    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [March 7, 1995]
    [Pages 313-321]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the National Association of Counties
    March 7, 1995

        Thank you very much. Thank you, Randy, for the T-shirt and for the
    sentiment which it represents. I thank all of you for having me here.
    I'm glad to be here with Secretary Shalala and Doug Bovin and Michael
    Hightower, Randy Johnson, John Stroger, my old friend from Arkansas by
    way of Chicago--[laughter]--Doris Ward, and Larry Naake.
        Let me begin by congratulating you on this program this morning. I
    was impressed that you had our longtime friend Marian Wright Edelman,
    who gave my wife her first job after law school in the Children's
    Defense Fund. And I'm glad the Speaker got to come back and give his
    talk today--[laughter]--and I thank you for hearing him.
        You know, I've done a lot of work over the years with the ACORN
    group and they stood for a lot of good things in my home State. But I
    think everyone deserves to be heard. And we need people debating these
    important issues in Washington. This is a very exciting time, and it's
    important that all the voices be heard and that people like you
    especially that have to live with the consequences of what is done here
    hear the ideas that are being debated and also that you be heard.
        I am always glad to be with people whom I think of as being in the
    backbone of public service in America. You serve at the level where you
    can have the greatest impact. When I was a Governor, nothing mattered
    more to me that just being in direct contact with the people who hired
    me to do my job. And I have to tell you, as President, perhaps the most
    frustrating thing about the job is that I don't have as many

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    opportunities as you do to be in direct contact with the people who
    hired me to do this job. That's not good for me, and sometimes it's not
    so good for them as well.
        When I was Governor, people used to make fun of me and say that I
    was basically a courthouse Governor, which meant that I loved to go to
    the country courthouse in the rural areas of my State and sit for hours
    and talk to the officials and also visit with the people who would come
    in. But I know this: I know that one of the things that our Government
    in Washington has suffered from for so many years is being too far from
    the concerns of ordinary Americans.
        You see in personal terms, with names and faces and life histories,
    the struggle now going on to keep the American dream alive. And you know
    as well as any the importance of reconnecting the values of the American
    people to their Government. I ran for President because that American
    dream and those values were threatened in the face of the huge changes
    that are going on here in the United States and all around the world and
    because I thought that too often our Government was simply not prepared
    to deal with those challenges or, in some cases, actually making them
    worse.
        Now, for 2 years I have worked hard to help ensure that our people
    have the tools they need to build good lives for themselves as we move
    into the 21st century and that we cross that great divide still the
    strongest and most secure country in the world, still the greatest force
    for peace and freedom and democracy.
        We're about two-thirds through the first 100 days of this new
    Congress. On Saturday, March 4th, we had the 62d anniversary of
    President Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration as President and the start
    of the original first 100 days. On that day, Franklin Roosevelt began to
    restore our Nation and to redefine the relationship between our people
    and their Government for half a century. And a lot of things he said
    then are still accurate today. In his Inaugural he said, ``The joy and
    moral stimulation of work must no longer be forgotten. These dark days
    will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is
    not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and our fellow
    men.''
        Today, we face different challenges, but our job is much the same.
    We have to keep the American dream alive for ourselves and our children
    during a time of great change. And we have to do that while we maintain
    the values that have always made us strong: work, family, community,
    responsibility for ourselves and for the future of our children.
        As all of you know--and you're now seeing it played out this
    morning--we're engaged in a great debate here in Washington about how to
    do that. The old Washington view is that the Federal Government can
    provide big solutions to America's big problems. The new Republican
    contract view reflects often an outright hostility to almost any Federal
    Government involvement, unless the present majority in Congress
    disagrees with what's going on in the States, and then there is a
    curious desire to increase the Federal Government's control over those
    aspects of our lives.
        Now, my view is very different, really, from both. It reflects the
    years and years that I lived like you live now, when I was a Governor
    out there working among the American people and seeing these problems
    that people talk about in sound bites with names and faces and life
    histories.
        The New Covenant that I want to forge with the American people for
    the future says we need both more opportunity and more responsibility,
    that we don't have a person to waste, so we have to have very strong
    communities that unite us instead of divide us. We do need very big
    changes in the way Government works. We don't need big, bureaucratic,
    one-size-fits-all Government in Washington.
        But we do have common problems and common opportunities which
    require a partnership, a partnership with a limited but an effective
    Government; a Government committed to increasing opportunity in terms of
    jobs and incomes, while shrinking Government bureaucracy; a Government
    committed to empowering people through education and training and
    technology to make the most of their own lives; a Government committed
    to enhancing our security all around the world and here at home on our
    streets as well.
        Now, this kind of Government will necessarily send more decisions
    back to the State and local governments and to citizens themselves. It
    will cut unnecessary spending, but it will invest more in jobs, incomes,
    and educations. It will, in short, as I said in 1992, put people first.
    It will insist on more personal responsibility, and it will support
    stronger communities. It will be

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    a partner, but it won't be a savior, and it won't sit on the sidelines.
    Either extreme is wrong.
        Now, I see this debate about the role of our Government as terribly
    important. And you can see it now playing out on every issue now before
    the Congress. We see it being debated in terms of how we should best
    educate our children, how we should train our workers, how we should
    make our communities safe again, how our civil justice system should
    work, what is the right way to fix the broken welfare system. I want you
    to watch it play out this year. Underneath it all will be, what is the
    responsibility of the Government in Washington, what is your
    responsibility at the grassroots level, how can it best be met.
        As we debate these matters, I will keep working to change the way
    Washington does business, to achieve a Government that gives taxpayers
    better value for their dollar, to support more jobs and higher incomes
    for the middle class and to shrink the under class, and to reinforce
    mainstream values of responsibility, work, family, and community.
        You know, for the 12 years before I came here, Washington allowed
    the deficit to quadruple and didn't do much to shrink the size or change
    the role of Government. Organized interests did very well, but the
    public interest suffered. In the last 2 years, we've begun to change
    that. We've cut the Federal deficit by $600 billion, shrunk the Federal
    Government faster than at any time in memory. We've cut more than 300
    domestic programs and consolidated hundreds of others. We've got more
    than 150,000 fewer people working for the Federal bureaucracy today than
    on the day I became President, and we are on the way to reducing it by
    more than a quarter of a million, so that the Federal Government will be
    the smallest it has been since President Kennedy took office.
        In the process, we have done a lot to shift power away from
    Washington to States, counties, cities, and towns throughout the
    country. Our reinventing Government initiative has already saved the
    taxpayers $63 billion under the leadership of the Vice President, and we
    will save more.
        We have cut regulations that make it harder on business and local
    Government to create opportunity, but we will do more. And all of this
    has made a difference in the work and the lives of the people you serve.
    The economy has created almost 6 million jobs since I became President,
    the combined rate of unemployment and inflation is at a 25-year low.
        But clearly, we still have more to do. Most people are working
    harder, without a raise, even though we've got a recovery. We're the
    only advanced country in the world where the percentage of people in the
    work force with health insurance is smaller today than it was 10 years
    ago. We still have a lot of economic problems out there, and you know
    that.
        I am ready to work with the Republicans, especially in areas that
    will give you more power to do what you have to do. Together, we have
    moved forward legislation in the Congress that will keep Congress from
    imposing unreasonable new mandates on you without paying for them.
        We've got a few issues left to work out on that, but a bill has
    passed the House and a bill has passed the Senate, and I encourage all
    sides to work in a bipartisan way to resolve them soon. In particular,
    though--and I want you to weigh in on this, I hope you will--I think the
    bill ought to be made effective immediately. For reasons I don't
    understand, Congress seems to want to make it effective toward the end
    of this year or at the beginning of next year. If it's going to be a
    good idea then, it will be a good idea now. Let's go on and get it done.
        As we have worked to cut yesterday's Government, we've also invested
    in our people to help them solve their own problems. We have approached
    that work, too, as a partner with people at the local level. For
    example, last year we had the most productive year in passing education
    reform legislation, from expanding Head Start to making college loans
    more affordable to the middle class in 30 years. But our education
    reforms set world-class standards for our schools and yet give to
    educators and parents much more say than the Federal Government used to
    about how to meet these standards and how to improve out children's
    education.
        We tried to be good partners with local government on the crime
    bill. I want to thank all of you at NACO for helping us to pass it.
    After 6 years of rhetoric and hot air in Washington, we finally passed
    the crime bill. You told us you wanted an end to gridlock, and you
    helped us get it. And we are providing what you told us you wanted, you
    and other local officials all across the country, resources for 100,000
    new law enforcement officers, smarter prevention efforts, tougher
    punishment, like ``three strikes

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    and you're out,'' a hard-won ban on assault weapons.
        We are working with you now to implement this crime bill. The
    Justice Department and the Attorney General are working very, very hard.
    This is an amazing thing. I hear those who criticize this crime bill say
    that we have imposed this on local government, and they really don't
    want it, and they can't afford to pay any match. But do you know, since
    October, over half the police departments in the United States of
    America have already applied for assistance under the police grants--
    over half. And in this 5-year program, we have already released funds
    just since last fall to our 17,000 new law enforcement officers,
    including over 1,000 deputy sheriffs.
        Now, sadly, some people in Congress think we ought to reverse this.
    I agree that we have to continue to cut the deficit. My new budget cuts
    $140 billion more in Federal spending. We have reduced the rate of
    health costs growing by about $100 billion over the next 5 years. We had
    about $250 billion in budget cuts in our last budget.
        But how are we going to do this? I do not believe we should
    sacrifice our safety and not put 100,000 police on the street. I do not
    believe that we should not keep working for education. Instead, I think
    it's clear that our security and our ability to pay our way in the world
    depends upon educating and training our people for the new global
    economy. That includes a stronger Head Start program, serving more
    children. It includes more affordable college loans for middle class
    students. It includes a whole range of educational initiatives.
        I don't think we should limit our efforts to make college loans more
    affordable, especially when you consider the fact that this
    administration has reduced your costs in delinquent college loans from
    $2.8 billion a year down to a billion dollars a year. We cut it by two-
    thirds, the loss to taxpayers. So we're collecting on the student loans;
    let's give more loans to young people to go to college to make America
    stronger.
        I don't agree that we should eliminate the national service project,
    AmeriCorps. It's doing a world of good out there at the grassroots
    level. A lot of you are using it. And I certainly don't agree--with drug
    use on the rise among young people, who seem to have forgotten that it
    is not only illegal, it is dangerous--I certainly don't agree that we
    should eliminate the provision for drug education programs and for
    security programs against drug problems in our public schools, which
    will now cover 94 percent of the schools in this country but if the
    proposal now in Congress passes will be wiped out. That is not the way
    to cut the budget. We do not have to do it that way.
        It depends on how you look at it. Some in Congress want to cut the
    School Lunch Program. You know what we did instead? We closed 1,200
    regional offices in the Department of Agriculture. I think we did it the
    right way.
        So my view of this is that yes, we've got to cut the budget, but we
    should expand opportunity, not restrict it. We should give people the
    tools they need to make the most of their own lives, not take them away.
    We should enhance security, not undermine it. Those are my standards,
    and I need your help. You can make it clear to Washington that America
    wants us to get our house in order. They like it when we reduce the
    deficit. We have to cut the spending, but there is a right way and a
    wrong way to do this work.
        And I'd like to ask your help in particular on an issue of concern
    to a lot of you. I know it differs from State to State in how it's
    implemented, but every American citizen has an interest in ending
    welfare as we know it. Like it or not, we have a welfare system that
    doesn't further our basic values, and like many of you, I have worked on
    this problem for years. Those of us who work in it know it's a little
    more complicated than people who just talk about it. I have spent
    countless hours in welfare offices talking to case workers, talking to
    people on welfare. For years and years now, about 15 years this year, I
    have been working on this problem as a Governor and as a President. I
    have seen this great drama unfold.
        You know, when welfare started under President Roosevelt, the
    typical welfare recipient was a West Virginia miner's widow, who had a
    grade school education, was never expected to be in the workplace, and
    had orphaned children that needed help. And everybody thought this was
    the right thing to do. Then, we had people on welfare who just hit a
    rough patch but who got off welfare in a couple of months. And believe
    it or not, nearly half the people who go on welfare today are still in
    that category. Welfare actually works for them; we shouldn't forget
    that. There are a lot of folks who hit a rough

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    patch in life, and they get on welfare, and then they get themselves
    off.
        Then, there are those whom all the American people, without regard
    to party or philosophy, are justifiably concerned with, people who are
    trapped on welfare in cycles of dependency that sometimes become
    intergenerational, that are plainly rooted to the explosion of teen
    pregnancy, out-of-wedlock births, coupled with low levels of education,
    inability to pierce the job market, inability to succeed as both workers
    and parents. What ought to be the greatest joy of life, giving birth to
    a child, has now become a great social drama for us, in which we all
    worry that our values are being regularly violated and that's being
    reinforced by the way a Government program works. And we are worried
    about it.
        Many of our people are worried because they don't have enough money
    to pay for their own kids and they think their tax money is going down
    the drain to reinforce values they don't support, to create more burdens
    on their tax money in the future.
        And nobody wants to get off the welfare system, I can tell you, any
    more than the people who are on it. All you've got to do is go out and
    sit in any welfare office in the country and talk to people. I had four
    people who had worked their way off welfare into the Oval Office to see
    me the other day, and it was just like every story I've heard for the
    last 15 years, people talking about how they were dying to get off
    welfare.
        Now, our country has been engaged in a serious effort to try to
    address this problem for some years now. This is not a new issue. In the
    late 1980's, along with then-Governor and now-Congressman Mike Castle
    from Delaware, I represented a bipartisan group of Governors in working
    with the Congress and the Reagan administration to pass the Family
    Support Act of 1988. It was a welfare reform bill designed to promote
    work and education and to move people from welfare to work through
    having the States do more with education and training and job placements
    and requiring that people participate in these programs.
        And many of us who were Governors at the time used the Family
    Support Act to move people off welfare. But everybody who worked with it
    recognized that more had to be done if the welfare system was going to
    be changed. There were still a lot of people who said, ``Well, if I move
    from welfare to work, I'll lose my kid's child care,'' or ``I'll lose
    medical coverage for my child after a few months.'' There are others who
    still could kind of get through loopholes in the program because we
    didn't cover everybody. So to reflect our country's values of work and
    education and responsible parenting, we knew we needed to do more.
        We also knew that we needed more State flexibility in tackling this
    problem. If somebody knew how to fix this, it would have been done a
    long time ago and people in politics would be talking about something
    else. Right? That's what this whole State flexibility's about. The
    framers were pretty smart wanting the States and the localities to be
    the laboratories of democracy, because they knew that there would be
    thorny problems involving complex matters of economics and social
    organization and human nature that no one would know all the answers to.
        So I'm glad the Republicans chose to make welfare reform part of
    their contract for America. It's always been part of my contract with
    America. Now, let's see if there's some things we can all agree on.
        I think we should demand and reward work, not punish those who go to
    work. I think we should demand responsibility from parents who bring
    children into the world, not let them off the hook and expect the
    taxpayers to pick up the tab for their neglect. I think we must
    discourage irresponsible behavior that lands people on welfare in the
    first place. We must tell our children not to have children until they
    are married and ready to be good parents.
        Now, in the last 2 years we've made some progress in pursuing these
    goals. In 1993 when the Congress passed the economic reform plan, one of
    the provisions gave a tax break averaging $1,000 a year to families with
    incomes of under $25,000 to 15 million working families to send this
    message: If you work full-time and you have children in the home, you
    should not be in poverty. And there should never be an incentive to stay
    on welfare instead of go to work. That's what the earned-income tax
    credit expansion was all about.
        Last year I sent to Congress the most sweeping welfare reform plan
    ever presented to the United States Congress. It was prowork,
    proeducation, proresponsibility, and pro-State flexibility. It did not
    pass, but I still hope it will be the basis of what ultimately does
    pass.

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    We are collecting child support at a record level from delinquent
    parents, $9 billion in 1993. And last week I signed an Executive order
    to crack down on Federal employees who owe child support to require them
    to pay as well.
        For the last 2 years, we have granted welfare reform waivers from
    Federal rules to two dozen States, more than the last two
    administrations in 12 years combined, giving States flexibility to try
    out their ideas without being stifled by Washington one-size-fits-all
    rules. Today I am proud to announce that Ohio has become the 25th State
    to receive a waiver to reform its welfare system.
        Now, here's what Ohio wants to do. I think it's an interesting idea.
    They want to take some of their welfare and food stamp money to
    subsidize jobs in the private sector, including an initiative with our
    new empowerment zone in Cleveland. That's not a bad idea. Some people
    say, ``Well, we don't have enough money to create government jobs for
    all these folks, and the private sector won't hire them if they have
    limited skills.'' So Ohio and Oregon and a couple of other States say,
    ``Would you let us use the welfare check to give to employers, say,
    `Okay, you're going to pay whatever you're going to pay at this job.
    This will replace some of what you'll have to pay.' Put these people to
    work. Give them work experience. Give them a chance. Give them a chance
    to earn something.''
        Secretary Shalala thought it was a good idea, and so do I. These are
    the kinds of things being done all across America. Half the country
    today, as of this day with this waiver, now half the States are carrying
    out significant welfare reform experiments that promote work and
    responsibility instead of undermining it. Ten States are strengthening
    their child support enforcement. Nineteen are finding ways to insist on
    responsible behavior in return for help. Twenty States are providing
    incentives to families to go to work, not stay on welfare.
        I think we should go further and abolish this waiver system
    altogether in the welfare reform. Instead, we should give all States the
    flexibility to do all the things that our waivers allow 25 States to do
    today, so people don't have to come to Washington to ask.
        But I would like to say in this debate and for your benefit,
    especially those of you who have county responsibilities in this area,
    we shouldn't forget that the need for flexibility doesn't stop at the
    State level. We need it at the local level as well.
        So we're making some headway on this welfare reform. But we've still
    got a lot of work to do. In January, I called a meeting at the White
    House with leaders from both parties and all levels of government to
    press Congress to get moving on welfare reform legislation. I spoke
    about it in the State of the Union Address. I wanted the people who will
    write the legislation to hear from people like you, so we had
    representatives from local government at this meeting. I wanted them to
    hear from folks who will have to put this legislation into action on the
    front lines.
        We all know the old system did too little to require work,
    education, and parental responsibility, that it gave the States too
    little flexibility. The original Republican contract proposal did give
    the States more flexibility, with some exceptions, in return for
    substantial reductions in Federal payments in future years. But like the
    present system and unlike my proposal, the original Republican contract
    proposal was weak on work and parental responsibility. And in terms of
    denying benefits to all welfare parents under the age of 18 and their
    children, it was also, in my view, very hard on children.
        Now, the present bill in the Congress, as it stands today, as we
    speak, contains real improvements from the original contract proposal in
    the areas of work and parental responsibility. But I think there are
    still significant problems with it which could undermine our common
    goals. And in my view, they still make the bill too tough on children
    and too weak on work and responsibility. I'd like to talk a little about
    that, again, because there's a debate still to be had in the House and
    then when the bill goes to the Senate.
        When we met in January, we agreed, Democrats and Republicans alike,
    that the toughest possible child support enforcement must be a central
    part of welfare reform. If we collected all the money that deadbeat
    parents owe, we could move 300,000 mothers and over half a million
    children off the welfare roles immediately, tomorrow, just with child
    support collection.
        So at that meeting, people from every level of government and both
    parties agreed that while generally we want to move more of these
    decisions back to the State, we need national action on child support
    enforcement and na-

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    tional standards because 30 percent of the cases where parents don't pay
    cross State lines.
        The original child support provisions in the contract of the
    Republicans left out a lot of the most effective means for finding
    delinquent parents, which were in our welfare reform bill, including a
    system to track them across State lines. But to the credit of the
    Republicans, they have recently included almost all our tough child
    support measures. And I appreciate it.
        There is more that we ought to do, I think, together. Our plan calls
    on States to deny drivers and professional licenses to people who refuse
    to pay their child support. Now, I know that's a tough idea, but let me
    tell you, 19 States are doing that today, and they're collecting a lot
    more child support as a result of it. So I hope that the Congress will
    join us to make this provision also the law of the land. We've got to
    send a loud signal: No parent in America has a right to walk away from
    the responsibility to raise their children. That's the signal; we've got
    to send it.
        Secondly, all of you know that the hardest and the most important
    part of welfare reform is moving people from welfare to work. You have
    to educate and train people. You've got to make sure that their kids
    aren't punished once they go to work by losing their health care or
    their child care. And then you've got to figure out where these jobs are
    coming from. I'm doing my best to lower the unemployment rate, but
    still, if there's unemployment in a given area, where will the jobs come
    from? Will the Government provide them? If not, you have to do things
    like I described in the Ohio waiver.
        But this work has always been at the core of my approach. I think
    what we want for every American adult is to be a successful parent and a
    successful worker. When I proposed my plan last year and when I was
    running for President, I said, if people need help with education,
    training, or child care so they can go to work, we ought to give them
    the help. But after 2 years, they should be required to take a job and
    get a paycheck, not a welfare check, if there is a job available. There
    should not be an option. If you can go to work, you must.
        Now, I know in their hearts this is really the position that most of
    the Republicans in the Congress agree with. Last year, 162 of 175 House
    Republicans, including Speaker Gingrich, cosponsored a bill that was
    similar to our plan on work in many ways. But the plan that they are
    currently considering in the House doesn't do much to support work. It
    would actually make it harder for many recipients to make it in the
    workplace.
        Now, they wisely abandoned an earlier provision which basically
    allowed a welfare recipient to get around the work requirement literally
    by submitting a resume. But their new plan gives the States a perverse
    incentive to cut people off welfare. It lets them count people as
    working if they were simply cut off the welfare rolls for any reason and
    whether or not they have moved into a job. Now, when people just get cut
    off without going to work, we know where they're likely to end up, don't
    we? On your doorstep. That's not welfare reform. That's just shifting
    the problem from one place to another.
        Now, we know that an inordinate number of people also who get off
    welfare without work skills, without child care, wind up right back on
    welfare in a matter of a few months. Yet, the current Republican plan
    cuts child care both for people trying to leave welfare and for working
    people who are working at low incomes who are trying to stay off of
    welfare.
        Equally important, this new plan removes any real responsibility for
    States to provide education, training, and job placement, though that is
    at the heart of getting and keeping people off welfare. In other words,
    these provisions on work effectively repeal the Family Support Act of
    1988 which was passed with the support of President Reagan and
    substantial Republicans in the Congress and actually did some good where
    the States implemented it in good faith. Why? Because basically the new
    provisions are designed to allow the Federal Government to send less
    money to the States over time, and in return for saving budget money,
    they're willing to walk away from the standards necessary to move people
    from welfare to work. It's like a lot of things you can do around here:
    It may feel good for a year or 2, but 5 years from now we'll be hitting
    ourselves upside the head, saying why have we got a bigger welfare
    problem than we had 5 years ago.
        Now, besides the need to support work and tough child support
    enforcement, I also think there are some other questions here, questions
    of the treatment of children and addressing the problems of teen
    pregnancy. Three-quarters of the unwed teen mothers in this country end
    up on welfare within 5 years. We clearly need a national campaign
    against teen pregnancy that

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    sends a clear message: It is wrong to have a child outside marriage.
    Nobody should get pregnant or father a child who isn't prepared to raise
    the child, love the child, and take responsibility for the child's
    future.
        I know the Republicans care about this problem, too. This is not a
    partisan political issue. It is not a racial issue. It is not an income
    issue. It is not a regional issue. This issue is eating the heart out of
    this country. You don't have to be in any particular political camp to
    know we're in big trouble as a society if we're headed toward a day when
    half of all the kids in this country are born outside marriage.
        But some aspects of this current plan in Congress could do more harm
    than good. Our plan sends a clear message to young men and women that
    mistakes have consequences, that they have to turn their lives around,
    that they have to give their children a better chance. We want teen
    fathers to know they'll spend the next 18 years paying child support. We
    want teen mothers to know they have to stay at home with their parents
    or in an appropriate supervised setting and stay in school. And they
    have to implement--or identify the fathers. They don't have a separate
    check to go out on their own.
        Now, the Republican plan in Congress sends a different message to
    young people that's both tougher and weaker. It says, ``If you make a
    mistake, you're out on your own, even if it means you are likely to end
    up on welfare for life and cost us even more money down the road.''
        Now, in recent weeks, we've narrowed our differences, the
    Republicans and the administration, in response to concerns that have
    been raised by people within the Republican Party. But their bill still
    denies--now listen to this--their bill still denies any assistance to
    teen mothers under the age of 18 and their children until they turn 18,
    and then leaves the States the option of denying those benefits
    permanently, as long--to anybody who was under 18 when they had a child.
        Now, I just believe it's a mistake to cut people off because they're
    young and unmarried and they make a mistake. The younger you are, the
    more likely you are to make mistakes, although I haven't noticed any
    absence of errors from those of us who get older. [Laughter] I think
    it's wrong to make small children pay the price for their parents'
    mistakes. I also think it's counterproductive. It's not in our interest.
    It will cost the taxpayers more money than it will save. It's bound to
    lead to more dependency, not less, to more broken families, not fewer,
    to more burdens on the taxpayer over the long run, not less.
        Now, our plan is different, but it is tougher in some ways. It would
    say, ``If you want this check and you're a teenager, you've got to live
    at home. And if you're in an abusive home, you must live in another
    appropriate supervised setting. You must stay in school. You must
    identify the father of the child.'' So we're not weaker, but we're
    different.
        We also want a national campaign against teen pregnancy, rooted in
    our local communities, that sends a clear message about abstinence and
    responsible parenting. That is the clue, folks. If we could get rid of
    that, we wouldn't have a welfare problem, and we'd be talking about
    something else in the next couple of years.
        Now, there are other provisions in this bill that I think are unfair
    to children--and let me just mention, for your information, I think
    they're really tough on disabled children and children in foster homes--
    and I think they ought to be modified. And finally, it is important to
    point out that under the guise of State flexibility, this plan reduces
    future payments to States in ways that make States and children very
    vulnerable in times of recession or if their population is growing more
    than other States. So basically, if we adopt this plan the way it is, it
    will say to you in your State, if times get tough, you're on your own.
        I don't think we should let budget-cutting be wrapped in a cloak of
    welfare reform. We have a national interest in the welfare of our
    children. Let's reform welfare. Let's cut the deficit. But let's don't
    mix up the two and pretend that one is the other. Let's put our children
    first.
        Let me say that I have come here today in the spirit of good faith
    to try to outline these specifics. You may not agree with me; you may
    agree with them. But I want you to know what the points of debate are.
    Again, I am glad we're discussing this. This is a big problem for
    America. And I believe in the end we can work it out together as long as
    we remember what it's really about--again, the way you think about
    problems, you have a name, a face, and a life history. That's what we
    sometimes lose up here in Washington.
        I just want to close with this story. When I was Governor, I was
    trying to get all the

    [[Page 321]]

    other Governors interested in welfare reform. I once had a panel at a
    welfare meeting in Washington. And I didn't even know how many Governors
    would show up. Forty-one Governors showed up to listen to women on
    welfare, or women who had been on welfare, talk about their lives.
        There was a woman there from my State, and I was asking her
    questions, and I didn't know what her answers were going to be, letting
    her talk to the Governors. And I said, ``Do you think it ought to be
    mandatory for people on welfare to be in these education and job
    placement programs?'' She said, ``Yes, I do.'' I said, ``Why?'' She
    said, ``Because a lot of people like me, we lose all our self-
    confidence. We don't think we amount to much, and if you don't make us
    do it, we'll just lay up and watch the soaps.'' But then I said, I asked
    her to describe her job, and she did. And I said, ``What's the best
    thing about having a job?'' She said, ``When my boy goes to school, and
    they ask him, what does your momma do for a living, he can give an
    answer.''
        So I want you to help us, because whether you're Republicans or
    Democrats or black, brown, or white, or liberals or conservatives, you
    have to deal with people with names, faces, and life histories. We're up
    here dealing in sound bites trying to pierce through on the evening
    news. It's a big difference. It's a big difference.
        This debate is about more than welfare. It's about who we are as a
    people and what kind of country we'll want to pass along to our
    children. It's about the dignity of work, the bond of family, the virtue
    of responsibility, the strength of our communities, the strength of our
    democratic values.
        This is a great American issue. And I still believe that all of us
    working together can advance those values and secure the future of our
    children and make sure that no child in this country ever has to grow up
    without those values and the great hope that has made us, all of us,
    what we are.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:15 a.m. at the Washington Hilton Hotel.
    In his remarks, he referred to Randall Franke, president, Douglas Bovin,
    first vice president, Michael Hightower, second vice president, Randy
    Johnson, third vice president, John Stroger, immediate past president,
    and Larry Naake, executive director, National Association of Counties;
    Doris Ward, San Francisco County Assessor; Marian Wright Edelman,
    president, Children's Defense Fund; and ACORN, the Association of
    Community Organizations for Reform Now.