[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 93 (Friday, June 27, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1358-E1360]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        ORPHAN FOUNDATION DINNER

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. J.C. WATTS, JR.

                              of oklahoma

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 26, 1997

  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, last week I was honored to be a 
part of the Orphan Foundation dinner which gives private dollar college 
scholarships to parentless foster youth. These kids have achieved 
against the odds--many of them growing up in poor rural and urban 
centers.
  At that event, the Congressman from Georgia--the Speaker, Mr. 
Gingrich gave a speech that is a great example of the route we need to 
take for positive race relations and the urban agenda that could 
reshape the landscape of this great nation. I commend this speech to 
the Record and thank you for allowing us to share these words.

  Address by Speaker Newt Gingrich to the Orphan Foundation of America

       Thank you, Jim Taylor, for that very nice introduction. 
     Even more, thank you and the Gateway 2000 Foundation for 
     underwriting the scholarships for these remarkable young 
     people. I would also like to thank Eileen McCaffrey as 
     President of the Orphan Foundation of America for her 
     leadership in organizing the 4th Annual OLIVER Project in 
     support of foster youth attending college.
       The Orphan Foundation is but one part of a worldwide 
     movement toward helping people. We are a movement of people 
     who believe that combining the wisdom of the founding 
     fathers, with the opportunities of the Information Age and 
     the world market, will help each person exercise their 
     Creator-endowed right to pursue happiness and will eventually 
     lead to freedom, prosperity, and safety everywhere. It seems 
     to me that that is a good description of what Eileen, Jim and 
     everyone associated with the success of this year's OLIVER 
     Project hope to achieve.
       I understand that the young people honored here tonight 
     were in foster care for a long time. Thankfully, you were 
     able to reach out on your own to private organizations like 
     the Orphan Foundation to find mentors and parents that have 
     been more helpful in brightening your future than any 
     government bureaucracy.
       For example, David DiBernardo, now a freshman at Slippery 
     Rock University in Pennsylvania survived twenty-nine foster 
     care placements before he found the Orphan Foundation. This 
     illustrates the fact that investing in our youth and 
     strengthening permanent families is not accomplished by any 
     government program--it happens one child at a time.
       It is essential that we learn from organizations like The 
     Orphan Foundation and specifically the OLIVER Project, which 
     honors foster youth attending college. Their goal is to 
     replicate the OLIVER Project in the states for high school 
     students.
       As we pursue these endeavors to brighten the future of 
     every young American, it is important that we listen and 
     learn from the real experts: the young people here with us 
     tonight. For example, Elizabeth DeBroux, a senior at 
     Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, and her friends can advise 
     us in Georgia on the most effective policies to help young 
     people.
       The Orphan Foundation has the right idea and is the right 
     model: It saw a need and chose to provide an opportunity. You 
     have seen what these young people have managed to accomplish 
     so far. You have faith in them that they will be achievers. 
     You have assisted them in helping them make their dreams come 
     true. You have given them a precious opportunity to now have 
     the tools to exercise their Creator-endowed right to pursue 
     happiness. In your eyes, there is no black or white or any 
     other color. There is only a genuine need and the possibility 
     to offer an opportunity. What you are doing is uniquely 
     American--in more ways than you may realize. When we look 
     around this room, and we see children of many, many hues, we 
     learn, frankly, that it is the common bonds of experience 
     which truly bring us together. These bonds have as much 
     influence on our lives, our successes and our ultimate 
     futures than something that is as ultimately superficial as 
     race.
       Consider the experience of the orphan: Whether because of 
     war, famine, accident, irresponsibility or illness, a child 
     is suddenly alone in the world. The obstacles that child has 
     to overcome and the opportunities that organizations such as 
     the Orphan Foundation provide for that child--those 
     experiences shape them in a particular way. And so one 
     orphan--black, white, Asian, Muslim, Christian or whatever 
     combination of those characteristics you can imagine--can 
     look to another and say, ``Yes, I've been down the same road 
     that you've traveled and regardless of how you may look or 
     how you may worship, I can see that you and I share the same 
     experience.''
       This is a particularly apt metaphor for America writ large. 
     America is a nation of immigrants. In certain ways, the 
     experience of the immigrant and the experience of the orphan 
     mirror one another. We have, in America, people who have, for 
     various reasons come to America for a better opportunity. 
     Before there was a nation called the United States, Pilgrims, 
     fleeing religious persecution, landed in a place they called 
     the New World. In the 1800's the Irish came to these shores 
     fleeing a famine which had devastated their country. As 
     recently as the 1970s, Vietnamese fled a homeland wounded by 
     decades of war. These and so many others saw hope and 
     opportunity in America. They came here for a chance to 
     succeed. They

[[Page E1359]]

     made the conscious decision to become part of a new family--
     to become Americans. And becoming an American is a unique 
     experience, which comes with certain responsibilities, 
     certain habits that one has to absorb and accept to 
     successfully finish the process.
       An American is not ``French'' the way the French are or 
     ``German'' the way Germans are. You can live in either of 
     those countries for years and never become French or German. 
     I think one of the reasons Tiger Woods has had such a big 
     impact is because he is an American. He defines himself as an 
     American. I think we need to be prepared to say, the truth is 
     we want all Americans to be, quite simply, Americans. That 
     doesn't deprive anyone of the right to define further define 
     their heritage--I go to celebrations such as the Greek 
     festival in may district every year. It doesn't deprive us of 
     the right to have ethnic pride, to have some sense of our 
     origins. But it is wrong for some Americans to begin creating 
     subgroups to which they have a higher loyalty than to America 
     at large. The genius of America has always been its ability 
     to draw people from everywhere and to give all of them an 
     opportunity to pursue happiness in a way that no other 
     society has been able to manage.
       That is a particularly useful way of discussing the 
     question of race which I raised at the beginning of the year, 
     when I was re-elected Speaker, and which the President 
     addressed this past weekend in California. This question of 
     race is at the heart of America's darkest moments--slavery, 
     the Civil War, segregation--and yet dealing with it in the 
     public sphere also produced two of our most brilliant and 
     influential leaders--Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, 
     Jr. Such has been the tragedy and the triumph of race in 
     America. As W.E.B. DuBois observed, the 20th century has in 
     some ways been defined by the ``color line''. As we move into 
     a new century, we have to look at what has worked when it 
     comes to race, what hasn't and what lessons we should learn. 
     Because, as the old adage goes, there is no surer sign of 
     insanity than doing the same thing over and over again--and 
     expecting a different result each time.
       Looking to the new rather than repeat a failed pattern is a 
     very American truth. To those who doubt whether America holds 
     promise even in the most hostile of circumstances, we need 
     only turn to the ``Narrative of the Life of Frederick 
     Douglass, An American Slave''--his autobiograph. While the 
     question of a federal apology for slavery can be discussed by 
     reasonable people of all persuasions, let us not forget 
     someone like Douglass who didn't wait for an apology. He 
     allowed bonds neither physical nor mental to prevent him in 
     one lifetime to go from being a slave to becoming an adviser 
     to the President. That is quintessentially an American story. 
     That is a story like many others in this unique nation. It 
     stands as one of many historic lessons which all Americans 
     can benefit from learning. Slavery was an awful period in 
     this country's existence--one which we as a country--must 
     never forget. That's why I was glad that J.C. Watts 
     introduced his ``June Teenth'' resolution yesterday, 
     observing the day many African-Americans celebrate as the 
     traditional end of slavery. The more Americans learn about 
     America--the triumphs and the tragedies--the more we mature 
     as a nation. But while Americans must respect the past, part 
     of being an American is about looking forward.
       The scholarships being awarded here tonight are a good 
     place to continue the dialogue on race--because they are 
     awards of pure achievement, pure merit rewarding individuals 
     for their superior work as individuals. They are not 
     being granted because somebody felt sorry for you or 
     thought you needed assistance because you were a 
     particular race or gender. You are being rewarded for your 
     hard work as individuals. That is the way we must approach 
     the issue of opportunity. We will not be successful in 
     moving our society forward if we submerge individuals into 
     groups.
       Unfortunately, government policy has concentrated on 
     groupings over the last thirty years. The results of the 
     group-think approach are in and they have proven tragic. Let 
     me draw a distinction. I was an Army brat. I was born in 
     Harrisburg, PA. I grew up in an integrated institution. I 
     went to the South as a teenager and was in Columbus, Georgia 
     when there was still legal segregation. Segregation was the 
     legal imposition by the state of a set of unfair rules. 
     Ending segregation was an inherently political fight. It made 
     perfect sense for people who wanted to advance the cause of 
     freedom and end government-imposed segregation to focus on 
     politics and government. Since the results of segregation 
     were focused on a specific group, it made sense that the 
     focus was on removing the impediments at the group level.
       Having ended segregation, however, the next struggle, 
     frankly, is and has been economic and educational 
     achievement. Government is a peculiarly ineffective 
     institution in those areas. This is a lesson we now tell the 
     Chinese, we tell the Russians, we say everywhere around the 
     planet. Centralized, bureaucratic, command-and-control 
     systems don't work. Well, guess what? They don't work very 
     well in the inner cities of Washington, D.C., New York or 
     Detroit, either. And they have proven tragically not to work 
     on Indian reservations.
       We need to treat individuals as individuals and we need to 
     address discrete problems for the problems they are--and not 
     presume them to be part of an intractable racial issue which 
     will never be torn out.
       Consider education as an example. Following the removal of 
     racial quotas in the University of California system, 
     Berkeley experienced a precipitous drop in accepted black 
     students for their fall classes. The old way of thinking 
     assumes this to be a racial problem that must be addressed in 
     a race-specific manner. That is exactly the wrong kind of 
     thinking. If in fact, enough young people are not being 
     educated well enough to get into Berkeley, the focus should 
     be on what's wrong with the schools that are producing them 
     and how we improve those schools. And if the need is for more 
     tutoring . . . and if the need is for better education . . . 
     if the need is for a way to dramatically overhaul the 
     schools--then let's overhaul the schools.
       Similarly, if there are not enough young blacks in 
     particular--young Hispanics to a lesser extent--going out and 
     creating small businesses, then let's look at what are the 
     inhibitions to creating small businesses. All of the set-
     asides in the world will not change Anacostia or other such 
     pockets of poverty. We have to have a profound fundamental 
     rethinking of the assumptions that have failed for thirty 
     years.
       As you look at the success of West Indian, first-generation 
     immigrants or of Koreans or you look at the success, for that 
     matter, of people who have come here from Africa in the last 
     thirty years, the fact is a surprising number of people of 
     color rise surprisingly rapidly. And by rising I mean get 
     wealthier, buy property, have freedom and go on nice 
     vacations. They rise very rapidly. They rise because they 
     have the right habits, skills and networking ability. But if 
     you trap people into public housing with anti-work and anti-
     achievement regulations, send them to schools that fail, 
     teach them a set of habits about not working, create an 
     environment where no one near them gets up on Monday to go to 
     a job, have nobody in the neighborhood who opens a small 
     business, it shouldn't shock you that we end up with cycles 
     of despair which repeat for generations.
       What we've done is artificially create, both on Indian 
     reservations and in the inner city, zones of despair and 
     depression where people have no hope. So we need to talk 
     about a very different model. The President's commission 
     needs to begin with this new, more powerful approach. In 
     America everyone is an individual. Everyone in America has 
     the creator-endowed right to pursue happiness. In America, we 
     pragmatically solve problems by asking, ``Why isn't this 
     happening?'' For example, ``Why aren't children learning in a 
     particular neighborhood?'' Then systematically break the 
     problem into components and solve it. In many cases, a 
     solution will require a replacement rather than a repair. 
     That's why we developed a replacement for the failed welfare 
     system. You couldn't repair the old welfare system of 
     passivity and lifetime dependency. It had to be replaced with 
     a different model that emphasized training work and self-
     help. I would argue the same is true with much of the public 
     housing rules. You can't repair them. You have got to replace 
     them with a different model.
       If you do create a replacement system at a practical level, 
     what behaviors are you trying to encourage among large 
     numbers of people? You want to make it easy to open a small 
     business. Most big cities make it hard. Hernando DeSoto 
     fifteen years ago wrote ``The Other Path.'' It is based on 
     anti-job rules in Lima, Peru. It applies as well to 
     Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Miami, New York, Los Angeles and 
     virtually all large American cities. So the very place we 
     want more business--we're going to face this problem of local 
     anti-job taxes and rules now. I'm the leading advocate for 
     tax breaks for Washington, D.C. We have nearly $580 million 
     in tax breaks (over ten years) in the tax bill for our 
     nation's capital. We have fought hard to protect these tax 
     breaks. Yet D.C. city taxes are one-third higher than the 
     surrounding counties' taxes. Now, it is not hard for any 
     student of Adam Smith to figure out why, if you are a 
     rational small businessperson, you go to Prince George's 
     County. It's safer, it's cheaper and the local 
     government doesn't make it so difficult for the 
     entrepreneur to succeed.
       It doesn't matter how many quotas you have. If you're not 
     willing to confront the central need to reform and replace 
     the systems that have failed, they will continue to fail. I 
     would hope the President's commission will have the moral 
     courage to erase the assumption that we are a ``group'' 
     society. If they will look to Canada right now, they will see 
     profound reasons for Americans to want to avoid our decaying 
     into a series of groups. I hope this commission will decide 
     that its goal must be to have every American succeed as an 
     individual within the framework of their Creator-endowed 
     rights.
       We must focus on individuals and their personal educational 
     and economic achievements. Obsessing on race will not allow 
     us to move beyond race. We must follow the example of the 
     Orphan Foundation and recognize specific needs and provide 
     principles that will allow Americans of all backgrounds to 
     open the doors of opportunity.
       We have to start with the development of a solid 
     foundation--with an economic and social pillar--which will 
     allow us to build a true opportunity society. We must 
     emphasize continuing economic growth with low inflation and 
     rising take-home pay. Within this economic growth we must 
     emphasize creating opportunities for minorities to create new 
     small businesses. Our goal should be to encourage at least a 
     three-fold growth in black-owned small businesses over the 
     next

[[Page E1360]]

     few years. This will require reductions in taxation, 
     litigation and regulation to make it dramatically easier to 
     launch small businesses. It also will require an aggressive 
     outreach program to encourage minority individuals to create 
     their own business as an alternative to working for others.
       In addition to expanded economic opportunity we should 
     insist on solving other challenges which affect all Americans 
     but bear particularly harshly on minority populations. I 
     imagine it is January 1, 2001, the first day of a new century 
     and a new millennium. It is a Monday morning. Imagine waking 
     up to an America that was virtually drug-free, in which 
     practically every child was learning at their best rate, and 
     in which almost all children were born into or adopted into 
     families that could nurture and raise them.
       I am not describing a utopia. This is the America I went to 
     high school in in 1960. Drug use was marginal. There was an 
     expectation you could read the diploma before they gave it to 
     you. Self-esteem was earned not given. Young males knew that 
     fatherhood was a responsibility not just a biological side 
     effect of hedonism.
       All of America will be better off if we create a drug-free, 
     learning-oriented America of children growing up in 
     families--minority Americans in general and black Americans 
     in particular--would find their lives dramatically improved 
     by these changes.
       Stopping drug addiction, drug-related violence, and drug-
     generated wealth will do more to improve the lives of young 
     blacks and the prospects of poor neighborhoods than all of 
     the quotas and set-asides combined. When neighborhoods are 
     drug-free and crime free, businesses will return, jobs will 
     reappear and economic opportunity will be re-established.
       True learning is infinitely more powerful than social 
     promotion combined with quotas and set-asides. Every child of 
     every background in every neighborhood deserves their full 
     rights to pursue happiness as their Creator endowed them. 
     Recently, I attended an 8th grade graduation at St. Augustine 
     private School here in Washington. 98% of the private school 
     children will graduate. The public schools which cost three 
     to four times as much will graduate less than half as many of 
     their entering children. Saving the children who are dropping 
     out requires new approaches not new quotas.
       We know we can dramatically reduce single teen pregnancy 
     because it is being done. Kay Granger, former mayor of Forth 
     Worth and now a freshman member of Congress, worked on a YWCA 
     project for 800-at-risk teenage girls. Statistically 70% 
     should have become pregnant. The program taught these young 
     girls ambition, integrity, and motivation. Instead of 560 
     becoming pregnant, only two did. We can break the cycles of 
     dependency and despair in our poor neighborhoods.
       This is not a proposal for a massive new government 
     program. If centralized bureaucracies in Washington could 
     have stopped drugs, guaranteed learning and ended single teen 
     pregnancy, the job would have been done--we have created the 
     bureaucracy and spent the money. It was just the wrong model.
       America is a great country filled with good people. 
     Tocqueville pointed out in the 1840s that volunteerism, local 
     leadership and faith based charities were the unique 
     attributes that gave America its dynamic character. Marvin 
     Olasky recaptured these principles of American success in his 
     1994 book ``The Tragedy of American Compassion.''
       Instead of focusing on broad sweeping generalizations about 
     race, the President's commission needs to focus on practical, 
     doable, immediate action steps that can solve America's 
     problems. If Americans get busy enough working together to 
     achieve real goals, racism will recede. Perspiration and 
     teamwork will dissolve racism faster than therapy and 
     dialogue.
       I'm sure most of you saw the Bulls-Jazz championship game 
     last week. In the closing moments, when Michael Jordan looked 
     to find an open man for a winning shot, he didn't look for 
     the closest black player. He looked for the nearest 
     jersey. That happened to be Steve Kerr who is white. This 
     is the example for society to follow: A group of 
     individuals so focused on a common goal of winning--that 
     they don't have time to worry about what color the other 
     is. I will also remind everyone here and watching on C-
     SPAN that Michael Jordan tragically lost his father a few 
     years ago. Steve Kerr, while a college freshman, lost his 
     father to Middle East violence. They are also good 
     examples of overcoming adversity and triumphing in the 
     face of it.
       We thank the President for wishing to continue the dialogue 
     on race last weekend. But frankly, there has been much talk 
     on this issue and very little action of the sort which will 
     dramatically change people's lives. Let me now suggest 10 
     practical steps which, started today can build a better 
     America and, in the process, close the racial divide.
       1. Learning: We must create better opportunities for all 
     children to learn by breaking the stranglehold of the 
     teachers' unions and giving parents the financial opportunity 
     to choose the public, private, or parochial school that's 
     best for their children (as outlined in Majority Leader 
     Armey's Educational Opportunity Scholarships for District of 
     Columbia students).
       2. Small business: We must set a goal of tripling the 
     number of minority-owned small businesses by bringing 
     successful small business leaders together to identify--and 
     then eliminate--the government-imposed barriers to 
     entrepreneurship.
       3. Urban renewal: We must create 100 Renewal Communities in 
     impoverished areas through targeted, pro-growth tax benefits, 
     regulatory relief, low-income scholarships, savings accounts, 
     brownfields clean-up, and home-ownership opportunities (as 
     outlined in Jim Talent and J.C. Watts' American Community 
     Renewal Act).
       4. Civil rights: The Equal Employment Opportunity 
     Commission should clear its existing backlog of 
     discrimination cases by enforcing existing civil rights laws, 
     rather than trying to create new ones by regulatory decree.
       5. Equal opportunity: We must make America a country with 
     equal opportunity for all and special privilege for none by 
     treating all individuals as equals before the law and doing 
     away with quotas, preferences, and set-asides in government 
     contracts, hiring, and university admissions (as outlined in 
     the Canady-McConnell-Hatch Civil Rights Act of 1997).
       6. Racial classification: We must break down rigid racial 
     classifications. A first step could be to add a 
     ``multiracial'' category to the census and other government 
     forms to begin to phase out the outdated, divisive, and rigid 
     classification of Americans as ``blacks'' or ``whites'' or 
     other single races. Ultimately, our goal is to have one 
     classification--``American''.
       7. Home ownership: We must ease the path toward home 
     ownership by giving local communities and housing authorities 
     the flexibility and authority to more effectively and 
     efficiently house low-income Americans (as outlined in the 
     Housing Opportunity and Responsibility Act). We must also 
     expand faith-based charities such as Habitat for Humanity, 
     which grow families as well as build homes.
       8. Violent crime: We must make our cities safe and secure 
     places to live and work through community policing, tougher 
     sentences for violent criminals, and innovative anti-crime 
     programs (as outlined in the Juvenile Crime Control Act of 
     1997). We must also dramatically expand the community-based 
     anti-drug coalition efforts and insist on a victory plan for 
     the war on drugs.
       9. Economic growth: We must expand economic opportunities 
     for all Americans by promoting continued economic growth with 
     low inflation and rising take-home pay, through tax cuts, tax 
     simplifications, litigation reform, less regulation and 
     overhaul of the burden of government on small businesses. 
     After all, for welfare-to-work to be successful, work needs 
     to be available.
       10. Welfare reform: We must take the next step in welfare 
     reform by fostering and promoting innovative local job 
     training, and entry-level employment programs to move welfare 
     recipients into the workforce (as outlined in the Personal 
     Responsibility Act of 1996 and the welfare-to-work 
     initiatives of Governor George Bush of Texas and others).
       These ten steps are examples of the kind of practical, 
     down-to-earth, problem-solving efforts which will improve the 
     lives of all Americans, but have an especially important and 
     dramatic impact on the lives of poor Americans and minority 
     communities.
       I hope the President's commission will establish a goal of 
     practical reforms and practical changes and will hold 
     hearings designed to elicit pragmatic, down-to-earth 
     proposals for real change.
       The commission would do well to start right here with the 
     Orphan Foundation. This is a uniquely American institution--
     in your generosity of spirit, in your inner strength and in 
     your boundless optimism. But most of all, you are uniquely 
     American because in giving these and many other young people 
     the rarest of treasures--a sense of hope, a sense of place 
     and a sense of possibility--you are in fact helping show them 
     what it means to be citizens and part of the American family. 
     And those are the greatest gifts of all. You are part of a 
     worldwide movement of freedom and faith. You are all making 
     our jobs a little bit easier. I thank the Foundation for its 
     work; I salute this year's scholarship winners and I thank 
     you for allowing me to join you this evening.

     

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