pd08jn98 Remarks to the Democratic Leadership Council National Conversation...

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Pages 1003-1056
 
Week Ending Friday, June 5, 1998
 
Memorandum on Plain Language in Government Writing

June 1, 1998

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

Subject: Plain Language in Government Writing

    The Vice President and I have made reinventing the Federal 
Government a top priority of my Administration. We are determined to 
make the Government more responsive, accessible, and understandable in 
its communications with the public.
    The Federal Government's writing must be in plain language. By using 
plain language, we send a clear message about what the Government is 
doing, what it requires, and what services it offers. Plain language 
saves the Government and the private sector time, effort, and money.
    Plain language requirements vary from one document to another, 
depending on the intended audience. Plain language documents have 
logical organization, easy-to-read design features, and use:
<bullet>    common, everyday words, except for necessary technical 
            terms;
<bullet>    ``you'' and other pronouns;
<bullet>    the active voice; and
<bullet>    short sentences.
    To ensure the use of plain language, I direct you to do the 
following:
<bullet>    By October 1, 1998, use plain language in all new documents, 
            other than regulations, that explain how to obtain a benefit 
            or service or how to comply with a requirement you 
            administer or enforce. For example, these documents may 
            include letters, forms, notices, and instructions. By 
            January 1, 2002, all such documents created prior to October 
            1, 1998, must also be in plain language.

<bullet>    By January 1, 1999, use plain language in all proposed and 
            final rulemaking documents published in the Federal 
            Register, unless you proposed the rule before that date. You 
            should consider

[[Page 1011]]

            rewriting existing regulations in plain language when you 
            have the opportunity and resources to do so.
    The National Partnership for Reinventing Government will issue 
guidance to help you comply with these directives and to explain more 
fully the elements of plain language. You should also use customer 
feedback and common sense to guide your plain language efforts.
    I ask the independent agencies to comply with these directives.
    This memorandum does not confer any right or benefit enforceable by 
law against the United States or its representatives. The Director of 
the Office of Management and Budget will publish this memorandum in the 
Federal Register.
                                            William J. Clinton


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[Page 1011-1017]
 
Monday, June 8, 1998
 
Volume 34--Number 23
Pages 1003-1056
 
Week Ending Friday, June 5, 1998
 
Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on the 2000 Census in Houston, Texas

June 2, 1998

    The President. Thank you. Thank you for that wonderful welcome, and 
thank you, Marta, for the wonderful work you're doing here. I enjoyed my 
tour. I enjoyed shaking hands with all the folks who work here and the 
people who are taking advantage of all your services. And I'm glad to be 
here. Mr. Mayor, you can be proud, and I know you are proud of this 
center and the others like it in this city.
    I'd like to thank all the Members of Congress who are here from the 
Texas delegation, and a special thanks to Representatives Maloney and 
Sawyer for coming from Washington with me today, and for their 
passionate concern to try to get an accurate census.
    I thank the Texas land commissioner, Garry Mauro, for being here; 
and the members of the legislature, Senator Gallegos, Senator Ellis, 
Congressman--Representative Torres, and others, if they're here, the 
other city officials; Mr. Boney, the president of the city council; Mr. 
Eckels, the county executive judge; Rueben Guerrero, the SBA Regional 
Administrator. If there are others--I think our Deputy Secretary of 
Commerce, Mr. Mallett, is here, who is from Houston. I thank you all for 
being here.
    Before I say what I want to say about the census, I think, since 
this is the first time I have been in Texas since the fires began to 
rage in Mexico, that have affected you, if you'll forgive me, I'd like 
to just say a word about that. The smoke and the haze from these fires 
has become a matter of serious concern for people in Texas and 
Louisiana, and other Gulf States. It has gotten even further up into our 
country. And of course, the greatest loss has been suffered by our 
friends and neighbors across the border in Mexico. Now, we are doing 
everything we know to do to help, both to help the people of Mexico and 
to stem the disadvantageous side effects of all the smoke and haze 
coming up here into the United States.
    I had an extended talk with President Zedillo about it. And, of 
course, here we had the EPA and Health and Human Services and FEMA 
monitoring the air quality. We're working very hard with the Mexican 
Government to help them more effectively fight these fires. We provided 
more than $8 million in emergency assistance to Mexico since January, 
with 4 firefighting helicopters, an infrared imaging aircraft to detect 
fire hotspots, safety, communications, and other firefighting equipment 
for over 3,000 firefighters. Over 50 experts from our Federal agency 
have provided important technical advice, and tomorrow, our Agriculture 
Secretary, Dan Glickman, and our AID Administrator, Brian Atwood, are 
going to Mexico to see these fires firsthand and to see what else we can 
do in consultation with Mexican officials.
    I think that we will be successful, but this has been a long and 
frustrating thing. As you probably know, we've had extended fires over 
the last year in Southeast Asia as well and in South America. This is a 
terrific problem that requires change in longstanding habits on the part 
of many people in rural areas in a lot of these countries, but it also 
is a function of the unusual weather conditions through which we have 
been living. And we'll continue to work on it.
    Now, let's talk about the census. Since our Nation's founding, the 
taking of the census has been mandated by the Constitution. How we have 
met this responsibility has changed

[[Page 1012]]

and evolved over time as the country has grown in size and population, 
and as we've learned more about how to count people. Today I want to 
talk about the newest changes that we propose to make and how important 
it is to your work and your community. That's why we're here--so that we 
can put a human face on the census and its consequences.
    We do this every 10 years. The first time we had a census, Thomas 
Jefferson, who was then the Secretary of State, actually sent Federal 
marshals out on horseback to count heads. We relied on this system of 
sending workers out to count our people, household by household, person 
by person, for nearly two centuries. But as the population grew and 
people began to move more frequently, this process became increasingly 
both inefficient and ineffective, even as it became progressively more 
expensive. By the time we finished counting, we'd have to start all over 
again for the next census.
    In 1970, therefore, we started counting people by mail. For three 
decades now, Americans have been asked to fill out census forms that 
come in the mail and send them back for processing. Now we know that 
this method, too, needs to be updated. For a variety of reasons, 
millions of people, literally millions of people, did not send their 
1990 census form back. For the first time, the census in 1990 was less 
accurate than the one before it. Before that, the census had become 
increasingly more accurate.
    We know now that the census missed 8 million Americans living in 
inner cities and in remote rural areas. We know, too, interestingly 
enough, that it double-counted 4 million Americans, many of whom had the 
good fortune to own 2 homes. [Laughter] The number of people not counted 
in Los Angeles--in Los Angeles alone--was enough to fill a city as big 
as Tallahassee, the capital of Florida. The census missed 482,738 people 
in the State of Texas, 66,748 of them here in Houston.
    Now, if we are really going to strengthen our country and prepare 
for this new century, we have to have a full and accurate picture of who 
we are as a people and where we live. We rely on census statistics every 
day to determine where to build more roads and hospitals and child care 
centers, and to decide which communities need more Federal help for Head 
Start or Federal training programs, or for the WIC program. Marta and I 
just visited your WIC program here in this center, and we saw a baby 
being weighed and measured. The baby liked being weighed more than it 
liked being measured. I don't blame him. [Laughter]
    The WIC program is just one example. The Congress, with all the 
fights that we've had over the last 6 years, we've had pretty good 
success in getting a bipartisan majority to continue to put more money 
into the WIC program, because people know that it makes good sense to 
feed babies and take care of them and provide for them when they're 
young. But the funds, once appropriated, can only flow where they're 
needed if there is an accurate count of where the kids are. So, 
ironically, no matter how much money we appropriate for WIC, unless we 
actually can track where the children are, the program will be less than 
fully successful.
    Now, more than half of the undercounted in the last census were 
children. A disproportionate number of undercounted Americans were 
minorities. That means some of our most vulnerable populations routinely 
are omitted when it comes time to providing Federal funds for critical 
services. An inaccurate census distorts our understanding of the needs 
of our people, and in many respects, therefore, it diminishes the 
quality of life not only for them but for all the rest of us as well.
    That's why we have to use the most up-to-date, scientific, cost-
effective methods to conduct an accurate census. That's why--to go back 
to what Congressman Green said--we should follow the National Academy of 
Sciences' recommendations to use statistical sampling in the next 
census.
    Scientists and statisticians are nearly unanimous in saying that 
statistical sampling is the best way to get a full and fair count of our 
people for the 2000 census. It is estimated that if we use good 
statistical sampling, supplemented by what are called quality checks, 
where you go out into selected neighborhoods and actually count heads to 
make sure that the sampling is working, that we can cut the error rate 
to a tenth of a percent, or that

[[Page 1013]]

in the next sample we would miss, out of a country of nearly 300 million 
people by then, only 300,000, as opposed to 8 million in the 1990 
census.
    Now, as far as I know, nobody in this room had anything to do with 
coming up with this proposal. All of us just want an accurate count. 
Whatever the count is, wherever the people are, this is not a political 
issue; this is an American issue. But the people who know what they're 
doing tell us that this is the way we should do it. There is no serious 
dispute among the experts here.
    It is, therefore, I think, quite unfortunate that some in Congress 
have so vociferously opposed sampling, because improving the census 
shouldn't be a partisan issue. It's not about politics; it's about 
people. It's about making sure every American really and literally 
counts. It's about gathering fair and accurate information that we 
absolutely have to have if we're going to determine who we are and what 
we have to do to prepare all our people for the 21st century.
    In Texas, I would think every Republican would be just as interested 
as every Democrat in seeing that every Texan is counted so that this 
State does not lose another billion dollars or maybe $2 or $3 billion by 
then, in undercounting in ways that will help you to meet the challenge 
of your growing population and to seize the opportunities that are out 
there for all of you.
    So that's what we're here for. And all the folks on this panel, I 
want to thank them in advance for their willingness to be here, because 
I'm basically just going to listen to them now, give you what I hope 
will be a fuller picture of what the consequences of this whole census 
issue are in very stark, clear human terms. But remember, it's not a 
political issue; it's a people issue. Nobody has got an ax to grind for 
any method; we should all want the most accurate method. And when it's 
all said and done, all we should want is to have everyone of us 
properly, accurately, fairly, and constitutionally counted.
    Thank you very much. [Applause] Thank you.
    Well, as I said earlier, everybody here, around this panel, has a 
different perspective on the importance of the census. And I would like 
to hear some specific illustrations now about how the census is used and 
why the accuracy is important. And maybe we should start with Dr. Craven 
and with Dr. Kendrick--if you could start.

[Dr. Judith Craven, president, United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast in 
Houston, explained the importance of accurate census numbers to funding 
for services in the area.]

    The President. So this is very important because--so what you're 
saying is, when United Way funds are distributed, private funds----
    Dr. Craven. That's correct.
    The President. ----you need the census, first of all, to tell you 
where the problems are, and secondly, to know how much to give.
    Dr. Craven. How much to give and how we can leverage what's already 
being done by the Government, and making sure that Government dollars 
have come in an equitable amount to leverage and maximize the resources 
here to deliver those services.
    The President. This as an important point because it's something you 
almost never hear, that because of the work of United Ways all over 
America, and because of the way they work, and because of the generosity 
of the American people, if the census is inaccurate, it has an indirect, 
bad effect on private investment in people, in community needs, as well 
as on Government investment.
    Dr. Kendrick.

[Dr. Mary des Vignes-Kendrick, director, City of Houston Health 
Department, described how critical accurate census data is to public 
health and is used as the denominator for a variety of policymaking 
decisions.]

    The President. Thank you very much. Maybe we could be a little more 
specific about what some of the specific repercussions are, or have 
been, as a result of the undercount in the 1990 census.
    Mr. Moreno, could you respond to that?

[Gilbert Moreno, president and chief executive officer, Association for 
the Advancement of Mexican-Americans, described the impact that the 
census will have on the Mexican-American community.]

    The President. Dr. Mindiola.

[[Page 1014]]

[Dr. Tatcho Mindiola, Jr., director, Center for Mexican-American Studies 
at the University of Houston, described how areas such as Houston's East 
End, which are generally poor, have been traditionally undercounted. Dr. 
Mindiola applauded the President's support of the statistical sampling 
method for the next census.]

    The President. Thank you.
    Reverend Clemons.

[Rev. Harvey Clemons, Jr., pastor, Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, 
described how an accurate and comprehensive census count would help 
provide the tools needed to bring about community revitalization in 
hard-to-develop areas which have been traditionally undercounted.]

    The President. What about the business community? Ms. Joe, would you 
like to talk about that?

[Ms. Glenda Joe of Great Wall Enterprises, a marketing, advertising, and 
public relations firm catering to Asian-American markets and 
demographics, described how inaccurate census data discourages corporate 
ventures and investment in the region. She explained that poor census 
data affected funding allocations for Asian nonprofit organizations. Ms. 

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