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From: The White House <75300.3115@compuserve.com>
Subject: Clinton Remarks Service Forum

                           THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary

______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                            August 31, 1993     

             
                      REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                     AT SUMMER OF SERVICE FORUM
             
                         Stamp Student Union
                       University of Maryland
                     College Park, Maryland    

11:00 A.M. EDT
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  You know, I really love Senator Mikulski
-- if she just weren't so laid back and passive and -- (laughter) --
soft-spoken, you might figure out what's on her mind.  (Laughter.) 
She was terrific.
             
             I'd like to begin by introducing some other people who
are here, and I hate to do this only because I know I'm going to miss
someone that I should introduce.  But I want to begin anyway by
introducing the distinguished Governor of Maryland, Governor Don
Schaefer, one of my former colleagues when I was a governor. 
(Applause.)  One of the most important leaders in the House of
Representatives, Congressman Steny Hoyer from Maryland.  (Applause.) 
I want to introduce a man who came all the way from his state of
Connecticut to be here with us today, the first Republican sponsor we
had for the National Service legislation, Representative Chris Shays
from Connecticut.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)
             
             I see my good friend, Senator Mike Miller there, the
Democratic Majority in the Senate of Maryland.  (Applause.)  A former
Congressman from Maryland and now the Cochair of the President's
Council on Physical Fitness -- when he stands up you'll see why --
distinguished former professional basketball player, Mr. Tom
McMillan, my friend in the back.  (Applause.)  
             
             I was really -- Tom and I ran four miles together the
other day, and he's almost seven feet tall and he ran at a pace I had
difficulty maintaining.  So I was very impressed.  (Laughter.)  He
convinced me he was qualified for the job I gave him.  
             
             And finally, I would like to acknowledge the President
of the University of Maryland, President William Kirwan, who is here.

(Applause.)  And in some ways, most important of all, the person who
I put in charge of creating and carrying out the National Service
Program, my friend of nearly 25 years, Mr. Eli Segal.  I'd like to
ask him to stand.  (Applause.)
             
             I'll tell you, I just saw -- there's one other person
way in the back I've got to introduce because he and I started
working on this concept of national service a few years ago through
an organization I was involved in called the Democratic Leadership
Council.  And he's a professor here at the University of Maryland,
but he's on leave.  He's working in the White House for me now,
Professor Bill Galston.  Thank you, Bill, for your help.  (Applause.)
             
             I came here mostly to listen to you today and to thank
you, but I wanted to just say a few words.  This campus has a special
meaning in my life.  The first time I ever came to the University of
Maryland was 30 years ago this summer when I was a delegate from my
home state of Arkansas to the American Legion Boys Nation program. 
We stayed here and then went to Washington frequently to learn about
the government.  I met President Kennedy then; I saw members of
Congress, members of the Cabinet, and really had my eyes opened to a
whole world of possibility.
             
             But the thing that I remember I think most clearly after
all these years is that President Kennedy said in his inaugural that
we should not ask what our country could do for us, but we could do
for our country.  And he also said that we must always remember that
here on Earth God's work must truly be our own.  That's what all of
you have done.
             
             I just finished a two-week vacation, which I needed very
badly because I worked pretty hard the last several years.  But you
just finished two months of very important work -- the Summer of
Service ends today, and I hope you feel refreshed by the time you
gave to other people and the service you rendered.  And we are about
to begin, as Senator Mikulski says, when the Senate passes the
national service bill next week, we'll start the first full year of
national service at the community level.
             
             I always believe that you and tens of thousands and
eventually hundreds of thousands of young people like you could
change the future of America, and in the process, could change your
lives.
             
             I ran for President for two big reasons:  One is I
thought our country was not going in the right direction; and the
second, I thought our country was coming apart when it ought to be
coming together.  I wanted to get the country moving again, and I
wanted to bring the country together again.  I wanted people to have
a sense of the common good.  I wanted us to draw strength from our
diversity and to face our problems honestly, and to seize our
opportunities.  I wanted people to recognize again that we don't have
a person to waste and that too many of our young people are being
lost.
             
             And I believe that we could do it.  I never thought the
government could do all these things alone; I just don't believe
that.  And for too long our country has been in the middle of this
great debate where some people say, well, the government ought to
solve these problems, and other people say the government ought to
walk away.  And I don't believe either is right.  The government
basically has to be a partner.  In order for government to work, it
has to be a partner.  
             
             And I have now, for the last several years, long before
I started running for president, tried to capture this idea in three
simple words:  It's those of us in government, it's our
responsibility to try to help create opportunity.  So our watchword
should be "opportunity."  That's what the economic program's all
about.  That's what trying to reform the health care system's all
about.  That's what creating a national service bill is all about --
trying to create opportunity.
             
             Then, citizens have to recognize that all the
opportunity in the world doesn't amount to a hill of beans unless
there is someone there to seize responsibility -- personal
responsibility -- for themselves, their families, their communities
and for their neighbors.  And, finally, out of that we can build a
new American community.  
             
             There are so many people lost today because they don't
think anybody really cares about them, because they can't imagine the
future, because they have never been the most important person in the
world to anybody else.  We have got to create a sense of community in
this country where we're prepared to take responsibility for each
other, not just to point the finger at each other and tell each other
what we ought to do, but to offer a helping hand.
             
             So I say all these thing to you because I think you
represent that.  You represent the best of the opportunity you were
given to be in the Summer of Service, of the personal responsibility
you displayed by doing your work, and of the sense of community that
you helped to create by what you have done. 
             
             If every American did what you did for the last two
months, if we all could do that for several years, we could
revolutionize our country.  There are no problems we could not solve.

There is no future we cannot have.  And I hope with all my heart that
what you have done here will set the standard for the National
Service Project in community after community that young people will
engage in when this bill becomes law.  
             
             I told Eli on the way up here today I'm convinced now
there are tens of thousands of young people who could do this every
summer who may not need to, want to, or be able to do it during the
year.  And I'm not sure we shouldn't go back to the Congress, Senator
Mikulski and Representative Hoyer and Representative Shays, and at
least file a report on this Summer of Service, and consider having a
special summer program over and above the year-long program we do
because so many young people could do it just during the summer. 
(Applause.)
             
             I just want you to remember that you are this country. 
You are America.  You are this country.  (Applause.)  And so now I
want to hear from you, but I want you to know that not just your
President but your country is grateful to you for showing what
America can be at its best.  And I hope that we'll see it repeated
hundreds of thousands of times over the course of my presidency.  And
I hope it will become a permanent part of American life.  If it does
the whole country will be stronger.  (Applause.)
             
                              * * * * *
                  
             Q    I'm from Philadelphia Eye Care Program and I was
wondering, does your health care reform plan have any -- does it have
anything to subsidize the kind of door-to-door service needed for
these immunization programs, or any of that preventative medicine
that really is needed in our communities?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Yes, the health care plan that will be
announced in the next few weeks will have a big component of
preventative care in it and will also provide the resources necessary
to support the community-based clinics.  
             
             I think it's very important that -- we have spent too
little on preventive and primary care, causing us to have to spend
too much on emergency care and care in later stages.  So we're going
to try to invest more in preventive and primary care and in those
neighborhood clinics both in urban and rural areas.
             
             I think it will make a huge difference.  The
Philadelphia program is very, very impressive.

             Yes.  Nice hat.  (Laughter.)
             
             Q    Thanks.  I'm from Montana, but I worked out in
Seattle this summer.  I'll be starting medical school actually
tomorrow, and I just had a question of you for what medical students
can do and how we can play a role in your new plan, and how we can
get on board as advocates of the plan, maybe give some input.  Do you
have any plans for including students?  Not necessarily just medical
students, but students and people who work in the health care
profession?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Yes, actually -- of course, all the
students in all the health care professions will be eligible to
actually participate in some of these programs through the national
service initiative, so there will be a continuing opportunity there
both during the school year and during the summer to do that.  
             
             Secondly, we have tried over the last several months
through the task force that the First Lady has headed to engage in
dialogue -- medical students, nursing students, other people studying
in the health care professions -- to try to make sure that the
incentives we have in this program produce the kind of health care
system we want and give young people who really want to serve in the
problem areas a chance to do it.
             
             For example, as compared with all other advanced
countries, the United States has far more specialists and far fewer
family practitioners -- dramatic difference, huge difference from any
other country.  That means it's much harder to get people out in the
basic clinics doing the basic services.  So what we tried to do was
to construct a program which would provide more incentives for
medical schools and for students themselves -- financial incentives
and others to go out and practice family medicine, but at the same
time would not frighten the American people into thinking we're
backing off of medical technology.  So there's going to be more
invested in medical research under this program.  
             
             So I think that it will be good, and I hope that you
will be able to take advantage of that and continue to participate.
             
                             * * * * *  
             

             THE PRESIDENT:  I'd just like to make one comment again
to try to reinforce the importance of the whole service concept in
the environmental area.
             
             When you talk to most people, maybe even a lot of you
and certainly in my mind, when you mention environmental issues often
you think of policies that ought to be changed.  So, for example,
after I became President I had promised to take some different
policies, so we committed ourselves to signing the Biodiversity
Treaty that other nations signed after the World Conference in Rio De
Janeiro last year, or we committed ourselves to reducing the amount
of greenhouses gases in the environment to the 1990 levels by the
year 2000, or last week we committed ourselves to no net loss of
wetlands.
             
             But as you can see, when you pass a law it's one thing
to say these things and another to do it.  Just like you did the
Wetlands Restoration Project.  An enormous number of the
environmental things that need to be done in this country require the
same amount of labor intensity that it does to go door to door and
try to immunize children.  The lead paint example in New York is just
one, but it is a very good one.  That's a serious problem in many of
the major cities in America, exposing some of the most vulnerable
children.
             
             That's another irony that you brought out here in your
environmental presentation.  A lot of people think of the environment
as preserving distant areas that most people never see.  But the
truth is that the people in this country who need a better
environment than most may be those who live in inner cities who are
most subject to pollution from dumps that are there, from paint --
lead in the paint, from any number of other threads.
             
             So I really appreciate this because I hope that we can
come to see the environment not only in terms of the sweeping
national policies that the Vice President and I have committed
ourselves to, but also in terms of things that preserve the culture
of Native Americans and that literally may preserve the lives of
people not only in rural areas, but in the cities as well.  So I
thank you for that.
             
             Anybody got any questions on that subject?
             
             Q    I worked at the Energy Coordinating Agency of
Philadelphia this summer.  I know you realize there's a link between
the environment, energy and economic growth, because as part of your
economic stimulus package you had asked for increased funding in
energy conservation programs, which creates jobs.  My question is, do
you think you're going to continue to seek an increase in funding for
energy conservation programs for low-income households such as WAP --
the Weatherization Assistance Program -- and LIHEAP -- the Low Income
Home Energy Assistance Program?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Yes.  You know, having been a 
governor -- and the states operate those programs; Congress provides
the funds, but the states specifically operate them -- I have seen
firsthand how many jobs they create and also how much good they can
do.  I mean, a lot of this -- I didn't make that point before, but a
lot of this weatherization work for poor people, especially for a lot
of elderly people who are stuck in these old houses that have holes
in the walls, literally, a lot of them, or in the floor -- not only
make them warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer, they also
save money on their utility bills.  They literally do.  They conserve
energy and they put more money in the pockets of people who have just
barely enough to get by.  So I strongly support them.
             
             I also think that, in general, we should move to more
energy resources that are within our own control.  We have vast
amounts of natural gas, for example, in this country that are
environmentally cleaner than a lot of the fuels we burn, and we ought
to move to develop them.  
             
             So the short answer to your question is, yes.  It's
always -- it's interesting, it's kind of a hard sell in the Congress
now because the price of oil is so low and energy is so cheap -- it's
much cheaper in America than it is in any other major country.    But
if you just have enough to get by on, you're living on a Social
Security check or you're living on a minimum wage, it's still very,
very expensive and a big part of your budget.
             
             Thank you.  Yes?
             
             Q    I work at New York City ACORN.  As you heard, we
dealt with the lead in paint thing every day.  And as we went on
tours, looking, speaking to people, door-knocking, we found out that
it wasn't just lead paint and lead poisoning, it was roaches, mice,
ceilings that were caving in.  So we found out the conditions were
like Third World conditions in our backyards, in our own
neighborhoods, my own house, my own neighbors.  And as we went on we
realized that the problem was much bigger than just the lead painting
and we realized we needed more manpower.  And we found that manpower
not just in SOS, but in the community.
             
             And my question to you is a very simple one, but it's a
fundamental one.  Being a college student I felt very privileged
because I was getting money for the community service, but many times
I wished that peers of mine who weren't in college and community
members could get some type of benefit for the work they did, which
no one asked them to do, and the help that they gave us.  My question
to you is what kind of commitment can your administration give to the
community that wants to be involved and who lacks the resources to
get things going in their own communities?  (Applause.)
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Good question.  That's a good question
not only on the housing issue, but on a number of other issues.  And
I wish I had a very good, complete answer for you today.  I can tell
you that that question is one that we have seriously discussed, and I
have asked Henry Cisneros, who is the Secretary of the Department of
Housing and Urban Development, to try to come up with a proposal for
me that would help to do that -- where the federal government could
basically help local communities trying to engage the energies of
people who are prepared to volunteer, work part-time, do whatever it
takes to solve some of these problems.  They are also very labor-
intensive.
             
             I'm hoping beyond that, that some of the things that
were in this economic program we passed, for example, making --
extending the low-income housing tax credit and some other things
that we put in there, will help state governments and local
communities to work with developers to try to rehabilitate a lot of
these houses and try to put people to work in doing it.

             If you look at the building structure of the United
States, we still have a lot of commercial overbuilding; we haven't
worked through that.  And a lot of people are in a position now to
finance or refinance their home mortgages or buy new homes because
interest rates are low.  But the population growth in America of
people who can buy homes has kind of slowed down.  So the real
economic opportunity may be in rehabilitating existing housing
structures.  And we are looking at what can be done to try to deal
with that terrible problem.  
             
             We went for 12 years without any kind of serious housing
program in America, and it led to a lot of these difficulties.  And
now I hope that, through Henry's work, working in partnership with
people at the local level, we can come up with a better idea.  So I
don't have an answer for you today, but I can tell you we're working
on the problem.  And I see it as a real area of economic opportunity
for people, the rehabilitation of existing housing structures.  It's
a better opportunity than building new commercial real estate
buildings in many places and a better opportunity than building even
new houses in some places where there's no population growth and no
demand for it.
             
             So I hope we can come up with an answer to the problem
you've posed.
             
             Q    First, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to
have the opportunity to participate in the Summer Associates Program.
             
             I work with lower income housing as a representative
from North Carolina Lower Housing Coalition.  My question is what
type of plan do you have to better stimulate first-time homeownership
programs with decent, safe, sanitary, and affordable housing?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  The most important thing we can do is
get the mortgages down, which we've done.  I mean, we have now the
lowest mortgage rates in 25 years.  So that people can buy housing at
lower costs.
             
             The other thing that we did in this last economic
program was to extend something called the Low Income Housing Tax
Credit which basically gives people real incentives to build low-cost
housing that is affordable.
             
             The final thing we're doing is having Mr. Cisneros, the
Secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department, work with
developers and people in local community groups all across the
country to try to figure out how we can either build or rehabilitate
more low-income housing.  So that those three things together I think
should permit more people -- particularly low-income working people
who have virtually given up on the idea of owning their own home over
the last 15 years as the price of housing outstripped inflation
dramatically -- I think you're going to see that kind of turn around
now.  And I believe that in the next five years the percentage of
people owning their own homes, including lower-income working people,
will go up rather dramatically, but only if we work on all three of
those areas. 

                              * * * * *
             

             THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  I think you could
see we were all very moved by the presentation.
             
             Before I ran for President, I was Governor for 12 years,
and I spent during that time more time in schools and with children
and with teachers and watching people learn and watching people
struggle, not just in my state, but around the country I guess in
anything else I did.  What I saw there emphasizes some very basic
things that, again, I would say the whole country could learn from
and mobilize young people.  Number one, the one-room schoolhouses in
New York proved that children can help other children learn
dramatically.  
             
             There's a lot of evidence of that, by the way.  I
could -- if we had time I could give you lots of other examples.  But
at phenomenal levels, phenomenal levels there's evidence of --
there's a school in Boston where in order to get in the school the
seniors and juniors had to agree to tutor the 7th and 8th graders. 
And these kids were all basically from average or low-income families
and most had average IQs and they all did very well and there was
almost no dropout -- nearly everybody went to college, nearly
everybody finished.  And one of the keys things was -- and they had a
very, very hard curriculum, very hard.  But the older kids all did
the tutoring for the younger kids -- made a big difference.
             
             Second point that your slide show pointed out and your
presentation was that learning should be fun for children, especially
if they come from disadvantaged backgrounds.   Instead of making it a
pain, it should be fun and they should be taught to believe that they
can learn things.  That New Orleans Project I'm familiar with -- it
is astonishing that kids that once would be given up as -- you know
you'd be lucky if they could read at the 7th-grade level when they
got out of high school are now being exposed to exposed to physics
and computer technology and all that.  

             The third point I want to make -- and this is something
that all of you should remember, too -- and that is, there's a lot of
research in America which shows that kids that grow up in
educationally-disadvantaged homes or poor homes may work like crazy
in school, but they're always afraid that they're not going to do as
well as other kids, so they're always afraid to say what they don't
know.  But most of the best learning occurs in groups. 

             There was a huge study done a couple of years ago -- and
a lot of you going to college, you'll remember this -- a huge study
done in California a couple of years ago which showed that different
groups of kids going into the University of California at Berkeley
were studied based on how well they did academically, and the
connection to how hard they studied.  The kids that actually spent
the most time studying did the least well because they were afraid to
study with each other because they were ashamed to say what they
didn't know.  The kids that studied in groups and talked with each
other about what they didn't know and didn't understand, who worked
together in a family learned like crazy.

             All of these things could be affected nationwide, these
learning patterns could be affected nationwide by programs like this.

You could literally revolutionize the educational system of the
country if there were enough service volunteers like you to reach
these kids.  
             
             The last thing I want to say is, a lot of this stuff was
done one on one.  Every serious study of kids that grew up in
difficult circumstances and succeeded against all the odds show that
every one of them has got a different story, and there's only one
constant that's almost always there:  nearly every child had some
sort of a relationship with a caring adult -- (applause) -- which you
qualify for, for these little bitty kids.  Keep in mind if you're 18
years old and you're helping some kid that's five, you are the caring
adult.  Right?  
             
             So those are the points I want to make.  Again, I would
say, I hope this work will somehow register on people throughout the
country that may not be within our program, because these four simple
things that you have shown here could change the face of American
education.

             Yes, sir?  I've been wanting you to talk because I
wanted to get a good look at that hat.  (Laughter.)

             Q    I represent the Harlem Freedom Schools.  We were
talking about diversity and the strength in diversity.  One of the
major issues was that we have a structure in New York City that
focuses on the basics.  While the children that we taught, they had a
range of issues that went beyond the schoolroom and, as you saw in
our film, we had a lot of different ethnic groups and we had cultural
diversity and of religion.  

             I was wondering, do you have a proposal to address the
state and the board of education in New York City which doesn't push
diversity throughout the year?  Because what we did over the program,
over the summer we thought was very successful, but throughout the
school year just the basic three Rs.  And we realize that that is
leaving our children at a disadvantage in the community, as well as
interacting and growing.  So I was wondering if you had any plans in
the future of addressing that.  (Applause.)

             THE PRESIDENT:  Under our system of government,
basically, public education from kindergarten through 12th grade is
the province of the state government and the local school districts. 
The federal government provides extra help, by and large, to help
poor kids through nutritional programs or extra educational
resources. 
             
             So the New York City School Board would have to decide
to change that.  It's an issue, by the way, that you might want to
see what you could do to get it made an issue in the coming mayor's
race.  There's going to be a mayor's race in New York.  That's what
politics is for, to debate these things.  That's what elections are
for, to discuss these.  
             
             But I want to try to support what you're saying in this
way:  When cultures live separately from one another, you didn't have
to worry about any of this being done at school because it was always
communicated at home, and besides, everybody was just like everybody
else.
             
             Now that we're crashing in on each other -- Los Angeles
County, for example, has 150 different racial and ethnic groups
living in one county.  This has become a very important thing.  And I
was very moved by what you said about the kids that wouldn't get on
the bus with other kids, that wouldn't go in the classroom with other
kids.  You know, it seems, when you think about it, it's perfectly
logical -- that people coming to another country would be terribly
frightened by people very different from them and maybe the only
image they had of them was something they saw in some cheap thrills
gangster movie or one of those  -- so I think it's important.  
             
             But I think the only thing that we can do at the
national level besides talk about it -- the President can talk about
it -- is to try to make sure that we run the National Service Program
all year round, like you said, not just in the summertime -- all year
round to make sure that we have volunteers available for programs
like this, and that if a program, for example, in your community is
set up to do this year round, that we would give that a priority
through national service so that we could direct our people and say
you can earn your college grade, you can do it if you'll become a
part of this program.  We can support that and we will.
             
             But you also have -- so you can say, look, to New York,
you won't have to pay for all of it, the national service people will
get you the volunteers if you will let the program go forward.  And
that's what I think we should do.
             
             Q    I am from the Public Service Corps of New York.  I
am wondering where do you see national service in 10 years, actually
providing for more young people not just for year-round programs, but
for years into the future?  How far do you see this program going on?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Ten years from now I believe this will
be a major fixture of our national life.  I don't believe it will be
10,000 kids a year or 50,000 or 100,000, I think that the program
will become so popular and will so capture the imagination of the
country that, in effect, anybody who wants to be a part of it to help
defray their college costs or just because they want to serve will be
able to do it.  I think it will become a very, very big part of
American life.  
             
             Because you can see -- just look at what we've seen
already and look at what you're experience is.  This country simply
has -- first of all, we've got all these young people full of energy
and passion and belief and without any cynicism and all this talent
out there dying to serve, at a point in your life when you don't have
to support a lot of other people so you can work for a fairly modest
wage, particularly if you get some educational credit out of it.
             
             And secondly, we've just got an unbelievable number of
problems out there that have to be solved in a personal, highly
labor-intensive way that neither the government nor the private
sector could otherwise afford.  So I believe 10 years from now, you
will look back 10 years from now and say, I was a pioneer in
something that changed America for the better.  (Applause.)
             
             Q    Good morning.  I served with the East Bay
Conservation Corps in Oakland, California.  And       in my service I
worked in a middle school with junior high kids.  And you have called
for a great national debate and a new philosophy of government in
many of our social problems, for new solutions.  And one of our major
social problems is education and education reform.  What role do you
see for national service programs in reforming and innovating our
nation's educational system?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  First, let me tell you what I think the
innovation should be.  We have a bill now that we're trying to pass
through the Congress which would write into law the national
education goals that the governors and President Bush's
administration agreed on back in 1989.  And I care a lot about them
because at that time I was the Democratic governor representing the
governors to write the goals, so I believe in them.
             
             One of the things that we learned, after years and years
in studying schools, is that all the magic of education and the
learning occurs not in the White House, not in the statehouse, but in
the schoolhouse and in the school room between the teacher and the
students and then among the students and then at home, if the student
is lucky.  We have to find more individual ways of reaching kids and
we've got to make our education system far less bureaucratic, and
we've got to give school by school much more flexibility to
principals and teachers and students to design their learning
programs and to be flexible and to be creative.
             
             So I believe that the role that the National Service
Program will have in the revolution of American education will be
very large if, but only if, we can persuade the schools of our
country, in effect, to restructure themselves to give more
flexibility and authority to the principals, the teachers and the
students on a school-by-school basis.
             
             Q    I'm representing Clarke University, and as you
know, our program's primary focus was education.  And as a future
educator, I want to know when will we start making the school system
accountable for educating our children or are we going to have to
continue educating them through community service.
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I think the schools -- community
service should help, but I think the school system should be held
accountable for it.  The answer to your question is, we will start
doing that when we start evaluating our schools based on the results
they get rather than the input.  For example, let me just give you
one simple example.
             
             We evaluate teachers for whether they can get hired in
most school districts in this country based on whether they've got an
education degree from a certified college of education.  Right?  So
there are all kinds of Americans who are retired from the military --
right now, we will take, from 1987 to 1998, the United States
military will go from having 3.5 million people to 1.5 people.  Two
million folks out there walking around among the best educated, best
trained, most highly motivated people in the world, with the best
values that know how to get things done.  Right?  You can have one of
these people, a graduate of the United States military academy and a
massive amount of knowledge in chemistry, and they can't teach in
most of the schools of the country.  Most states now have some sort
of exception, but it's a real problem.
             
             Why?  Because we evaluate people not on whether they're
good teachers, but on whether they've got good -- the qualifications.

We evaluate schools based on how many kids are in the classroom, what
the schoolbook certification or what does the building look like. 
All these things may be important, but we don't have any way of
evaluating our teachers, our schools and our school systems in most
states based on the results they get.  What do the kids know when
they started, what do they know when they finished?  What happened to
them?  What kind of problems did they have, and did they get services
-- that goes back to your question -- did the school actually serve
the problems they had instead of the problems that some kids had a
generation ago -- we're still doing it the way we used to do.

             So that's what I'm trying -- I'm trying to be a part of
a movement, at least, that will decentralize authority, let the
principals, the teachers, the kids and the parents, in effect, design
more and have more flexibility over their own school year, and then
measure them by the results they achieve.  So that if you don't get
results, you stop doing what you're doing and you do something else. 
But we don't measure -- anything funded by tax dollars is normally
measured by rules and regulations on the front end instead of results
on the back end.  We need less rules and regulations and more
results, and we need it in schools.  (Applause.)

                              * * * * *
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  I just would make one point about that. 
When we had a commission to study the needs of the Lower Mississippi
River area, starting in southern Illinois and going all the way to
New Orleans.  That is still the poorest part of America.  And one of
the things that you forget -- we always think of public safety as an
urban issue, but one of the things that's easy to forget is, it
becomes a big rural issue.  And at periodic times in this country you
will see crime waves will sweep across rural America.  And one of the
reasons is that a lot of people are just out there and nobody can
even find them.  

             The story she told you about the county in our state
where people are literally unidentified, where they don't have an
address, where they called for help -- you know, it would take you
five minutes to explain where they were, this is a serious problem in
all of rural America.  And I appreciate the work you did on it.

             Q    Mr. President, I'm from Sacramento, California.  My
question pertains to each of the four policy areas we have been
discussing today.  Many of us have found while working in service
this summer that many Americans, generations of Americans have found
welfare has become a way of life for them.  You spoke during your
campaign and also in recent months since taking office of reforming
our welfare system.  And I'd like to know if you could give me three
concrete examples of how you intend to change our welfare system to
break this cycle of poverty and make sure America's children don't
end up impoverished in the future.

             THE PRESIDENT:  Yes, I can.  That's a good question. 
(Applause.)  I will give you three concrete examples, but let's talk
about what's wrong with the system now.  The original -- very
briefly.  The original welfare system was set up for -- again, it
goes back to the question the young man from Harlem asked me about
education, where a lot of the schools are being run for a time that
no longer exists instead of a time that does exist.  The original
welfare system was set up to deal with an American society that
existed about 50 years ago, where nearly everybody who wanted to work
could find some kind of job at some low level, but they could find
some kind of job; there were very few women in the work force if they
were in the home and they had children; and the typical welfare
recipient in the beginning was, let's say, a West Virginia minor's
widow, 60 years ago.  The husband gets killed in the mines.  They
live up in the hills and hollows of West Virginia.  The women has a
4th-grade education, she's got three or four kids, no way to go to
work, no job to find.  And the welfare supports the kids.  
             
             Then there was another typical welfare recipient that
represents about half the people on welfare today, for whom welfare
should exist -- the people who hit on hard times.  Suddenly a spouse
dies and there's two little children in the home and you can't work. 
Or you lose a job and you can't get another one and you run out of
unemployment benefits.  In other words about half the people on
welfare only stay for four, five, six months and then they get off. 
Those are the people we would all want a welfare system for, because
they fall through the unemployment system cracks, or they need
support or they have little children.  They can't be working because
they have a whole slew of them or whatever.
             
             Increasingly, however, there are people on welfare whose
parents were on welfare, whose grandparents were on welfare, who
never have worked, and who basically can stay on forever as long as
they have children under a certain age, because welfare's proper name
is aid to families with dependent children, AFDC -- that's what it
means. 

             So, why do people stay on welfare?  To know how to fix
it, you have to know why they stay.  The benefits aren't all that
great in most states.  In fact, over the last 20 years, benefits have
not kept up with inflation.  Why do people stay?  They stay for one
reason:  because they, by and large, have very little education, may
not know how to get into the system; if they did get a job, their job
would pay low wages and they would lose two things they have on
welfare:  medical coverage for their kids under the Medicaid program,
and they would then have to pay for child care that they, themselves,
are providing.  

             Now, I see the Governor paying close attention. 
Maryland's done a lot of work on this whole issue in this state.  He
can maybe give a better answer than I can.  But if you look at the
system -- and, by the way, I have spent hours and hours in my life
talking to people who are on welfare, and nearly all of them want to
get off quick as they can.  So what would you do to fix it?  First
thing you've got to do is make sure work pays.  Eighteen percent of
the American work force, almost one in five, work for a wage that
will not lift a family of four out of poverty.  

             In the last economic program that we passed just before
the Congress went on recess, one of the most important parts of it
was to increase something called the earned income tax credit, which
is a refund you can get from the government on your tax system to say
to the working people of this country:  If you work 40 hours a week
and you have a child in your house, you will be lifted above poverty
by the tax system.  We will not tax you into poverty.  If you're
willing to work hard, play by the rules and raise your kids, we'll
lift you out of poverty.  That's the first thing.  That's one
specific thing, very important.

             The second thing you have to do is to provide medical
coverage for all Americans without regard to whether they're working
or not.  Seventy percent of all the people in this country who don't
have health insurance are working for a living.  So if you're on
welfare, let me just give you an example.  This is something that
actually happens now.  I helped work on a welfare reform program
which Congress passed and President Reagan signed in late 1988 right
before he left office.  And to try to deal with this medical coverage
program, we said, if you get a job that doesn't have health insurance
we will provide you health insurance for six or nine months to get
you off welfare.  That's great, but guess what happens?  You've got
two people working side by side, one of them that used to be on
welfare has got health insurance for her kids for nine months,
working next to somebody who has never been on welfare that doesn't
have any health insurance.  

             So the second thing you have to do if you want to end
welfare as we know it is to provide a system like every other
advanced country has, that has affordable health care for all
Americans.  If you don't do it, you're going to continue to have
these problems.  The third thing you have to do is to make sure that
all the states that run the welfare program have the resources they
need and the incentives they need to actually train people for jobs
that it will exist.  

             And then there's one final thing -- there's a fourth
thing you have to do.  If you want to end the welfare system as you
know it, you have to say, if you have health care for your kids and
yourself, and you have the education and training, after a certain
amount of time if you don't go to work there will be some sort of
community service job provided for you by the local government, and
that's what you have to do if you want to get an income.  In other
words, there has to be an end of it.
             
             Finally, you have to move people to independence and
away from dependence.  If we did those four things, we could end the
welfare system as we know it and we could leave welfare for the
people that really need it.  And all of you would feel good about the
program instead of bad about it.  (Applause.)
             
             Q    First of all, I wanted to say that the reason why I
supported you in your campaign for the presidency is because of your
commitment to national social service.  And I'm proud to be part of
this program. 
             
             I work for Uptown Habitat for Humanity in Chicago.  And
we thank you for your support of Habitat.  I spent my summer of
service on the west side of Chicago at one of our newer sites where
we are rehabing three newer buildings.  We've been working in
partnership with the local organizations, as well as the schools,
because we believe that if you put decent housing in communities with
families who feel that they have a stake in their community it will
work hand in hand with improving our education system.
             
             But we have had many obstacles; one of them is funding,
obviously.  We are working right now on trying to get funding from
HOME and funding programs such as that.  My question to you is would
you support a lessening in restrictions in such programs such as HOME
because they sort of prefer rental as opposed to homeownership which
we believe is the key?  Would you support lessening in restriction on
those kinds of funding programs?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Yes, I do support that.  I don't know if
I can prevail, but I do support that.  There's a reason why there's
been a longstanding debate in the Congress about this.  And a lot of
the members of Congress who really believe in providing affordable
housing to people are afraid if you move away from -- if you have a
really strong bias in favor of homeownership, that the good things
that would be done by Habitat for Humanity, for example, would be
offset by people being, in effect, cut lose in these public housing
units that then they won't have the resources to maintain.
             
             So what we have to do it in a delicate way but you're --
I think you're absolutely right.  And I think it has to be done.
             
             By the way, for those of you who don't know about -- we
talked about it a couple of times, but Habitat for Humanity is
arguably the most successful continuous community service project in
the history of the United States.  (Applause.)  It is -- started by
two wonderful people, Millard and Linda Fuller, who I was lucky
enough to meet in another life before I ever thought about doing this
job.  But it is literally -- it is organized on a community service
basis, community by community.  They never take any government money.
And it has revolutionized the lives of -- how many houses has Habitat
built now?
             
             Q    -- are we building now?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  No, I mean where are they now in the
cumulative total?  Does anybody know?  How many?
             
             Q    Twenty-one thousand around the world.
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Yes, that's how many they're building
right now.  They've built more, though.  But anyway, it's an amazing
thing.  And I think -- I wish I knew.  I did know a couple of months
ago but I've forgotten.
             
             I just -- you're absolutely right.  What we need to do
-- that's one way we can have a partnership with Habitat.  If we use
the HOME program to favor more homeownership.  And I think we can do
it in a way that will satisfy the legitimate concern of members of
Congress that we not be in a position of handing over big housing
units to people who don't have the capacity, the resources to
maintain them.  That's the real problem there.
             
             Q    My question, this summer we did a joint education
and public safety project with conflict resolution and issues of
safety.  And my question was, as the national service progresses,
will it provide opportunity for former participants to serve in
advisory roles in development of new projects, new service projects,
especially in the field of public safety since we've been out in the
field and we've been in the trenches and I think we have a lot    to
give to the commission in terms of developing new projects? 
(Applause.)
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  I'll let Mr. Segal answer that.  Eli.
             
             MR. SEGAL:  We've learned so much in the course of the
last eight weeks I think.  Had we not thought of it we would have
said to you yes to you right now.  It's a great idea, and we
certainly need to make certain we're enjoying all the benefit of all
the wisdom you've learned and it certainly should be part of the
program going forward.
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Let me make a suggestion.  If you have a
specific idea about how we can do that and how we should do that, if
you would write it up and send it to Mr. Segal I'd really appreciate
it.  I think -- I hadn't thought of it before and it is self-
evidently the right thing to do.  So why don't you think about it a
little bit and write him a proposal on it.
             
             Q    I'm from the Pennsylvania Service Corps, one of the
full-year national demonstration models.  And before I ask the
question I wanted to present to you our uniform teeshirt, if that
would be okay.  So you can get that from us.
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  He'll bring it to me.  Go ahead. 
(Laughter.)  Thanks, Kris.
             
             Q    And they're all across the state of Pennsylvania. 
(Applause.)
             
             My question for you is, I'm placed in a school district
where I try to make placement plates for middle school age children,
as well as bringing back community members to give service to the
school itself.  My question is, what is your view on making community
service or national service mandatory and part of the school
curriculum?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  A different question -- those are two
different questions.  I don't believe that participation in this
program, the National Service Program, which we are proposing is, by
definition, voluntary, but you get something for it.  You get credit
for your -- toward college.
             
             I believe that it is a very good thing for states or
local school districts to mandate community service for kids at
certain levels in the public schools.  (Applause.)  A few years ago I
had the opportunity to serve on a commission on middle schools, and
we recommended two things that didn't get done, but I thought should
be.  One is that there ought to be a set of basic civic values that
are taught in the schools, and the second was that community service
ought to be a part of the curriculum.  So, yes, I think that every
state should include community service as a part of the curriculum at
some appropriate point where students, young people, as a part of
their education, get the experience of doing what you've done.  
             
             The thrill of it and learn from it and see -- don't you
find that you see the world in a different way once you do this?  I
mean, you know what the problems are but you also have a sense that
you can solve them and make a difference?  Yes, that's what I think
should be done.
             
             Yes, over in the corner.

             Q    Hi.  I'm from the General Service Corps.  It's
multitalented.  So I just wanted to ask you, did you know how many
kids nowadays are being jailed, and what can we do about it, from
your perspective?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Yes, there are a huge number of young
people in jail.  We have now the unfortunate distinction of having
the highest percentage of our people in prison of any country in the
world.  Did you know that?  America has the highest percentage of its
population behind bars of any country in the world, and most of them
are young.  Most of them are under 25 years of age.  
             
             I think in a way all of you are doing something about
it.  I think that if you -- go to the prisons and talk to these
people and get the story of their lives an figure out how they got
there.  And most of them never met anybody like you on a consistent
basis, that is, had a chance to be part of what you are doing.  And
so, I think there are a lot of things we can do about it, but in the
end, what we have to do about it is to continue to touch more of them
at the earliest possible point in their lives so they don't wind up
doing what they're doing later, and keep something in their mind
about tomorrow.  Let them always believe there is a tomorrow, that
there is a future, that there is something they can do that makes
them feel good, that makes them important, that makes their lives
meaningful, that doesn't require them to do what they do to get in
prison.
             
             I also think that a lot of kids who wind up getting in
trouble because they're in gangs do it because -- it goes back to
what I said about studying -- everybody wants to be in a gang.  You
just hope it's a good gang and not a bad gang, right?  You're in a
gang.  That's what all these teeshirts mean.  Right?  See what I
mean?  (Applause.)  
             
             So I think the whole point of what you do is to try to
gather them up before it happens.  Also, there's a whole lot of law
enforcement strategies that work and antidrug strategies, and we
could talk about that.  But from your point of view, giving people
something to say yes to, as well as something to say no to, and to be
part of a group that matters, I think that would do more over the
long run.  If you gave every kid in America that chance, every one of
them that chance, you would see the prison population go down
dramatically over 10 or 15 years.  Not overnight, but over a 10- or
15-year period.
             
             Q    To go along with what the young man was saying,
what do you have in mind in terms of the initiatives for African
American and Latino males, since, according to records, a large
majority of the jail populations are African American and Latino? And
what would be some of those initiatives to get to them before they
get to the jails, in terms of self-esteem, education and pride in
their culture?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  What I think I can do -- again, I will
say -- I gave this answer to another question, but one of the things
that I like about this national service concept is that we can go out
and recruit African American and Latino males, and then we can give
priority to projects, community by community, that we know have a
good chance of succeeding, and put people in there and help to pay
for it.  That's what we can do.  And that will be a major -- that's
what you did, I mean, without maybe thinking about it in that way.
But that's what we can do.
             
             But what you've also got to do is to make sure that
those things which are in the control of the state, or those things
which are in the control of the local government, or those things
which the private sector ought to be doing in your community, that
they're doing that, too.  For example, I still think you could rescue
a bunch of kids that are in trouble if you have the right kind of
court programs, if you have alternatives to incarceration for first
offenders.
             
             We've got another program that is separate from this
now.  I'm really proud of it.  I signed a bill in June -- another one
of my passions where we're using empty military bases and National
Guard volunteers to work with high school dropouts to give them a
chance to do what they once might have done in the military but can't
now because we've phased the military down so much, to recover their
future and get a GED.
             
             So we're going to continue to do programs like that that
are highly targeted toward people that otherwise might get in
trouble.  But I will say what we want to do at the national level is
to provide a vehicle for people like you to serve.  But you still got
to get people at the local level to say, hey, this is a problem in
our community; will you give us the folks to do it?  And then we can
say, yes.
             
             Q    How you doing?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  I'm doing better since I spent the last
couple of hours with you.  (Laughter.)
             
             Q    That's great.  Basically, what I did was I went to
a lot of schools, a lot of junior high schools in the inner cities
and I spoke to a lot of the children about -- and educated them about
gangs, gang awareness, gang recruitment, how to stay away from gangs,
how to avoid it.  Also about drugs and alcohol, and self-esteem and
the values and importance of education.  A lot of the children that
live in my neighborhood, like myself, since I was a younger child I
witnessed things like massive gang-related homicides.  And this is
something that's dangerous and L.A. right now, in my opinion, is at a
state of emergency.  And I feel that what we need to do is reach the
children when they're young and show them an alternative way to go
when they're faced with these, you know, these types of situations.
             
             And what I do is I work with conflict resolution and I
also influence the children to involve themselves in beautification
of their own communities.  (Applause.)
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  If I might just respond to you.  You
know, I've spent a lot of time in your community over the last -- and
I started going there before I ran for president and before the
riots.  I first went to South Central L.A. over three years ago now -
- just to sit and talk with people.  I went to a -- my wife and I
went and talked with a bunch of 6th graders and we met with the
people from Uno and SCOC, the community organizations out there and
others.  And one of the things I think Americans who don't live in
these really troubled communities often forget is that most people
who live in places like that do not break the law, get up and go to
work every day, want their children to do well, are doing the best
they can.  And a lot of the kids who wind up in gangs do it almost
out of self-defense because they don't think they have any
alternatives.
             
             I was out there the other day -- you probably don't
remember this, but I visited that sporting goods store in South
Central L.A. run by the two guys who used to be gangs.  We played
basketball in the backyard there -- the parking lot of the sporting
goods store.  But I think that is so important. 
             
             Now, again, we have a job to do.  We, the government and
the private sector, have got to put more opportunity into places like
that.  
             
             One of the things that the Congress did in this economic
program I really hope will work -- at least we've got a chance to see
now -- is to pass a bill which will enable us to identify six really
troubled big, urban areas and say to people in the private sector,
look, we'll give you a whole lot of extra incentives if you'll put
your money there, create jobs there, and put people to work.  I mean,
it is nuts if you go into some of these areas and you think about all
these people just walking around without jobs.  That's an enormous
resource going to waste.  If those people were working, they'd have
money to buy things from other people.  They would create jobs. 
We've allowed this economy to shrink.
             
             But over and above that, we have to put in a lot of
volunteers -- people like you who can do that.  I mean, I'm convinced
that the economy is one thing we have to address, but all these
social problems have to be addressed one-on-one.  
             
             And let me just close with this sentence.  I was talking
to somebody I've known since I was six years old the other day.  And
we were talking about all the kids in trouble.  And she said, "You
know, a guy asked me the other day what are we going to do about all
these kids?  How are we going to save all these kids?"  And she said,
"We've got to save them the same way we lost them:  one at a time." 
(Applause.)  And so you can have an enormous impact on the future of
your community.  And it's up to me to try to make sure that we can
keep programs like this going so that you and people like you will
have a chance to do that.
             
             It's also important that you be an advocate for all
those people and not let us forget about them.  I mean, it's crazy
just to pay attention to a city when all the buildings burn down. 
Then it's often too late.  We need to pay attention to them when the
kids are growing up and they're trying to do the right thing.  And I
hope that in South Central L.A. and in a lot of the other places that
are represented here today, we're going to be able to do that.  Not
that we'll solve the problems overnight, but if everybody knows we're
trying, everybody knows we're working together, everybody knows we're
going in the right direction, that is the feeling I think people
want.  That's what gets people going.
             
             What breaks people is not the problems they face; what
breaks people is that they think tomorrow is not going to be any
better than today.  And what this national service is about is making
people believe that it will be different.  And you have proved that. 
(Applause.)  Thank you.
             
             Q    And finally, Mr. President, nowhere have we seen
service so urgently needed --
             
             Q    Excuse me, Mr. President.  I've got a really
important question to ask and a really important observation.  I'm
from Ohio Wesleyan University and I'm under the direction of John
Powers.  And I'd like to take time to ask you to recognize the
program directors and the community leaders who are here and who have
come so far to -- (applause) --
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Would they stand up?  Will you have them
stand up?
             
             Q    -- to make sure that your vision has gone through. 
(Applause.)
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Stand up.  Stand up. (Applause.)  Good
for you.  Good for you.  Thank you.
             
             Q    Also -- we just have one other thing.  I'm also
with Ohio Wesleyan University.  On the point you just made about
getting to the children and getting to the cities before they burn
down is something that we're really concerned about in Delaware,
Ohio.  Most of the program, the National Service Program, had a
strong emphasis and focus on the urban areas.  And in Delaware, Ohio,
we're having a lot of trouble with public safety, education, health
care and environmental awareness.  
             
             I worked this summer at the Delaware County Juvenile
Court where they were swamped with 90-percent increases in juvenile
offenders.  And what we see is those issues aren't being addressed on
a rural level, they're being just slipped under the carpet on a rural
level because we're assuming that our small rural towns aren't having
the same problems as our large urban societies.  
             
             Our question is, what direction do you perceive that the
movement of national service should take to be inclusive of rural
problems of education, public safety, environment and health, given
that the predominant focus has been exemplified this summer of being
that of urban issues?
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  It is true that this summer, because we
were basically doing a test program this summer and we wanted to plug
into programs that were established and that had a real chance of
working -- the program you mentioned in Philadelphia, the program --
the City Year Program that Greg's involved with -- that we knew were
working.  So we did that, and we did it deliberately, and I still
think it was the right thing to do.  
             
             On the other hand, there were some non-urban projects: 
The Red Lake Project, the one in south Texas that was done.  And as I
said earlier, I come from rural background, a state full of small
towns and rural areas, and I know that all the problems that are in
the big cities are also there.  So we are going to appoint this board
to run the National Service Program that is fully representative of
the rest of the country, and one of their missions will be to
allocate the resources in a way that are fair to the whole country so
that we don't forget about the small towns and the rural areas. 
They're not must different, except in size, in the scope of the
problems that they face today.  And I thank you for saying that. 
(Applause.)  Give them a hand.  (Applause.)
             
                             * * * * * 
             
             THE PRESIDENT:   First, let me just say a simple thank
you to all of you.  
             
             I was in the Midwest during the floods on four occasions
and I saw a lot of young people there working hard and really giving
it all they had.  But one of the things I think being a governor is a
good preparation for President is dealing with natural disasters,
because when you see them occur -- first of all, it's just
breathtaking to see a flood take away a town or a tornado or a
hurricane blow away a place.  But the other thing, you know, is just
what you got through saying, that everybody pours out their heart
when it's happening and they come and help and then -- but a year
from now there are still people who don't have their lives together. 
And the stresses on the families and the communities are staggering. 
             
             One interesting thing we have done is to -- as soon as I
got in office, I named Henry Cisneros as the administration's
coordinator for dealing with the long-term relief of Hurricane
Andrew.  Then I named Mike Espy, the Agriculture Secretary, the
administration's coordinator dealing with the long-term relief in the
Midwest.  These are the kinds of things that we have to do.  We've
got to stay with it for the long run.  And I hope that the National
Service Project can provide volunteers next year in the Midwest if
they are needed, and next year in South Florida if they are needed,
so that we don't forget about those people.  It takes a long time to
recover from a disaster of the magnitude of Andrew or a 500-year
flood, which is what we just had in the Midwest.  And I really thank
you for it.  (Applause.)  Thank you.
             
             Q    Mr. President, we thank you very much for being
with us today.  We thank you for giving us this common ground to do
this.  (Applause.)

                          END12:54 P.M. EDT

