don't provide health coverage to
all our people.  And all the other advanced countries do.  And it
bothers me that we're not creating jobs for you, but we're piling
up debt for your future.

         And I believe we can do better.  But we can only do
it if we'll tell each other the truth, keep our eyes wide open,
and if you will say, hey, it is my future.  Look, I've lived most
of my life.  Unless I beat the odds and live to be 94, I've lived
half my life -- or 92.  I can't even add anymore.  (Laughter.)
I've lived more than half my life unless I live to be 92 years
old.  It is your life that's on the line.  It is your future
that's on the line.  And our job now is to open it up for you and
to face the problems of this time so that you have the same
chance to live the American Dream that your forebears did.  That
is our job, and you can help us do it.  (Applause.)

         Again, let me say, I thank you for letting me come
here.  I look forward to answering your questions.  But when I'm
gone, if you don't remember anything else I said, just remember
this:  There's a plan in Washington to provide more student loans
at a more affordable rate so that more people can go to college
and stay, but we have to have the courage to change to adopt it.

         Thank you very much.  (Applause.)

         Q      Thank you, President Clinton.  We understand
that you have some time where you could answer some questions
from our students.  So if you'd have a seat ladies and gentlemen
and raise your hand, we'll begin by asking you some questions.

         Yes?

         Q      I am wondering what the government is doing
about the families that are defaulting on the student loans.

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we try to collect it.  But the
problem now is that very often the people who don't pay are
unemployed, or very often the people who don't pay -- there's
another problem with this, by the way -- are people who got
educations from trade schools that couldn't deliver what they
promised.  That is, they said we'll train you and you'll be able
to get a good job and you'll be able to get a high salary.  And a
lot of these schools have been able to rip off this system for
years because they could -- they would get all their kids into
these programs through student loans, and then they didn't have
to worry about whether they finished the program or got jobs,
because they already had the student loan money.

         So what we're trying to do is, number one, be
tougher with the schools.  If they're not good schools and
they're not really educating the students so the students can
repay the loans, we're trying to stop those schools from being
eligible for it.  Number two, we're looking at ways to toughen up
the enforcement.

         But look at -- here's the way -- I want to change it
so we can collect from almost everybody.  If I said to you, look,
I'll give you a loan and you don't have to repay it until you
actually get a job so you're earning money.  And then you may
borrow -- let's say you borrow $5,000 and she borrows $10,000 and
she borrows $20,000 and you all take jobs earning $30,000 a year,
right?  The people who borrowed more money would be given the
option of paying that loan back as a limited percentage of their
income, even though it would take them longer to pay it back.  At
least they would be able to make the payments and they wouldn't
be defaulting.  And then if they didn't pay it back, we would
know that they didn't because the government would have the
records, and we would enforce it just like we enforce taxes.
In other words, you couldn't beat the bill.  If you had a job and
you had an income, you would have to pay it back.

         But right now, we get the worst of all worlds.  We
let somebody else make the loan, and we tell them if it's not
paid back, we'll pay 90 percent of the loan, and then after all
the time goes by, we've got to figure out how to collect it.  So
we're doing better, but we can do much, much better if we clean
out a lot of the system that's there and go at it directly.

         Q      Going back to that point you made before about
drugs, I was wondering which direction the national drug policy
is going, whether you want to support more law enforcement in
getting drugs off the streets, or if you're going to move more
towards rehabilitation and education?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I don't think you can do one
without the other.  But let me say I believe we need to increase
the emphasis on education, prevention and rehabilitation because
we know that's what works.  That is, for several years in the
1980s, drug use went down among most groups of young people,
largely because they figured out it would kill them.  In other
words, people decided to change their behavior from the inside
out.

         Now, that does not -- you can't sacrifice law
enforcement to that.  I think we should do two other things.  Let
me just run it out real quickly.  The second thing we should do
is to adopt law enforcement strategies that will reinforce people
taking responsibility for themselves and increase the likelihood
that they will move off drugs or out of the drug culture.  I'll
just give you two examples.

         One is community policing.  Thirty-five years ago
there were three policemen on the street in America for every
crime committed.  Today, there are three crimes for every
policeman.  It's very hard, therefore, to have enough police to
walk the streets, to know the neighbors, to know the kids, and to
be a force for preventing crime.  Where that has happened, it has
worked.

         The man I named to be the drug czar in our
administration, Lee Brown, was the police chief in Atlanta,
Houston, and New York City.  And when he left New York, in the
areas where they had put in police -- community policing, the
crime rate was going down in some of those neighborhoods for the
first time in 30 years there had been a reversal in the crime
rate.  So I think you have to do that.

         And the final thing I want to say is we still have a
big stake in working with our friends and allies in other
countries to try to stop drugs from coming into this country.
And we are in the process now of reexamining whether there's
anything else we can do to reduce the flow of drugs into the
country.  But I'll tell you one thing, if we all decided we'd
stop taking them, the flow would dry up because there wouldn't be
any demand.  So we've got to -- we can't just worry about blaming
people from outside.  (Applause.)

         Go ahead.  Where's the microphone?  Yes?

         Q      A big issue that has been in the newspaper and
on the news is military cutbacks.  What I'm curious about is that
-- what is being cut back in bases, arms, manpower.  My curiosity
is because I've enlisted in the U.S. Army.  And is it going to
effect my future if I decide to become -- I mean, use it as a
career and go my 20 years or anything like that.  Will it affect
me?

         THE PRESIDENT:  Can you all hear his question?  He
said he was concerned -- I'll repeat the question.  He said he
was concerned about military cutbacks.  He wants to know what the
nature of the cutbacks are, how far they will go.  He's enlisted
in the Army.  Will that undermine his ability to make the Army a
career because of the cutbacks.

         Let me say, first of all, you know why the cutbacks
are occurring.  The cutbacks are occurring because an enormous
percentage of our military force was directed against the Soviet
Union and it no longer exists.  A lot of our nuclear arsenal was
because they had a big nuclear arsenal and we were positioned
against them and we had planes and ships supporting that, as well
as people on the ground with land-based missiles.  A lot of our
military forces were positioned against their -- all the troops
they used to have in Eastern Europe, which have been withdrawn,
and the military positioning they had around the world.  So we
have been able to -- in fact, we've been obligated to reduce
defense spending, starting in about '86 or '87 because of the
receding nature of the threat.  And that's good on the whole.

         Now, the world is still a pretty dangerous place,
and the United States is still the only comprehensive military
power.  And we have to be careful how we reduce that defense
spending and how much we do it.

         Right now, we're basically doing -- we're doing it
across the board in three areas:  We're reducing military
personnel with the view toward going down to a base force of
about 1.4 million over the next five years, down from over 2.5
million just a few years ago.  So that's a lot of people that
have been mustered out, including all volunteers, people who
wanted to serve their country, many of whom would like to have
stayed longer.

         So the answer to your question is, if we have a
smaller base force, it will be more competitive to get into and
to stay in the Armed Forces.  The recruitment has already been
scaled back.  So if you've been recruited and if you're going in
under the new, smaller recruitment quotas, you'll probably have a
reasonable chance to stay in a good, long while if you choose to
do it.  But not so many good young people will.  In that way,
it's kind of sad, because the military has done a magnificent job
of training and educating people, of inculcating them with good
values and good work habits as well as good education.  So that's
one of the -- kind of the down sides.

         The second thing we're doing is closing bases, and
that's very unpopular.  But you can't just cut the forces and not
close the bases.  And the third thing we've had to do is to cut
back on a number of weapons procurements, which cost jobs in the
defense industry.

         So, on balance, this has been a good thing, but I
want you to understand there are some bad consequences to it.
And one of the struggles   that I expect to have constantly for
the next four years is to try to convince people in the Congress
that as we cut defense we need to be reinvesting that money in
education and technology in America to create jobs to replace
those lost in defense.  (Applause.)  And thank you for being
willing to serve your country.  (Applause.)

         Q      Mr. President, I think the American people have
become increasingly disenchanted with the lack of progress in our
government.  How are you going to convince the American people
and all the members of Congress that your programs are good ones
and how are you going to break the filibusters that have been --

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we've only had one -- we've
broke them all but one.  Keep in mind that I've just been there
100 days and I had 12 years of a different direction before I
took office.  It's hard to turn it around in 100 days.  I'm
actually quite optimistic.

         The Congress passed the outline of the budget I
presented which, as I explained earlier, is a very tough thing,
you know, to bring the deficit down, in a record time.  The first
time in 17 years under Democrats and Republican presidents the
Congress had every passed the budget resolution within the time
limit.  So I think we're moving fairly rapidly.

         We passed -- just shortly after I took office,
Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act, guaranteeing
people the right to take a little time off from work when they
have a sick child or a sick parent or a baby is born without
losing their jobs.  That had gone through eight years of fights
and two vetoes.  The Congress is trying to pass today this motor
voter bill, which would really open up the political process to
millions of Americans.  So I think we are making progress.

         Now, let me also tell you that some of this stuff is
really hard.  I mean the reasons that these things have not been
done before is that we've done easy things for 12 years.  What
I'm asking the Congress to do are things that are really hard and
it may take a while to do it.  But I'm not prepared to say at the
moment anyway that we've lost the battle to gridlock.  I do think
-- I don't agree with the minority of senators who filibustered
the jobs bill.  But that was not just a political battle, that
was an idea battle.  A lot of them thought that we shouldn't
spend any money on anything until we pass the overall budget
which reduces the deficit, even though I knew we were going to.

         My view was, we're going to pass this budget, we're
going to reduce the deficit and we've got to get some jobs in
this economy.  So that was an issue I didn't win on.  I'm not
going to win every issue I'm fighting.  But I believe that we
have a real chance to make this government work, and I'm
basically quite optimistic a  bout it.

         The one thing I would urge you not to do, any of
you, is to put too much faith in just the day-to-day development
of the news.  You have to take a long-term view of this.  And
we've had this health care problem for a long time.  We've had
this economic problem for a long time.  And in just a very short
time we've been able to put these issues back on the national
agenda and move them forward.  So I think -- I just would urge
you to -- what you need to do is to remind everybody you can
remind -- if you want to know what you can do and what the
American people can do, it's to try to make everybody think in a
less partisan way, not worry about the fights between Republicans
and Democrats, and think more every day about what are the
problems of this country?  And if you don't like what President
Clinton said, what's your alternative?

         In other words, let's just keep moving the ball
forward.  What I try to do is to put these problems high on the
national agenda and try to ask people to lay down their partisan
armor and look at these problems in a new and different way and
keep pushing the ball forward.  So if you don't like what I want
to do about it, then if you're not going to support that, then
come up with some alternative so we can do something.  The worst
thing we can do is stay in paralysis.  Let's do something.  That
I think ought to be the message.  (Applause.)

         Q      In the past, the financial aid has been based
upon a quota system for racial and ethnic minorities.  I'm
wondering if you're planning to continue this quota system or
will it be based on talent and merit and needs straight across
the board?

         THE PRESIDENT:  There may be certain minority
scholarship programs in certain universities.  But the program
that I would speak of, both national service and the student loan
program, would be available across-the-board.  I mean -- and I
believe -- and the student loan program should be available
across-the-board virtually without regard to income once you can
guarantee that the repayment is going to be there so you don't
have to worry about loaning too much money.  That's what I think.
I favor broad-based and inclusive programs and national service
will also be broad-based and inclusive.

         I think you have to make efforts to include people
from all races and income groups, and I would want to see that
done because we have a big stake in making sure that we close the
disparity and income in race of people getting an education.
Because if you come out the other end of the educational system,
then the income differences tend to vanish.  But I don't think
anyone should be excluded, and I don't want to ration this
program.  I want to open this program to all Americans.
(Applause.)

         Q      Mr. Clinton, I'd like to know what your views
are on the space program -- if you are in favor of cutting
anything or improving anything?

         THE PRESIDENT:  In general, I support strongly the
space program and the NASA budget.  I have some problems with the
space station itself for a couple of reasons.  One is it's
running -- it's a hugely expensive program, and there's a lot of
debate within NASA itself about whether the old designs should be
continued -- whether we need that space station design.

         Secondly, it's had staggering cost overruns.  Every
time we turn around they're coming back for hundreds of millions
of more dollars.  And with the deficit the way it is and all
these other problems, we can't afford it.  So what NASA is doing
now is trying to redesign the space station and come up with a
multi-year space program that I hope we can get strong bipartisan
support for.

         I think it would be a big mistake for America to
drastically cut back its role in space.  And when -- now, I've
been criticized for cutting back on the space station, but I
haven't cut back the NASA budget.  We have cut back the rate of
increase that they want to cover all the cost overruns for
anything that happens.  I just don't think we can do that with
the old space station design.

         So we're now looking at three alternatives for the
space station to take a new and modified course.  But I think it
would be a great mistake for America to withdraw from space
exploration and from work in space.  For one thing, it's one of
the ways that we may find answers to a lot of our environmental
problems as well as to continue to build our scientific and
technological base after we cut defense.  So I hope we can
continue to support it.  (Applause.)

         Q      Mr. President, --

         THE PRESIDENT:  Go ahead. We'll take one more and
then I'll take this young man's.  Go ahead.

         Q      Mr. President, I was wondering with all the
news about Bosnia how -- do you see any differences in supporting
-- sending troops to Bosnia where you were strongly opposed to
civil war in Vietnam in the late '60s.

         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, first of all, I do.  I did not
-- that's a good question.  But I have never advocated sending
troops -- the United States unilaterally sending troops to Bosnia
to fight on one side or the other of the civil war.

         There are -- let me just say what's complicated
about it.  There plainly is a civil war in Bosnia that is, among
other things, a fight primarily between the Serbs and the
Muslims, but also involving the Croatians.  It is complicated by
the fact that Serbia, a separate country, has intervened in it,
and complicated by the fact that the United Nations before Bosnia
-- the nation of Bosnia was even recognized, imposed an arms
embargo in the area.  But the practical impact of the arms
embargo that the United Nations imposed was to give the entire
weaponry of the Yugoslav Army to the Serbian Bosnians and deprive
any kind of equal weaponry to the people fighting against them.
So the global community had -- not on purpose, but inadvertently,
has had a huge impact on the outcome of that war in ways that
have been very bad.

         My position has been pretty simple and
straightforward from the beginning.  I think that without the
United States unilaterally getting in, or without even -- I don't
think the United Nations should enter the war on one side or the
other.  But I think there is much more that we can do to induce
the parties to stop the fighting, to do what we can to stop this
idea of ethnic cleansing -- murdering people, raping children and
doing terrible acts of violence solely because of people's
religion.  There, in fact, the ethnic basis -- biologically,
there is not much difference   between the Muslims, the Croatians
and the Serbians there.  It's all -- the ethnic differences are
rooted in religious and historical factors.

         And thirdly, we want to try to confine that conflict
so it doesn't spread into other places and involve other
countries, like Albania and Greece and Turkey, which could have
the impact of undermining the peace in Europe and the growth and
stability of democracies there.

         So I think the United Nations -- the world community
can do more in that regard.  That's quite a different thing than
what happened in Vietnam where the United States essentially got
involved in what was a civil war on one side or the other.  There
are some remarkable similarities to it which should give us
caution about doing that.  There are similarities to that.  There
are similarities to Lebanon.  But that does not mean, just
because -- I wouldn't propose doing exactly what the United
States did in Vietnam.  That does not mean that the United States
should not consider doing something more, especially if we can
get the Europeans who are, after all, closer to it, who have a
more immediate stake in it, to try to help us to stop the ethnic
cleansing, the continued fighting and minimize dramatically the
risk of the war spreading.

         So that's what we're struggling for an answer to.
It's a very, very difficult problem.  (Applause.)

         Q      Mr. President, what do you feel we as students
can do to better the U.S. educational system?  (Applause.)

         THE PRESIDENT:    Read more.  (Applause.)  Read
more.  I think you can read more.  I think you can establish
tutoring groups in schools where the students that are doing well
help those which aren't.  There's a lot of evidence that by the
time somebody reaches your age that you all have more influence
on one another than I would on any of you.  And there's a lot of
evidence in schools that are succeeding that when students work
with each other either in the same classroom or across grade
lines, that the overall performance of the school goes up.

         Interestingly enough, there are a lot of studies
even showing at elementary schools that this is true, and
certainly true in high schools.  So I think the -- one of the
things that I have seen work repeatedly over the last dozen years
that I've spent countless hours in schools with students and
teachers is that -- that kind of working together.

         The third thing that I think you can do is to speak
out in a way for a culture of learning and for good values in the
schools.  I think that's important.  I think if the students want
a school to be a place where learning is valued and where
everybody counts, and where violence or drugs or other bad
behavior are not tolerated, the students can have more to do with
getting rid of it than anything else.  If it is a bad thing, if
everybody looks down on it.  And I think that can make a huge
difference.

         It's so limited what the rest of us can do to help
the schools unless there is a right sort of feeling in the hearts
of the young people involved.  And I think anything we can do to
convince all students that they count, that they matter, that we
need them all, that they shouldn't drop out, that they can learn
-- anything we can do in that regard school by school, class by
class, year by year, is going to make education in this country a
lot better.

         The last thing I think you can do is to decide what
you think is wrong with education and how we can make it better
and tell people like me about it.  In other words, tell us from
your perspective how we can make your schools a lot better, what
you need, how we can give you a better future, what we're not
doing that we could be doing.  (Applause.)  Those are the  things
you can do. (Applause.)

         Q      President Clinton, I understand we have time
for one more question.

         Q      Yes.  I have a question about women in the
military.  I heard that they're going to be able to go in combat
now.  (Applause.)  Is it true that -- are they going to be -- is
it going to become a law that they're going to be drafted also?

         THE PRESIDENT:  I'm sorry I didn't hear you.  Go
ahead.

         Q      I've heard rumors that women are going to be
able to be in combat now in the military.  So I'm wondering, are
they going to be able to be drafted like men?

         THE PRESIDENT:  First of all, men are not drafted.
We have an all volunteer service.  There are no draftees.  Anyone
who goes into the service is like this young man.  The men or
women choose to go.  And we have a lot of people who want to go
now because of the justifiably high esteem in which our military
is held.  I can tell you that you can talk to any career service
officer and he or she will tell you that we have the best
educated, best trained, best equipped, highest morale military
service we have ever had.  And it also, by the way, is the most
diverse one we've ever had, opening up more opportunities to
women and to all members of all races that we've ever had. And
yet it's the best-educated, best-trained, best-equipped, best-
able military service we have ever had, although it's under a lot
of stress now because of all the down-sizing.

         The service Chiefs in the Joint Chiefs of Staff have
decided that they ought to open up some more combat roles to
women, principally on combat ships.  The Navy, for example -- I
bet a lot of you don't know this -- the Navy now has three
noncombat ships under the command of women -- the United States
Navy does.  (Applause.)

         But Admiral Kelso, the Chief of Naval Operations,
had decided that some more combat ship roles should be open to
women.  And then there was also a decision made that women ought
to be eligible to fly combat missions in the face of clear
evidence that the airplanes they fly today require not strength
so much as response, the capacity for quick and agile response.
And there's a lot of evidence that women are at least as good in
some of those functions as men, so the Joint Chiefs made that
decision.  That was a military decision in which did not
intervene at all.  I think if the evidence supports it, it's a
very good decision.  But I want you to know it was made based on
the evidence in the case and made by the military and they
deserve the credit.  (Applause.)

         Well, I could do this all day long.  You have been
terrific and I'm very proud of you and you've asked wonderful
questions, all of them were very good.  I wish you well.  Have a
good day.  And don't stop thinking about these educational
issues.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)

                               END10:45 A.M. CDT