Remarks to the National Education Association in San Francisco, California - Pres William J. Clinton - July 5, 1993 - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents,  July 12, 1993  by Bill Clinton

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Of course, we have problems. We still lose a stunning number of our children to poverty, to drugs, to violence. Too many of them simply never learn enough to compete and win. Too many, indeed, can barely function in a highly organized and flexible society.

For more than a decade, our policies ignored these problems. We ran up huge deficits, not to invest in our children and our future but huge deficits that mortgaged our future, weakened our economy. And all the while we actually reduced our investments in education and technology and the things that make a country strong. We mortgaged our future by rewarding speculation over savings, by utting taxes on the wealthy while we raised them on the middle class, by failing to invest in those things which really count in the long run.

But we are turning that around. We are getting our house in order. We are putting the steel back into our competitive edge. But the job that the President has in doing this is no different than the job you have faced in your classroom hundreds, indeed, thousands of times if you've been a teacher long enough. A lot of people don't want to hear what you have to say, to do what it takes to learn what they need to know. [Applause] Thank you.

How many times have you been in a classroom when you had to say something that was genuinely challenging and tough to a single student or to a whole class, and they would simply resist and resist and resist it. That's what's going on in this country today, isn't it? Our peoplg have been told what they wanted to hear for so long, instead of what it really takes to make it, that there is a natural resistance, one which I understand and do not begrudge. For 12 years, voters have been spoon-fed pablum. They've been told that there was a free ride. There was a free ride. If only if we would cut somebody else's program, if only we would blame someone else, you can have it all. You can have your lower taxes and all the projects you want, and we'll just cut it somewhere else.

Well, the people of California know better. They know that we had to and we should welcome the opportunity to cut defense spending at the end of the cold war. But that means tough choices like closing bases and reducing contracts. And if there is no plan to invest in the people that are left behind, then an awful lot of unfair harm will be done. So if you're going to make the tough decision, you have to level with the people, and then forge ahead to try to make something good happen.

But I've heard all these siren songs about how "it's spending, stupid." Well, let me tell you something: In our budget, which cuts $500 billion from the deficit, half of it comes from spending cuts. We have a hard freeze on domestic spending over the next 5 years, even though we spend more money in some things you and I care about. We reduced defense spending as much as we should, and we have pushed the limit of that. We have cut and cut and cut the entitlements. We have cut the discretionary programs. We have cut the defense programs.