[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.