    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [January 28, 1995]
    [Pages 109-110]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    January 28, 1995

        Good morning. I want to talk to you today about the New Covenant I
    discussed in the State of the Union. My mission as President is to
    restore the American dream to all of our people. In the new economy of
    the 21st century, that requires a New Covenant between the people and
    their Government and among the people themselves.
        This is something I've been talking about for many years, since I
    ran for President. The New Covenant is grounded in an old idea that all
    Americans have not just a right but a responsibility to do the hard work
    needed to rise as far as their talents and determination can take them
    and to give something back to their community and to their country in
    return. Opportunity and responsibility, they go hand in hand. We can't
    have one without the other, and we can't have a strong community without
    both.
        We've worked hard to create more economic opportunity for our people
    in the last 2 years, bringing the deficit down, investing in education
    and new technology, expanding trade. We've gotten more than 6 million--
    or almost 6 million new jobs, the fastest growth in 10 years, and the
    lowest combined rate of unemployment and inflation in 25 years. That's
    good news.
        But America's still got a lot of problems. There are still interests
    of people and values of people that are not being furthered. And there's
    really no better example of the need for us to build a New Covenant
    together than the failed welfare system. Today's welfare system doesn't
    provide enough opportunity, and it certainly doesn't require enough
    responsibility. It's a system so badly broken that it undermines the
    very values, work, family, and responsibility, people must have to put
    themselves back on track. We've got to return those values front and
    center. Our job in Government is to expand opportunity, not bureaucracy,
    and then to empower people to make the most of their own lives. We must
    not ask, and Government should not provide, what we really must do for
    ourselves.
        I've worked on this issue of welfare reform for a very long time
    now, since I first became Governor of Arkansas over 15 years ago. I know
    there are a lot of different ideas about what we should do. But everyone
    agrees the system is broken and it needs to be fixed. I'm committed to
    making welfare what it was meant to be, a second chance, not a way of
    life. I'm committed to making sure that the only goal of the welfare
    system is to help people get off of it, into a job where they can
    support themselves and their families. I believe we should give people
    the opportunity to move from dependence to independence, providing job
    training and child care if that's what they need for up to 2 years. At
    the same time, we must demand that people accept responsibility for
    themselves. After 2 years, anyone who can work must work. And if a
    parent doesn't pay child support, that person should be forced to pay.
    People who have children must be prepared to take responsibility for
    them.
        We should require work and responsibility, but we shouldn't cut
    people off just because they're poor or young or unmarried. We should
    promote responsibility by requiring young mothers to live at home with
    their parents or in appropriate supervised settings and to finish
    school, but we shouldn't put them and their children on the street. I
    don't believe we should punish people because they happen to be poor or
    because of past mistakes. And absolutely, we shouldn't punish children
    for their parents' mistakes. All of us have made our mistakes, and none
    of us can change our yesterdays. But every one of us can change our
    tomorrows. That's what welfare reform should be all about.
        And one more thing, Washington doesn't have all the answers. In
    fixing welfare, as on so many other issues, we have to shift resources
    and decisionmaking back to States and local commu-

    [[Page 110]]

    nities. The welfare system shouldn't be centralized in Washington,
    dispensing services through large bureaucracies. We've got to shift more
    responsibilities back to the citizens of this country.
        We've made a good start on this over the last 2 years. We've already
    given 23 States the right to slash through Federal rules and regulations
    to reform their own welfare systems. Last year, we introduced the most
    sweeping welfare reform plan ever presented by an administration. Today
    at the White House, I'm hosting an all-day working session on welfare
    reform including Governors, Members of Congress, Democrats and
    Republicans, people on welfare, and people who have worked their way
    off. I'm determined to work with all of them to pass welfare reform, and
    I hope we can make some progress today.
        This is a complex and sometimes divisive issue. But if we put
    partisanship aside, we can come together and solve it around some simple
    and important values: moving from dependence to independence, from
    welfare to work, from childbearing to responsible parenting. Let this be
    the year we end welfare as we know it. And let it also be the year we
    are all able to stop using this issue to divide America. That should be
    our commitment. The American people deserve nothing less.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 6:08 p.m. on January 27 in the
    Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on January
    28.