    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [March 18, 1995]
    [Pages 372-373]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    March 18, 1995

        Good morning. This morning I want to talk about responsibility, the
    responsibility all parents have to support their children. I'm pleased
    to be joined by Gerri Jensen, the president of the leading child support
    enforcement group in America, along with six other conscientious parents
    who have struggled to raise their children without the child support
    they were entitled to.
        Our generation, at the end of the 20th century, has two great
    responsibilities: first, to keep the American dream alive and well for
    all our children and, second, to help our country remain the strongest
    force for freedom and democracy in the world. We can't do that if we
    don't have strong families and responsible parenting.
        In Washington we're having a great debate about what we ought to do
    here to support these goals. On one side is the old Washington view that
    big, bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all Government can provide big
    solutions to America's big problems. On the other side is the new
    extreme view that Government is the source of all our problems and if we
    just get rid of it every problem would go away as well.
        I've got a different view based on practical experience. I think we
    have to chart a course between the old way of big Government and the new
    rage of no Government. I think Government's job is to expand opportunity
    while shrinking bureaucracy, to get more jobs and higher incomes with
    less burden from Government, to empower people to make the most of their
    own lives through more education and training and technology and support
    for families and for work, and to enhance our security on our streets
    and around the world.
        To achieve these ends, the Federal Government has to be a partner, a
    partner with the private sector, with State and local governments, with
    individual citizens to strengthen our communities, a partner in
    promoting opportunity and at the same time demanding more
    responsibility. That's what the New Covenant is all about.
        Nowhere is the lack of values, the lack of opportunity and
    responsibility more apparent than in our own failed welfare system. We
    all agree we have to end welfare as we know it. I think to do it we'll
    have to offer more opportunity to move people from welfare to work and
    demand more responsibility in return, to have a requirement that anyone
    on welfare who can work must go to work, and to discourage irresponsible
    behavior that lands people on welfare in the first place by insisting on
    tougher child support enforcement and responsible parenting. We have to
    make responsibility a way of life.
        I've been working on this issue for the last 15 years. Last year I
    sent Congress a sweeping welfare reform plan. Congress didn't act last
    year, but I applaud the new Republican majority and the Democrats, both
    of them, for making

    [[Page 373]]

    welfare reform a priority this year. Meanwhile, in the last 2 years,
    we've cut through Federal redtape to give 26 States, more than half the
    country, the authority to conduct their own welfare reform experiments.
    And Republicans and Democrats now agree on tougher child support
    enforcement. They all agree that we have to have national action on
    tougher child support enforcement because 30 percent or more of the
    child support cases that are delinquent cross State boundaries.
        I've worked hard on this. Since I've been President, child support
    collections are up substantially. And I just issued a tough Executive
    order to crack down on delinquency by Federal employees.
        If deadbeat parents paid all the child support they should in this
    country, we could immediately move over 800,000 mothers and children off
    welfare. Let me say that again: If deadbeat parents paid the child
    support they owe, we could move immediately over 800,000 mothers and
    children off welfare. This goes way beyond welfare. Millions of children
    of working parents would have more secure lives and much brighter
    futures if the errant parents, absent parents, paid what they owe.
        The welfare reform plan I sent to Congress last year included five
    key provisions for tough child support enforcement: employer reporting
    of new hires to catch deadbeats who move from job to job, uniform
    interstate child support laws, computerized statewide collection to
    speed up payments, streamlined efforts to identify the father in every
    case, and tough new penalties, like driver's license revocation.
        These reforms will work. According to a report issued today by the
    Department of Human Services--of Health and Human Services, if we crack
    down on deadbeat parents by making these five provisions the law all
    over America, child support collections would go up by $24 billion in
    the next 10 years.
        I am pleased that the House Republicans have come our way on these
    child support enforcement issues. They have included four of the five
    steps I proposed in their welfare bill. But I think the fifth step is
    crucial as well. Our plan calls on States to deny driver's licenses and
    professional licenses to people who refuse to pay the money they owe for
    their own children. Nineteen States are doing that today, and they're
    collecting a lot more child support as a result.
        So I hope the House Republicans will take a look at these new
    findings and join us to send deadbeat parents all across this country a
    loud signal: If you neglect your responsibility to support your
    children, we'll suspend your license, garnish your pay, track you down,
    and make you pay.
        Eighteen years ago, Gerri Jensen's husband abandoned her and her two
    young sons. She held down several low-paying jobs but eventually was
    forced to turn to welfare because her ex-husband stopped paying child
    support altogether. She got so fed up with weak laws and bureaucratic
    runarounds that she launched a grassroots movement to crack down on
    deadbeat parents nationwide. We are all in her debt, and we all owe an
    obligation to all the people like her in America who are doing their
    dead-level best to be good parents. They deserve our support.
        Gerri Jensen stood up and fought to make our laws reflect our
    values. No parent has a right to walk away from responsibility to his or
    her children. Now, if we work together, we can make this kind of
    responsibility the law of our land.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 3:23 p.m. on March 17 in the Roosevelt
    Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on March 18.