    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [January 30, 1995]
    [Pages 112-114]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the National Governors' Association
    January 30, 1995

        Good morning. First, I want to welcome you back to the White House.
    For those of you who were here last night, Hillary and I enjoyed having
    you; it was a great dinner and we enjoyed the conversation and the
    entertainment and the fellowship.
        There are two or three things I'd like to speak about this morning
    before turning the microphone over to Governor Dean and Governor
    Thompson and the Vice President. First, let me thank the executive
    committee for its vote yesterday on our stabilization measure for
    Mexico.

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    And let me urge the NGA as a whole to support that executive committee
    recommendation.
        The United States has a lot at stake in Mexico. We have hundreds of
    thousands of jobs that are tied to the success of the Mexican economy.
    It is now our third largest trading partner--several billions of dollars
    a year. Our future cooperation and our ability to manage some very
    significant immigration problems could be affected by what is going on
    there, and the efforts that we are making to cooperate on the drug issue
    could obviously be affected by what is going on there.
        I want to emphasize that the stabilization initiative is not a gift,
    not a loan, not a bailout; it is a loan guarantee. We are cosigning a
    note. We'll have good collateral. We're doing it because it's in the
    interest of the United States. I worked on it extensively this weekend,
    and I realize that it's not politically popular back home, it's a rather
    complex issue, but it is clearly in the interest of American workers,
    American businesses, and the United States as a whole. So I thank the
    executive committee for your vote, and I hope the NGA as a whole will
    follow the recommendation of the executive committee.
        The second thing I'd like to talk about is, very briefly, is the
    commitment that I made 2 years ago to have a better, stronger
    partnership with the States, to regulate less, to empower more, to try
    to push more responsibilities down to the State and local level. The
    Vice President will say a little more about that, and then tomorrow at
    the NGA I'll have a chance to speak in greater detail.
        But we have worked not simply to reduce the size of the Federal
    Government, although we have by over 100,000 already; not just to reduce
    the burden of regulation, although we have in banking and intrastate
    trucking and a number of other areas; not just to reduce the cost,
    although we did--last year was the first time in 25 years when the
    Congress voted to reduce both domestic and defense spending, obviously
    except for Social Security and the health care programs--but also to try
    to move more responsibility to the States.
        In the last 2 years, our administration, for example, granted more
    waivers in the area of health care and welfare reform than in the
    previous 12 years combined. And we want to do more of that. We also have
    worked very hard to try to help work through problems that have existed
    in the past with specific governmental agencies, and we want to do more
    of that. And as I said, the Vice President will have more to say about
    that.
        We are strongly supporting the move to get unfunded mandates
    legislation passed in the Congress and are encouraged by the work that
    was done in the United States Senate where, as I remember, the bill
    passed 86-10 last week, after a really open and honest discussion of all
    appropriate amendments. The legislation is now moving through the House.
    I think there are about 100 amendments pending, but I think they will
    move through it in a fairly expeditious way, just as the Senate did.
        With regard to the balanced budget amendment, it has passed the
    House; it is now in the Senate. I will say again what I've said all
    along here. It seems to me that the State legislators, the people, and
    the Governors have a right to know what is entailed in the time line if
    the effort is made. And I would hope that we would continue to take that
    right-to-know position. You have a right to know what happens. You have
    a right to know what happens if we protect Social Security. You have a
    right to know what happens if we protect Social Security and Medicare.
    You have a right to know what happens in the details of this.
        We have cut $600 billion-plus off this deficit. I am going to give a
    budget in early February to the Congress which will take over $140
    billion more in cuts. We have eliminated 100 programs; we have cut
    hundreds and hundreds of others. I want to keep bringing this deficit
    down, but I think we ought to all go into a change in the fundamental
    document of this country with our eyes wide open and knowing what the
    consequences are.
        The third thing I'd like to talk about, briefly, is welfare reform.
    For those of you who were present at the Saturday meeting, I want to
    thank you again for being there. It reminded me very much of the process
    that we went through in 1987 and 1988 when we had a Republican President
    and a Democratic Congress and a bipartisan group of Governors. And we
    worked in '87 and '88 toward the passage of the Family Support Act.
        I thought it worked then; I think it will work now, if we all work
    in good faith. We agreed that welfare has to be reformed, that the most
    important thing is to change it from a system which fosters dependence
    to one that fosters

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    work and independence, that we ought to support education where it is
    needed, and that we ought to support responsible parenting.

        We agreed that as we try to put more of the operational decisions
    back to the State and local level, there must be some strong national
    steps taken on child support enforcement because so many of those orders
    are multistate in their impact and because we are doing such a bad job
    as a country now in collecting child support which should properly be
    paid to children.

        We agreed that there must be more State and local flexibility; we
    agreed that there ought to be an effort to reduce teen pregnancy and
    out-of-wedlock pregnancy generally. Governor Carper gave a very moving
    presentation of what is going on in Delaware, and as you know, I
    announced in my State of the Union that we would make a national effort
    on this which we'll have more to say about in the next few days.

        We did not reach final agreement on the questions of how the
    partnership should be structured, what the implications of a block grant
    would be, and what, in specific terms, the national interest is in
    preserving the welfare of the children of this country. I have to say
    that I basically am in favor, as I always have been, of maximum
    flexibility for the States. I was a strong supporter of the community
    development block grant program, for example, when I served as a
    Governor. But we do have a national interest in protecting the welfare
    and the possibilities of our children.

        In 1985, for the very first time in our history, at least since
    we've been keeping such statistics, the elderly became less poor than
    the rest of the population because of the cost-of-living adjustments and
    Social Security, because of supplemental security income, because of
    Medicare. That is something I think we're all proud of.

        The flip side of that is that the poverty population itself has
    stayed the same, or has actually increased, and almost all the poor now
    are little children and their not very well educated parents, by and
    large. So we do have a national interest in the welfare of these
    children and in changing the welfare system so that it promotes
    responsibility and lifts people up without punishing children who were
    not the cause of the problems that they face in life. That, it seems to
    me, is the dividing line that we have to be animated by as we try to
    forge this new partnership. I'm excited about it; I think we can do it.

        We must pass welfare reform this year, and it has got to be real,
    meaningful, different, and better and broader than anything we've ever
    done before. And it ought to give you a great deal of flexibility out
    of--if nothing else, out of a sense of sheer simple humility that no one
    has all the answers to deal with these difficult riddles that threaten
    the stability of our families and the future of our kids.

        So I am encouraged by where we are. I thank you again for the
    executive committee resolution on Mexico. We are going to work with you
    to further the partnership between the States and the Federal
    Government. And we must pass welfare reform this year, but it ought to
    be the right kind with the right results.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:58 a.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Tommy G. Thompson of
    Wisconsin.