Remarks to students at Portland State University in Portland

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, July 3, 1995

Thank you very much. First, President Ramaley, thank you for having us here at this wonderful campus. You know, I used to be a college teacher. My wife and I started out our married life teaching at the University of Arkansas in the Ozark Mountains. And I was looking at all of you under these beautiful trees, thinking there are a lot of days when I might like to be back here working for you here. This is a very wonderful place, and I thank you for having us here.

Thank you, Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse, for being here with us today and for your leadership, your vision, and your conscience. I can tell you all you are very, very fortunate to be represented by one of the most truly extraordinary individuals in the United States House of Representatives in Elizabeth Furse.

I want to thank Governor Kitzhaber, and I want to thank Mayor Katz, who I believe is over there - thank you, Vera, you've been great. And Portland has been wonderful to us. I've never had a bad day in Portland, Oregon, and I certainly didn't today. This is wonderful.

And you know, the Vice President really is funny, isn't he? [Laughter] You should have seen him back here when Elizabeth was introducing him and saying how intelligent he was and how energetic he was and how funny he was. And I whispered in his ear right before he came up, I said, "Next thing she's going to say is how pretty you are." [Laughter] But she restrained herself, and he was able to compose himself and give that wonderful speech. Let me say that our Nation has been very lucky because there's no doubt that in the entire history of the Republic, Al Gore is the most effective, influential person ever to be Vice President of the United States.

Let me tell you just for a minute what we were really doing here today at this regional economic conference. We were worried about what Oregon and what the Pacific Northwest will be like for all you young people here in the audience. We were worried about how we can guarantee a future, how we can move into the next century with the American dream alive and well and with the leadership and values of our country secure, in a world that is full of possibility and full of uncertainty.

You know, most of us who are my age and older, we've lived most of our lives and our course is pretty well set. And we have been very, very blessed to grow up in a country and to have the opportunities that America has offered for all the decades since the end of the Second World War.

Now, at the end of the cold war, the dawn of the global economy, the information age, moving into a new century, into a new millennium, we look out at a world that is changing so rapidly, that is full of untold possibilities but also some pretty troubling developments; a world that has left a lot of people feeling robust and secure and hopeful and eager for the future and a world that has left a lot of people feeling at a minimum kind of confused and uncertain and concerned about their future.

If you go back and ask yourself, what is the responsibility of the President and what is the responsibility of the citizenry of the United States, you can do no better than to go back to the documents of our Founders, who believed that we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That means that at any point in history, but particularly at those points of great change, our responsibility is to do what is necessary to help us make the most of our lives. All of us, without regard to race or region or income or background or religion, have the right to make the most of our own lives. That is the challenge that is facing us here today.

And I believe that that challenge requires us, number one, to create more economic opportunity, more jobs, and higher incomes; number two, to give people the tools they need to develop their God-given abilities; number three, to promote the security of the United States at home and abroad; number four, to preserve the natural heritage of the United States that has brought us to this point and that we want to pass on to our children, our grandchildren, and our grandchildren's grandchildren.

And finally, in a world which is increasingly fast-changing and decentralized, it requires those of us in the National Government, to use the Vice President's term, to literally reinvent the way the Government works, to set a course, to pursue the right priorities, but to make sure that people at the grassroots level can make the fundamental decisions affecting their own lives and can look across the table at people who are different from themselves and work out those differences in a spirit of genuine friendship and good citizenship.

These are the thing we have tried to do in the last 2 1/2 years, and these are the things that will take America into the 21st century.

I just want to close by asking you to think about one or two very important issues. We're in a big debate in Washington now, not only about how to balance the budget - that's the good news; most people agree that we should do it - but about the fundamental purposes of Government. There are those who say today that the Government is intrinsically destructive of our way of life and has no role other than national defense, tax cuts, and eliminating whatever you have to balance the budget as quickly as possible.