pd17jy95 Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Congressional Leaders and an Exchange...

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


[Page i-ii]
 
Monday, July 17, 1995
 
Volume 31--Number 28
Pages 1209-1244
 
Contents

[[Page i]]

Weekly Compilation of

Presidential

Documents



[[Page ii]]

  


Addresses and Remarks

    Legislative agenda--1216
    National Hockey League champion New Jersey Devils--1214
    Radio address--1209
    Tennessee, the Family and Media Conference in Nashville--1210, 1212, 
        1213
    Vietnam, normalization of diplomatic relations--1217
    Virginia
        Central Intelligence Agency in Langley--1237
        James Madison High School in Vienna--1220
    Welfare reform--1233

Appointments and Nominations

    Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the U.S. Intelligence 
        Community, Chairman, statement--1236

Communications to Congress

    Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, letter transmitting report--
        1236
    Corporation for Public Broadcasting, message transmitting report--
        1216
    Georgia-U.S. investment treaty, message transmitting--1215
    Latvia-U.S. investment treaty, message transmitting--1215

Communications to Congress--Continued

    Libya, message reporting--1231
    Romania, message transmitting report on trade--1219
    Trinidad and Tobago-U.S. investment treaty, message transmitting--
        1219

Communications to Federal Agencies

    Religious expression in public schools, memorandum--1227

Interviews With the News Media

    Exchanges with reporters
        Cabinet Room--1216
        Rose Garden--1233
        State Dining Room--1217

Statements by the President

    See also Appointments and Nominations
    Budget rescission legislation--1215
    Environmental program reforms to assist homeowners--1230
    Older Americans Act--1241

Supplementary Materials

    Acts approved by the President--1244
    Checklist of White House press releases--1243
    Digest of other White House announcements--1241
    Nominations submitted to the Senate--1242



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

Published every Monday by the Office of the Federal Register, National 
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[[Page 1209]]




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[Page 1209-1210]
 
Monday, July 17, 1995
 
Volume 31--Number 28
Pages 1209-1244
 
Week Ending Friday, July 14, 1995
 
The President's Radio Address


July 8, 1995

    Good morning. Last week I spoke to you about the need for Congress 
to pass reforms to end welfare as we know it. I want Congress to send me 
a bill that requires work, demands responsibility, and provides the 
child care people need to move from welfare to work.
    This issue is now before the U.S. Senate. The truth is, Republicans 
and Democrats alike know what's needed to get this job done. A majority 
of Senators in both parties agree with me that welfare reform must 
require everyone who can work to go to work. We agree on the need for 
the toughest possible child support enforcement. And we agree that no 
one who can work should be able to stay on welfare forever. So we are 
close.
    Congress could put a bill on my desk, a good bill, within the next 
few weeks. After a generation of debate, we have a chance, finally, to 
do what's right for the taxpayers who pay for a failed welfare system 
and for the people who are trapped by it. But in recent days we've seen 
unsettling signs that progress could fall to gridlock. This week, 
Republican leaders said that a threat from the far right in their own 
party could keep them from passing a welfare reform bill this year. A 
handful of Senators are threatening to hold welfare reform hostage to 
their own political views. They're threatening to block a vote on any 
bill that doesn't cut off all help to children whose mothers are poor, 
young, and unmarried.
    I believe their position is wrong. Republican and Democratic 
Governors also strongly oppose Washington telling them to throw children 
off the rolls simply because their parents are under 18 and unmarried. 
And the Catholic Church has taken a very strong position on this, 
fearing that to cut young people under 18 and their children off welfare 
would lead to more abortions. This approach also would punish the 
innocent children of unmarried teenagers for the mistakes of their 
parents. This might cut spending on welfare, but it wouldn't reform 
welfare to promote work and responsible parenting. That's why so many 
Republicans and Democrats oppose it.
    The threat of the Senators to take this extreme position and block 
this welfare reform effort is just wrong. We've come a long way in the 
welfare reform debate in the last few years. Not so very long ago, many 
liberals opposed requiring all welfare recipients who can work to do so. 
And not so long ago, most conservatives thought the Government shouldn't 
spend money on child care to give welfare mothers a chance to go to work 
and still be good parents. Now we have a broad consensus for both. We 
should do both, and we shouldn't allow welfare reform to be held 
prisoner to ideological political debates.
    I ran for President to bring new opportunity to the American people 
and demand more responsibility in return. That's what I call the New 
Covenant. And welfare reform is a crucial part of this effort. We are 
now at an historic moment. The failure to pass welfare reform this year 
would be a disservice to the American people. It shouldn't become 
another victim to the politics of gridlock. Republicans and Democrats 
alike have a real responsibility to bring real change to Washington, and 
a bipartisan majority in the Senate is prepared to vote for a welfare 
reform bill with time limits and real work requirements and without 
moralistic dictates that will do more harm than good.
    A few days ago, in a speech at Georgetown University, I said our 
leaders have to stop looking only for political advantage and start 
looking for common ground. I challenged our leaders to do four things: 
First, we need more conversation and less combat. So let's settle our 
differences on welfare reform without resorting to legislative trench 
warfare designed to stop real reform at any cost. Sec- 

[[Page 1210]]

ond, when we do differ, we ought to offer an alternative. When the vast 
majority of Americans and Members of Congress agree on an issue like 
welfare reform, a small minority shouldn't be able to get away with 
``just say no'' politics. Third, we ought to look at our problems with a 
view toward the long-term. Moving people from welfare to work will save 
a lot more money in the long run than throwing children off the rolls. 
They'll be in trouble, and they'll cost us a lot of money in the long 
run and a lot of our national life as well. We are never going to end 
welfare unless people have the training and child care to be good 
workers and good parents. And finally, we shouldn't just berate the 
worst in America, we ought to spend more time concentrating on the best. 
That's what I have done, by giving 29 States the freedom from burdensome 
Federal Government regulations so they can lead the way in helping to 
find new ways to end welfare.
    The only way our country can meet the profound challenges of the 
21st century and the global economy is if we all pull together and we 
all look forward. We don't have a person to waste. That's why welfare 
reform is so critical. We can't afford to filibuster away our future.
    So I say to those in Congress who have joined me in demanding 
responsibility from people on welfare, you have a responsibility, too. 
Don't place pride of partisanship ahead of our national pride. Don't 
pander to the partisan extremes. Let's not let politics stand in the way 
of making work and responsibility a way of life for the next generation.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. from the Oval Office at the 
White House.


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[Page 1210-1212]
 
Monday, July 17, 1995
 
Volume 31--Number 28
Pages 1209-1244
 
Week Ending Friday, July 14, 1995
 
Remarks at the Opening of Session I of the Family and Media Conference 
in Nashville, Tennessee

July 10, 1995

    Thank you very much. I thought it might be nice to stop by here 
after having done my primary duty, which was delivering the soup to Mrs. 
Gore. [Laughter] I'm delighted to be here, Governor, Mayor, Senator, 
Members of Congress. To Representative Purcell and the other 
distinguished members of the Tennessee Legislature who are here, Dr. 
Erickson, and to all of you, let me say that I came here primarily to 
listen. And I find that I always learn a lot more when I'm listening 
than when I'm talking, so I will be quite brief.
    I want to say a few things, however. First, I want to thank Al and 
Tipper Gore for their lifetime of devotion not only to their family but 
to the families of this State and this Nation, as manifested by this 
Family Reunion, the fourth such one, something they have done in a 
careful and sustained way. It's already been mentioned twice that Tipper 
has worked on the whole issue that we're here to discuss today for many, 
many years, never in the context of politics but always in the context 
of what's good for families and what we can do to move the ball forward 
for our children and for our future. And I think this country owes them 
a great debt of gratitude. And I'm glad to be here.
    Secondly, I'd just like to frame this issue as it appears to me as 
President and as a parent. I gave a speech at Georgetown a few days ago 
in which I pointed out that the world in which I grew up, the world 
after World War II, was basically shaped by two great ideas: the middle 
class dream, that if you work hard you'll get ahead and your kids can do 
better than you did; and middle class values, that of family and 
community and responsibility and trustworthiness, and that both of those 
things were at some considerable risk today as we move out of the cold 
war into the global economy and the whole way we live and work is 
subject to sweeping challenge.
    The family is the focus of both middle class dreams and middle class 
values, for it is the center around which we organize child rearing--our 
country's most important responsibility--and work. And how we work 
determines how we live and what will become of us over the long run.
    We have seen enormous changes in both work and child rearing in the 
last several years. We know now that a much higher percentage of our 
children live in poverty, particularly in the last 10 years, even as we 
have a percentage of elderly people in poverty going below that of the 
general population

[[Page 1211]]

for the first time in history in the last 10 years, a considerable 
achievement of which we ought to be proud as a country. But still, our 
children are becoming more and more poor.
    We know that a higher percentage of our children are being born out 
of wedlock. What you may not know, but is worth noting, is that the 
number of children being born out of wedlock is more or less constant 
for the last few years. So we not only have too many children being born 
out of wedlock, we have more and more young couples where both of them 

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