pd06oc97 Statement on the Report of the Commission on Immigration Reform...

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<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]


[Page i-iii]
 
Monday, October 6, 1997
 
Volume 33--Number 40
Pages 1431-1485
 
Contents

[[Page i]]

Weekly Compilation of

Presidential

Documents



[[Page ii]]


Addresses and Remarks

    See also Resignations and Retirements
    Arkansas
        Candlelight vigil honoring the Little Rock Nine in Little Rock--
            1448
        Hot Springs High School Ultimate Class Reunion in Hot Springs--
            1443
        State Democratic Party reception in Little Rock--1445
    Arts and humanities medals--1451, 1458
    Education legislation, congressional action--1460
    Food safety initiative--1476
    Income and poverty report--1456
    President's Advisory Board on Race--1462
    Radio address--1442
    Texas
        Democratic National Committee dinner in Houston--1437
        San Jacinto Community College in Houston--1431
    Weather forecasters--1470

Bill Signings

    Continuing appropriations legislation, statement--1465
    Military Construction Appropriations Act, 1998, statement--1465

Communications to Congress

    Iran, message transmitting notice--1467

Communications to Federal Agencies

    Counternarcotics assistance to certain Latin American and Eastern 
        Caribbean countries, memorandum--1469
    Delegation of authority, memorandum--1469
    Food safety initiative, memorandum--1479
    Refugee immigration, memorandum--1468

Executive Orders

    Continuance of Certain Federal Advisory Committees and Amendments to 
        Executive Orders 13038 and 13054--1459
    Level V of the Executive Schedule: Removal of the Executive 
        Director, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Department of 
        Labor--1467

Interviews With the News Media

    Exchanges with reporters
        Briefing Room--1456
        Rose Garden--1476
        South Lawn--1460

Letters and Messages

    National Arts and Humanities Month, message--1456
    Rosh Hashana, message--1465

Notices

    Continuation of Iran Emergency--1467
  
(Continued on the inside of the back cover.)

Correction: In the September 15 edition of the Weekly Compilation of 
Presidential Documents, Volume 33, number 37, we announced the 
availability of this publication on the Internet on the Government 
Printing Office Home Page. The address was incorrect. The correct 
address is http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/index.html.



              WEEKLY COMPILATION OF
          ------------------------------
              PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS

Published every Monday by the Office of the Federal Register, National 
Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC 20408, the Weekly 
Compilation of Presidential Documents contains statements, messages, and
other Presidential materials released by the White House during the 
preceding week.

The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents is published pursuant to
the authority contained in the Federal Register Act (49 Stat. 500, as 
amended; 44 U.S.C. Ch. 15), under regulations prescribed by the 
Administrative Committee of the Federal Register, approved by the 
President (37 FR 23607; 1 CFR Part 10).

Distribution is made only by the Superintendent of Documents, Government
Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402. The Weekly Compilation of 
Presidential Documents will be furnished by mail to domestic subscribers 
for $80.00 per year ($137.00 for mailing first class) and to foreign
subscribers for $93.75 per year, payable to the Superintendent of 
Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402. The charge 
for a single copy is $3.00 ($3.75 for foreign mailing).

There are no restrictions on the republication of material appearing in 
the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents.





[[Page iii]]

Contents--Continued

Proclamations

    Fire Prevention Week--1481
    National Breast Cancer Awareness Month--1474
    National Disability Employment Awareness Month--1480
    National Domestic Violence Awareness Month--1475

Resignations and Retirements

    Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman John M.
          Shalikashvili, USA
        Citation--1465
        Remarks in Arlington, VA--1463

Statements by the President

    See also Bill Signings
    Commission on Immigration Reform, report--1466
    Death of Roy Lichtenstein--1466
    National economy--1481
    Senate Finance Committee action on fast-track trading authority 
        legislation--1474

Supplementary Materials

    Acts approved by the President--1484
    Checklist of White House press releases--1484
    Digest of other White House announcements--1482
    Nominations submitted to the Senate--1483

[[Page 1431]]




<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]


[Page 1431-1437]
 
Monday, October 6, 1997
 
Volume 33--Number 40
Pages 1431-1485
 
Week Ending Friday, October 3, 1997
 
Remarks at San Jacinto Community College in Houston, Texas


September 26, 1997

    Thank you. Well, Esmerelda may be getting a degree in mathematics, 
but today she got an A in public speaking. [Laughter] Let's give her 
another hand. I thought she was great. [Applause]
    Mayor and Mrs. Lanier, Mayor Isbell, and Commissioner Mauro, 
Chancellor Horton. I also see out there Mr. George Abbey, the Director 
of the Johnson Space Center, something that's very close to my heart. 
I've tried to promote the space program as President. I think Ellen 
Ochoa may be here as well. But I thank them for their work. And weren't 
you proud when we landed that little vehicle on Mars, and we got to see 
those pictures. I loved it. I'd like to say a special word of 
appreciation, too, to Congressman Ken Bentsen. He has done a very, very 
fine job for you in the United States Congress, and he has steadfastly 
supported our efforts to balance the budget, to restore health to the 
economy, but to do it in a way that kept educational opportunities 
increasing, not decreasing, for the people of this country and the 
people of this district. And I thank him for that.
    I'm very excited to be here today for a couple of reasons. First of 
all, I know we're actually close to the place where the battle of San 
Jacinto occurred. Right? And Sam Houston, in addition to having an 
interesting life which was amazing--he lived with the Cherokees; he led 
the Texas army in the battle for independence; he was a president of the 
Republic of Texas and a United States Senator; he also was a teacher. 
And if you have read much about Sam Houston, you may have seen that he--
and I quote--he said that his time as a classroom teacher was, quote, 
``the most satisfying time of my life.'' I think that I would be remiss 
if I did not say to all the educators who are here, as I look at this 
sea of young people, I thank you for your devotion to education, and I 
hope that it will always be something that brings you great 
satisfaction.
    Here, so near the site where Texas fought a battle to win its 
political independence, you are all gaining your economic independence 
by being in this marvelous institution. And the way the community 
college system works here in Texas and across America, in my view, is a 
model of the way America ought to work.
    You think about it. This place, first of all, is open to all. Nobody 
gets turned away because they're too old or too young or because of the 
color of their skin or because of their gender or anything else. If 
you're willing to work and take responsibility for yourselves and your 
course of study, it's open to all--first thing.
    Secondly, it very much focuses on results, not rhetoric, because the 
graduates of community colleges, they either succeed--that is, they get 
a job, or they go on further with their education--or they don't get a 
job based on what they studied, and so you have to change the 
curriculum. So there is not much room for a lot of hot air and talk. You 
either produce or you don't.
    The third thing about the community colleges is that they're always 
about change, not the status quo. Because of the way they're hooked into 
the economy of every area in our country, they are--much more than 
educational institutions or institutions of any kind--supersensitive to 
what's going on in people's lives, because otherwise the students 
wouldn't show up after a while if the institution weren't relevant to 
the future, to their future, and to the community's future.
    So, open to all; rhetoric, not results; change, not the status quo; 
and the last thing that I think is very important is, it's much more 
about partnerships than politics. Nobody asks you whether you're a 
Democrat or a Republican. Nobody asks you whether

[[Page 1432]]

you like or dislike some person or thing. The whole thing only works 
when people are working together to build a community. I say that 
because I really believe, as I have said all over this country, that 
America would be better if we all worked in the way the community 
colleges of our country work, in the way San Jacinto works.
    Almost 6 years ago, I started my candidacy for President with a 
vision for what I wanted America to look like in the 21st century and a 
commitment to prepare us for that. And it's a pretty simple thing. When 
the century turns, when all of you younger people in this audience have 
your own children coming up, I want to know that the American dream is 
still alive for everybody who will work for it. I want to know that our 
country will still be leading the world for peace and freedom and 
prosperity. And I want to know that we are coming together across all 
the lines that divide us into one America. Opportunity for all, 
responsibility from all, a community of all: That's what I believe we 
should be doing.
    I knew then, and now I know even better than I did 6 years ago, that 
that would require both new policies and a new kind of Government. 
Policies that would be focused on the future, not the past; on unity, 
not division; on partnerships more than politics; on people and values, 
not power; on keeping America leading, not following; and that we had to 
start with a good economic policy because in 1991 the economy wasn't 
working for most of the people.
    I also felt then, and I feel more strongly now, that we have to 
change the very way our Government works. We'd have to make it smaller 
and less bureaucratic and more flexible. And therefore, we would have to 
liberate it from the ability of very powerful interests to cripple us 
and keep us from doing things. Now, we've made a lot of progress. We 
passed the first balanced budget this year since President Lyndon 
Johnson's last budget, the first balanced budget in a generation. The 
Federal Government is now smaller than it was when Lyndon Johnson took 
office. It's the smallest it's been since John Kennedy was President. 
We've gotten rid of 16,000 pages of Federal regulations and turned over 
a lot more things to working with States and local governments and the 
private sector. We passed a lobby reform bill to at least disclose what 
the lobbyists in Washington are doing and to limit their ability to do 
certain things with Members of Congress and the Government.
    But one of the biggest problems we have with our political system--I 
just want to change the subject just for a moment because I know it's of 
concern to almost all Americans, and it should be--is that, with the 
advent of modern communications and the growth of our country, the costs 
of political campaigns have soared astronomically, and with it, the 
burdens of raising money, and with it, the questions raised about how 
much money has to be raised to run for office and how it's raised.
    And I ask you all to think about your role in this. You might say, 
on the one hand, ``Well, I don't like those people raising all that 
money,'' and then ask yourself, how many times did you vote for a 
candidate who had the best television ads or the candidate whose ads you 
saw the most. Or did you ever vote against someone who was attacked in a 
television ad, and you never saw another television ad responding to the 
attack, so you thought, ``Well, what they said might be true. I don't 
want to take any chances.''
    The point I want to make is, we desperately need to reform the way 
we finance our campaigns, and a part of that has to be changing the cost 

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