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THE ECONOMY: Speech - Philadelphia, PA - 4/16/92

Remarks of Gov. Bill Clinton Wharton School of Business University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia -- April 16, 1992

As many of you know, I've spent the last few days back home in Little Rock, underdoctor's orders not to speak. Imagine how much happier you would be if all thepoliticians in America lost their voices for a week every year.Unfortunately, most Americans are struggling to make their voices heard every day. Forthe last seven months, I've traveled back and forth across this country, listening to thethousands of people I've met: Unemployed workers who've lost not only their jobs buttheir pensions, their health care, and even their homes. Laid-off defense workers whonow make their living driving cabs. Elderly couples whose refrigerators are bare becauseso much of their monthly Social Security check has to go for prescription drugs. Middle-class families everywhere who've taken second jobs to make ends meet.The determination and quiet courage of these brave Americans has kept me goingthrough the toughest moments of this campaign. Every day, their struggles and theirstories have reminded me what this election is really all about.This campaign can't be just another shallow political quarrel between Republicans andDemocrats in Washington. For more than a decade, both parties have failed us there. In1992, the very future of the American Dream is at stake. Unless we decide we want adifferent kind of President with a very different economic policy -- unless we decidewe're going to be more responsible as citizens for our common problems, we're in formore trouble.For me, the American Dream is not a slogan. It has been a way of life. I was born in1946, as America was entering the greatest economic boom the world has ever seen. Igrew up in a state where almost half the people lived below the poverty line. My motherwas widowed three months before I was born. I was raised by my grandparents until Iwas four. My grandmother was a nurse. My grandfather had a grade-school educationand ran a small grocery store. We didn't have much money. But growing up, I and mygeneration always knew that if we worked hard and played by the rules, we'd be rewarded-- and I have been, beyond my wildest dreams.Millions of young people growing up in this country today can't count on that dream.They look around and see that their hard work may not be rewarded. Most people areworking harder for less these days, as they have been for well over a decade. TheAmerican Dream is slipping away along with the loss of our economic leadership.

For 11 years as Governor, I've fought against the loss of American jobs and industry. Igot into this race for President when it became clear to me that without a change inPresidential leadership, we couldn't turn our country around.In the weeks and months to come, I will spell out my plans to turn this country around --reforming America's schools, radically changing government, making our streets safeagain from drugs and crime, opening up world markets to expanded world trade. Thiscampaign isn't about slogans and 30-second sound bites. It's time we offer real answers tothe real problems of real people.George Bush looks at America as it is today -- at the decline of the middle class and theexplosion of poverty -- and he says, "Do nothing." A few weeks ago, the front page of theBoston Globe carried a headline that said, "Do Nothing on Economy, Bush AdvisesLawmakers." Under that headline was a picture of President Bush meeting with theGerman Chancellor, Helmut Kohl. Kohl was smiling. Maybe because his country isdoing something; they have a national economic strategy that is beating our brains in. Sodoes Japan. So do all of the major countries in the world.But George Bush doesn't. His strategy is, do nothing.The only time President Bush changes is when the polls change or the pressures mount.Last year, the opponent was David Duke, the issue was civil rights, and George Bushwrongly called the civil rights act a quota bill. Then came Pat Buchanan, and his assaulton arts funding. So Bush fired the head of the National Endowment for the Arts. Thencritics from Richard Nixon to me criticized him for dragging his feet on aid to the formerSoviet Union. So he scheduled a speech within 15 minutes of mine to call for that aid.Two days ago, the President traveled to Macomb County to talk about a major jobtraining program which I have already proposed but which he has done nothing to enactafter three years as President.And today, after 11 years of an administration that has led an all-out assault on collegeaid to middle-class students -- one year after he proposed a budget which cut off PellGrants to every family making more than $10,000 a year -- but just twelve days beforethe Pennsylvania primary, the President comes here to Pennsylvania to promise universalaccess to college loans.And they say I'm slick.A campaign conversion isn't the same as a lifetime of conviction and a commitment tochange. Today I want to talk about real change -- about the fundamental problems of leadership and organization that are holding our economy back, and put forth a plan toaddress the long-term economic challenges we face. I have come here to Wharton, hometo so much of America's economic potential, to talk about what went wrong with oureconomy in the '80s -- the excesses of business; the misjudgments of labor; the errors

made by President Bush, his predecessor, and Congress -- and to challenge you to helpmake things right in the '90s.I have come here to the Wharton School because Wharton is home to much of America'seconomic potential, and has produced many of our best corporate leaders, including myfriend John Sculley. What you learn here will help shape not only the career you choose,but your country's economic future.But Wharton is also a powerful symbol of where our country went wrong in the 1980s. Itwas here at Wharton that Michael Milken got the idea to use junk bonds to leveragecorporate buyouts -- a quick-buck scheme that was supposed to shake up failedmanagement but too often forced corporations to lay off workers in formerly profitableplants, reduce R&D, and ultimately to go bankrupt or sell out again under the crushingburden of unserviceable debt.It was here at Wharton that by 1987, the year the stoc.htmlk market crashed, 25% of thegraduating class was going into investment banking -- a quarter of the best graduates atone of America's top business schools pursuing high incomes in high finance rather thanin the apparently less glamorous work of creating jobs, goods and services to makeAmerica richer.It was here at Wharton in the 1980s that students nicknamed the investment banking club"The Unindicted," and the Wharton "Wall of Fame," which honors famous alumni chosenby the students, kept photos of Donald Trump, who glorified the art of the deal, andMichael Milken on display until Trump went bankrupt and Milken was on his way to jail.And it is here at Wharton in 1992 that we must speak frankly about where we've been andwhat we've lost; where we're headed and what kind of nation we want to be. Together, wemust bring an end to the something-for-nothing ethic of the '80s.Last October, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a remarkable series called "America: WhatWent Wrong," which documented in statistics and stories what has happened to thecountry we love. The series, written by Donald Barlett and James Steele, is must readingfor any student of politics, ethics, or business -- and it holds important lessons forpoliticians and voters alike.Barlett and Steele found that for the forgotten middle class, the '80s were an economicdisaster. The size of the middle class fell for the first time since the '30s. Middle-classpeople are spending more time on the job, less time with their children, and bringinghome less money to pay more for health care, housing, and education -- while those at thetop of the totem pole saw their taxes go down and their incomes go up.People who make over $200,000 saw their incomes rise fifteen times faster than averageAmericans. The average middle- class person, by contrast, is working 158 hours a yearmore than in 1969 for about the same income -- an extra month of work without extra