Remarks and a question-and-answer session at the Adult Learning Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey - Bill Clinton's speech, March 1, 1993 - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, March 8, 1993

World Trade Center Bombing

Q. -----economic aid, sir, to New York, and are you prepared to do that? Governor Cuomo has asked for it.

The President. This morning I got a report on that, and it's my understanding that we are going through the regular agencies and that the request will be processed promptly. I don't think that there is any problem with the request that he made as far as I understand it. And we're giving that a high priority.

Rutgers University and Community Service

Q. Mr. President, why did you choose Rutgers for this announcement? And what impressed you about their community service program here?

The President. I chose Rutgers because, first of all, the university was involved with this facility and because I want to keep highlighting adult education, education of welfare recipients, education of kids that drop out of school, and because I like this New Jersey Youth Program here. Under Governor Florio's administration, they started, I think, 9, 10, 11 of these, something like that. Again, I do not want this to be a bureaucratic program. I want to encourage kind of an entrepreneurial spirit out there at the State and local level. I want States to be encouraged to set up Youth Corps. I want comprehensive community service centers like this to be able to get people doing national service.

So I wanted to come here to say I really appreciate what these folks are doing, but also to give the rest of America an idea of what we mean by community service, what we mean by national service, and how it can embrace people of different ages and different backgrounds with different needs; because it's very important that to make this work, we're going to have to rely on the creativity of people at the grassroots level. And the last thing I want is another centralized bureaucracy telling people how to serve.

As I said, right now, the only decisions we have made for categories of service that have to be approved in every State are in the area of police and teaching, because we know as a practical matter we need more community policing in high-crime areas where we can reduce crime and work with kids and not just be there after it happens. And we know we need more teachers in a lot of core areas to reduce the student-teacher ratio and increase learning. So we've done that. But otherwise, this program is not going to have a huge set of national requirements or bureaucracy.

Neighborhood Corps Bill

Q. Mr. President, how closely, if at all, did you work with Senator Bradley's neighborhood corps bill?

The President. We reviewed it very closely. I think he's going to meet us over at Rutgers today. I was very impressed by it. And as a matter of fact, I had a personal conversation with him about it. That's one of the reasons we wanted to come up here, too. And I invited him to come today, and I think he's going to be over there.

Terrorism in the U.S.

Q. Mr. President, do you fear that a fear of terrorism in America might change the way of life that most Americans have, if this bombing proves to be terrorism?