[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

[[Page 2170]]

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.

[[Page 2171]]

    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.