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makes Government more responsive, more accessible to people? And then 
the two that I'm particularly interested in: How can we use technology 
to bring economic opportunity to people in places that are not part of 
this recovery in the United States; and how can we use-it--or can we use 
it to help people bridge a whole generation of economic development 
around the world?
    Ron Dozoretz and I have talked a lot about what could be done, for 
example, for the Indian reservations. We were in Appalachia; we were in 
the Mississippi Delta--a lot of the places that are still poor are not 
in inner-city neighborhoods; a lot of places are literally, physically--
[inaudible]--from mainstream American economic life. And I'm convinced 
that if we can't figure out ways to bring opportunity to these places 
now, we will never get around to it because of the high performance of 
our economy generally and because it's really an opportunity for 
investors to go into places where there's a lot of labor, a lot of 
willing labor, and the cost of doing business is modest.
    It seems to me that while what we've done with the empowerment 
zones, under the leadership of the Vice President, and what I propose 
that the Congress adopt, which is essentially to give the same set of 
financial incentives to people who invest in poor areas in America we 
give them to invest in the Caribbean or Latin America or Africa or Asia,

[[Page 1546]]

is a good start. But I think there has got to be, at least for those 
people that are physically isolated, some thought to how technology can 
be used to trigger the infusion of economic opportunity and, therefore, 
the inclusion of those people into the mainstream of American economic 
life.
    And finally, politics, which has already been mentioned by Senator 
Kerry--it seems to me that there is, on the one hand, this sort of 
exponential increase in the cost of running campaigns, because we try 
to--because of the cost of communication. Let's not kid--and if you look 
at the cost of the campaigns as compared with the size of the Federal 
budget, for example, it doesn't look like such a big, carrying cost. But 
it's an enormous burden for people who have to go out and raise the 
money and spend the money. And basically we're communicating with each 
other in traditional ways. Most of the costs of the campaign today comes 
from television and mail, and in some places a lot of money is spent on 
radio and occasionally, depending on what the communications are, on 
newspaper advertising. But most of it's TV and mail.
    Increasingly, we see these breathtaking stories of people just 
opening a web page for a given cause and all of a sudden having 200,000, 
300,000, 400,000 people within a matter of weeks signing on and going 
forward. Is there some way to use the Internet to further democratize 
politics, to energize more people to participate, to energize more 
people to contribute at modest levels, and to lower the relative cost of 
reaching voters or increase the relative impact of voter reach?
    Because if you think about it--like when we run TV ads, there's a 
reason that an ad on the Super Bowl costs so much money. And that is 
that more people are watching it than now watch the evening news on the 
networks combined because they have so many other options. As the 
television audiences become more dispersed, I think you will see more 
sophisticated use of mail to identify, at least, people you think you 
can reach. And that's good, but is there some way we can use this both 
to broaden the base of contributors at modest levels but also to 
increase the relative effectiveness or decrease the relative costs of 
reaching people, so that people feel like they're participating in the 
democracy and so that more people have a chance to participate in ways 
that will make all of us feel better about the way we conduct our 
democracy as we go toward the next century?
    So these are things that I think about a lot. And I think, you know, 
meeting the challenge of the aging of America is a big deal. I think 
meeting the challenge of education is a big deal.
    I'll give you one more example. America's got the lowest crime rate 
in 26 years. I think that's a very good thing. And it's easy to lose 
that when we have these gripping, horrible incidents like we had in 
Atlanta or the horrible thing in Littleton, Colorado. But why shouldn't 
we be the safest big country in the world? I mean, if we have the most 
powerful technology base in the world, we can figure out how to solve 
any other problem. Why can't we think of a way to organize ourselves 
that would make us the safest big country? Why shouldn't that be--why 
shouldn't we have a big goal that is--and bring to bear all these 
things.
    Nothing is--I agree with John, I think that 50, 60, 70 years from 
now, when people look back and write the history of this era, they will 
conclude that this was a bigger deal than the industrial revolution, 
that this sort of had the combined impact of the industrial revolution 
and the printing press, which produced the Gutenberg Bible, and that it 
was just breathtaking. Now, what we who are living through this ought to 
do--in addition to those of you who are good enough to profit from it 
and contribute to our economy and make our society stronger and hire 
people and do all the good things you're doing--we ought to say, if this 
is profoundly changing the way we work and the way we live and the way 
we relate to each other, by definition it ought to be able to be 
effective in helping us meet society's biggest challenges, including 
those I outlined tonight.
    So I'm very interested in it. I thank you for your presence here. 
And I am all ears.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 7:35 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to dinner hosts Senator John F. Kerry and his wife,

[[Page 1547]]

Theresa; and Ron Dozoretz, founder, FHC Health Systems.


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

[Page 1547-1550]
 
Monday, August 9, 1999
 
Volume 35--Number 31
Pages 1529-1576
 
Week Ending Friday, August 6, 1999
 
Opening Remarks to the National Welfare to Work Forum in Chicago, 
Illinois

August 3, 1999

    Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the warm, 
wonderful welcome when I came in. Mr. Mayor, thank you for your 
friendship and your leadership. Chicago is a beautiful, beautiful city, 
and it works.
    I think I should simply begin by thanking the people of this city 
and this State for being so good to me and to Hillary and to Al and 
Tipper Gore and to our administration, and for setting an example of 
what we can do to make America work. I'm also kind of getting used to 
seeing all these pretty cows all over the place here. [Laughter] I was 
trying to think of what animals I could start putting all over the White 
House lawn when I get back, to follow the mayor's lead. [Laughter]
    I would like to say that Governor Ryan and Governor Thompson were 
here earlier. I thank them for coming by. I thank Governor Carper of 
Delaware for being here. Mayor Webb, Mayor Helmke, Mayor Morial, Mayor 
O'Neill. I thank Secretary Herman, our Secretary of Labor; Secretary of 
Transportation Slater; and Secretary Bill Daley, another native of this 
great city, for his work at Commerce; and Small Business Administrator 
Aida Alvarez.
    Secretary Shalala, our HHS Secretary, has been heavily involved in 
this. She's not here today, but I want to thank Olivia Golden and Al 
Collins for being here. And most of all, I want to thank the leaders of 
this remarkable business partnership, my good friend Eli Segal, who is 
the best startup person in the world.
    Many of you know this, but when I became President, I asked Eli to 
head our national service program, AmeriCorps. And we got it through the 
Congress, and in 4 years, AmeriCorps had 100,000 young people serving in 
our communities, earning money to go to school, a goal that took the 
Peace Corps 20 years to reach.
    So, I thought, ``Well, we need to get more employers involved in 
hiring people from welfare to work. I'll ask Eli to do it. Then I won't 
even have to think about it anymore.'' [Laughter] And so Eli got Gerry 
Greenwald and Paul Clayton, Robert Shapiro, Bill Esrey, and Jim Kelly, 
and they started--with five. And I said--then there were 5,000. And I 
said, ``But we need 10,000.'' And now there are 12,000. I think if I 
told them we needed 25,000, next year we'd have 30,000 employers here. 
And I thank him so much.
    And I want to thank Gerry especially for chairing our efforts. I 
understand he runs an airline company in his off hours--[laughter]--but 
I think most of the time, he's spent on this project in the last few 
years.
    Six and a half years ago I asked the American people to join me on a 
crusade to transform our system of welfare into a system of work; to 
transform a system of dependence into a system of independence; to prove 
that poor people could succeed, at the same time, at work and in raising 
their children; to bring a whole generation of Americans into the 
mainstream of our life.
    Now you see the signs of the transformation everywhere: Inner city 
buses that used to be empty at rush hour are packed; tax preparation 
services are moving into abandoned storefronts, helping former welfare 
recipients fill out the first tax forms of their lives. There are more 
subtle changes: mothers collecting their mail with a little more pride 
because they know they'll see a bank statement, not a welfare check; 
children going to school with their heads held a little higher.
    It's difficult to remember that, 7 years ago, our country was 
largely out of work and out of ideas. Our economy was stagnant, burdened 
with a crushing debt and soaring deficits, high interest rates and high 
unemployment. But so was our political debate. For some, the welfare 
system was our last line of defense against abject poverty. To others, 
it was exhibit A of America's decline.
    Clearly, it had become a system that undermined our cherished values 
of work and family. When I was a Governor, a job I had for a dozen years 
before your were kind enough to give me this one, I had the chance

[[Page 1548]]

to actually go to welfare offices, talk to caseworkers, talk to 
recipients, watch people check in. I spent hours, over a period of 
years, talking to welfare recipients, asking them, what would it take to 
make the system work for them, and listening to them tell me all the 
manifold ways in which welfare discouraged work and independence.
    I asked the American people to change course, to restore with all of 
our people the fundamental bargain that we ought to have opportunity for 
all in return for responsibility from all our citizens, and to include 
everyone in America's community.
    Today, the bargain is being fulfilled, and our country is working 
again. We have the longest peacetime expansion in history, nearly 19 
million new jobs; the lowest unemployment in a generation; the lowest 
minority unemployment ever recorded; the highest homeownership in 
history. From a deficit of $290 billion, we are moving to a surplus of 
$99 billion. And this year alone we will pay $85 billion on our national 
debt.
    And a big part of this is the decision the American people, through 
their elected Representatives, made to end welfare as we know it. We 
raised the minimum wage and passed the earned-income tax credit, which 
says to working families: If you work full-time, you shouldn't have to 
raise your children in poverty. We gave 43 waivers to States to launch 
their own welfare reform efforts when I took office. And then in 1996, 
as has already been said, a big bipartisan majority, big majorities of 
both parties and both Houses reached across the divide to pass this 
welfare reform bill.
    We recognize that in addition to requiring able-bodied people to 
work within a certain period of time, millions of people who had never 
known anything but dependency, who had never even seen, many of them, 
their own parents have a job, could not make the transition on their own 
or easily. So we made sure there was extra support for child care, for 
transportation, for housing, and we kept the national guarantee--after 
two vetoes, but we kept the national guarantee of medical care and 
nutrition for the children of people on welfare and for those moving 
off.
    We also provided new tax incentives to encourage employers to hire 
people from welfare. Today I am very proud to be able to tell you that 
all 50 States and the District of Columbia have now met the work 
requirements for the percentage of people on welfare in their States 
that have to be in work that we set in 1996. Every single State is in 
compliance.
    The welfare rolls have been cut in half; they're at their lowest 
level in 32 years. And those who are on welfare today are 4 times as 
likely to work as when I took office. Now, while some of the credit, 
doubtless, goes to our booming economy, the Council of Economic Advisers 
recently did a study for me which found that welfare reform, with its 
new emphasis on work, has been the single most important factor in 
reducing the rolls. Three-quarters of the 6.8 million people who have 
left welfare since I took office did so after welfare reform was signed 
in 1996. And many who left before did so under the reform efforts 
adopted by the States.
    The credit goes to all of you in this audience and people like you 
across our country. When we passed the law in '96, I said moving 
Americans from welfare to work would take the commitment of every 
element of our society, not just Government but businesses, faith-based 
organizations, community groups, and private citizens. The Vice 
President has done a tremendous job of bringing our religious and 
service organizations together in his coalition to sustain success. And 
in 1997, as I said, my long-time friend Eli Segal agreed to help to 
rally the business community and you know the rest. Today, he, Gerry 
Greenwald, and the other founders have built a partnership that is 
12,000 businesses strong.
    Members of this welfare to work partnership, businesses both large 
and small, have given--listen to this--just the members of this 
partnership have given 410,000 welfare recipients the opportunity to 
have a job. More than 8 in 10 executives report great success in hiring 
people off welfare rolls. They're finding these employees are a good 
investment. They work hard; they stay in their jobs as long or even 
longer than other employees. And in this era of labor shortages, we must 
not forget that welfare recipients can be a rich pool of untapped 
talent, people who are good for the bottom line. I thank

[[Page 1549]]

you for recognizing the important role you can play in extending these 
opportunities to all Americans.
    I am proud to say, also under the Vice President's leadership, the 
Federal Government has done its part. Our goal was to hire 10,000 people 
by this year from welfare. We have now hired 14,000--in the smallest 
Federal Government since 1963.
    Mr. Mayor, one of the people we hired from welfare is here with us 
today. Her name is Maria Hernandez. She was on public assistance for 
more than 3 years; now she's worked as an administrative assistant in 
our Cook County north census office since January. Thank you, Maria, and 
thank all the rest of you who are here who reflect the same story. 
[Applause] Thank you.
    Now, before we get on with the program today, I want to tell you 
that as pleased as we are, we have to do more. And I'd like to mention 
the things that I believe we have to do to make the most of this 
economic opportunity for America, to fulfill our moral obligation, to 
promote the values of work and family to the people still on public 
assistance and those who teeter going back and forth.
    First, we must continue to honor our commitment to welfare reform. 
There are some in Congress who want to cut the welfare block grants we 
give to the States and take some of that money back, because the welfare 
rolls are so low, to finance a big tax cut. I think that would be a 
mistake, and here's why. Here's why. In every State, there are still 
people who could move from welfare to work if they had more training, if 
they had transportation, if they had child care. In every State, there 
are people who may be working today who might have to leave the work 
force, for lack of transportation or child care. In every State, there 
are people who can stay on the job if they get further training.
    So I say, let's spend this money to develop the human capacity of 
our people. It will make the economy stronger, and we will all be better 
off.
    There are other things which need to be done. I have asked the 
Congress to build on the welfare-to-work program, by helping those who 
are least prepared to work. My welfare-to-work budget this year contains 
extra funds for adult literacy and for education and training for 
adults. I think that's important.
    We must also do more to help low-income fathers honor their 
responsibility to pay child support to their children. Three years ago, 
we strengthened our child support enforcement laws. This welfare-to-work 
budget targets funds to help responsible fathers work and pay child 
support. I hope Congress will pass it.
    Let me say, we also need to make sure that when people move from 
welfare to work, they understand, if they're in low-income jobs, that 
their kids are still entitled to Medicaid coverage if their employer 

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