    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [December 10, 1994]
    [Pages 2169-2171]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    December 10, 1994

        Good morning. Earlier this week, I signed the GATT agreement, the
    most far-reaching international trade pact in our history. And this
    weekend in Miami, we in the United States are hosting the Summit of the
    Americas, where the leaders of 34 countries have gathered to promote
    trade in our own hemisphere.
        This Summit of the Americas and GATT and everything we've done to
    expand international trade is really about opening up foreign markets to
    America's goods and services, so that we can create high-wage jobs and
    new opportunities for our people here at home.
        But despite all the progress we've made--despite the fact that we
    have over 5 million new jobs in the last 22 months, the biggest
    expansion of trade in history, we've had more new construction jobs this
    year than in the last 9 years combined, and we've had a year of
    manufacturing job growth for the first time in a

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    decade--in spite of all that, millions of hard-working people are still
    out there killing themselves, working longer hours for lower pay, paying
    more for health care or losing their health coverage, than ever before.
    More and more Americans, even in this recovery, are worried that they
    could lose their job or their benefits at any time. There's less
    disposable income for most working Americans than there was just a
    decade ago. Many people can't even image being able to afford a vacation
    anymore, let alone send their children to college. And I'm talking about
    hard-working Americans who play by the rules; they're tired of watching
    their earnings benefit people who don't.
        There's no greater gap between mainstream American values and modern
    Government than we find in the welfare system. The welfare system was
    set up for all the right reasons: to help people who had fallen on hard
    times temporarily, to give them a hand up for a little while so they can
    put their lives back in order and move on. And it still works that way
    for an awful lot of people. But for millions and millions of people, the
    system is broken badly, and it undermines the very values, work, family
    and responsibility, that people need to put themselves back on track.
        The people who are stuck on welfare permanently will be the first to
    tell you that if we're going to fix it, we have to return to those
    values, and we have to put them front and center. People who have worked
    their way off of welfare, after being afraid they'd be on it forever,
    will be the strongest in saying we've got to put work, family, and
    responsibility back into the system.
        We have to change welfare so that it drives people toward the
    freedom of work, not the confines of dependence. Work is still the best
    social program ever invented. Work gives hope and structure and meaning
    to people's lives. And we won't have ended welfare as we know it until
    its central focus is to move people off welfare and into a job so that
    they can support themselves and their families.
        We have to change welfare so that it strengthens families, and not
    weaken them. There is no substitute, none, for the loving devotion and
    equally loving discipline of caring parents. Governments don't raise
    children, parents do. There's some people out there who argue that we
    should let some sort of big, new institution take parents' place, that
    we should even take children away from parents as we cut them off
    welfare, even if they're doing a good job as parents, and put the
    children in orphanages. Well, those people are dead wrong. We need less
    governmental interference in family life, not more.
        We have to change the welfare system so that it demands the same
    responsibility already shouldered by millions and millions of Americans
    who already get up every day and go to work and struggle to make ends
    meet and raise their children. Anyone who can work should do so. Anyone
    who brings a child into this world ought to take responsibility for that
    child. And no one--no one--should get pregnant or father a child who
    isn't prepared to raise the child, love the child, and take financial
    and personal responsibility for the child's future.
        That's why welfare reform must include a national campaign against
    teen pregnancy and the toughest possible enforcement of our child
    support laws, along with the requirement that people on welfare will
    have to get off of it and go to work after a specified period of time.
    It also means that if you're going to require that, there has to be a
    job there for them and support for people who are working to raise their
    children in the proper way.
        I've worked on this welfare reform issue for 14 years, since I first
    became Governor of my State. I've worked with other Governors, with
    Members of Congress from both parties, but most importantly with people
    on welfare and people who've worked their way off of it. I know that
    most people out there on welfare don't like it a bit, would give
    anything to get off, and really want to be good, hard-working citizens
    and successful parents.
        There are a lot of ideas out there for reforming welfare. Some are
    really good, and some are just political attention-getters. Since I
    became President, I've worked hard on this. I've already introduced
    welfare reform legislation in the last session of Congress. We've also
    given 20 States relief from cumbersome Federal bureaucracy rules so that
    they can pursue welfare reform on their own. We've done that for more
    States than the previous two administrations combined.
        There's still some disagreement about what we ought to do, but
    everybody agrees that the system is badly broken and needs to be fixed.
    It's a bad deal for the taxpayers who pay the bills, and it's a worse
    deal for the families who are permanently stuck on it.

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        Two days ago, after meeting with Governors from both the Democratic
    and Republican Parties, I announced that we're going to host a national
    bipartisan working session on welfare reform at the White House in
    January. I call for this session as a first step in an honest and
    forthright discussion about America's welfare system and how to fix it.
    It's not going to be easy, but our responsibility to the American people
    is to put aside partisan differences and to turn our full attention to
    the problems at hand. The American people deserve a Government that
    honors their values and spends their money wisely and a country that
    rewards people who work hard and play by the rules. Working together,
    that's what we can give them.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 6:19 p.m. on December 8 in the Oval
    Office at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on December 10.