Remarks at Glendale Community College in Glendale, California

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, June 17, 1996

And if you think about it, any great society that forces people to make a choice in the end is going to fail. If you have to fail at home in order to succeed at work, we're in trouble. But if the only way you can succeed at home is to fail at work, we're in trouble. So when I think about the kind of world we're trying to create, I often ask myself, how can I create an America so that when I leave office every American who is willing to work for it can get up every day and do well at home and do well at work and do well at school. That is what I want.

The first thing we have to do, obviously, is to give people economic opportunity. I'm proud of the fact that in the last 3 1/2 years we've cut the deficit by more than 50 percent. It's wrong to leave you with a legacy of debt. We've got interest rates down so we can grow the economy. I'm proud of the fact that we are now seeing an all-time record in the products and services we're exporting, more than ever before, to the Asian-Pacific region here out of the West Coast. I'm proud of the fact that in each of the last 3 years we've had a record number of new small businesses and that there have been 3.7 million more Americans move into their own homes in the last 3 1/2 years. I am very proud of that.

And I'm proud of the fact that when we passed our economic program by one vote in both Houses - the Vice President had to break the tie - and some of the people who were against it said it would bring on a recession and crash the economy. We said it would bring 8 million jobs in 4 years. Well, they were wrong, but so were we. It brought 9.7 million jobs in 3 1/2 years, and 600,000 of them in California, and a lot more to come after 4 years of losing jobs. And so we're moving in the right direction.

But it's not enough. We also have to think about, what about all those working people? How are they going to succeed at home? We passed the family and medical leave law to say that if you have to take a little time off, you won't lose your job because your child is sick. And I think that's important. We strengthened child support enforcement - 40 percent increase in 3 years in child support enforcement. We worked with States all over America to help people who were on welfare move into school, move into work. There are 1.3 million fewer families on welfare today than there were the day I became President, and I'm proud of that. We have worked hard to reduce the welfare rolls.

We also recognize what you recognize every day when you come to this community college, that we simply cannot create the kind of America we're working for until every single American has access to a higher level of education. And we cannot allow this country to become a more divided society. One of the most disturbing things that has happened in America in the last 15 years is that after spending almost 40 years after World War II in which we were growing together, in which the poorest Americans who were working were increasing their incomes at roughly the same rate as the wealthiest of Americans - for the last 15 years we have become a more divided society. And about half of our people are working harder and harder without getting raises. Almost entirely the division is due to the lack of skills that are marketable in the global economy.