    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [August 3, 1995]
    [Pages 1199-1200]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Message to the Congress Transmitting the National Urban Policy Report
    August 3, 1995

    To the Congress of the United States:
        I transmit herewith my Administration's National Urban Policy
    Report, ``Empowerment: A New Covenant With America's Communities,'' as
    required by 42 U.S.C. 4503(a). The Report provides a framework for
    empowering America's disadvantaged citizens and poor communities to
    build a brighter future for themselves, for their families and
    neighbors, and for America. The Report is organized around four
    principles:
        First, it links families to work. It brings tax, education and
            training, housing, welfare, public safety, transportation, and
            capital access policies together to help families make the
            transition to self-sufficiency and independence. This linkage is
            critical to the transformation of our communities.
        Second, it leverages private investment in our urban communities. It
            works with the market and the private sector to build upon the
            natural assets and competitive advantages of urban communities.
        Third, it is locally driven. The days of made in Washington
            solutions, dictated by a distant Government, are gone. Instead,
            solutions must be locally crafted, and implemented by
            entrepreneurial public entities, private actors, and a growing
            network of community-based firms and organizations.
        Fourth, it relies on traditional values--hard work, family,
            responsibility. The problems of so many inner-city
            neighborhoods--family break-up, teen pregnancy, abandonment,
            crime, drug use--will be solved only if indi-

    [[Page 1200]]

          viduals, families, and communities determine to help themselves.
        These principles reflect an emerging consensus in the decades-long
    debate over urban policy. These principles are neither Democratic nor
    Republican: they are American. They will enable local communities,
    individuals and families, businesses, churches, community-based
    organizations, and civic groups to join together to seize the
    opportunities and to solve the problems in their own lives. They will
    put the private sector back to work for all families in all communities.
    I therefore invite the Congress to work with us on a bipartisan basis to
    implement an empowerment agenda for America's communities and families.
        In a sense, poor communities represent an untapped economic
    opportunity for our whole country. While we work together to open
    foreign markets abroad to American-made goods and services, we also need
    to work together to open the economic frontiers of poor communities here
    at home. By enabling people and communities in genuine need to take
    greater responsibility for working harder and smarter together, we can
    unleash the greatest underused source of growth and renewal in each of
    the local regions that make up our national economy and civic life. This
    will be good for cities and suburbs, towns and villages, and rural and
    urban America. This will be good for families. This will be good for the
    country.
        We have undertaken initiatives that seek to achieve these goals.
    Some seek to empower local communities to help themselves, including
    Empowerment Zones, Community Development banks, the Community
    Opportunity Fund, community policing, and enabling local schools and
    communities to best meet world-class standards. And some seek to empower
    individuals and families to help themselves, including our expansion of
    the earned-income tax cut for low- and moderate-income working families,
    and our proposals for injecting choice and competition into public and
    assisted housing and for a new G.I. Bill for America's Workers.
        I am determined to end Federal budget deficits, and my balanced
    budget proposal shows that we can balance the budget without abandoning
    the investments that are vital to the security and prosperity of the
    country, now and in the future. I am confident that, working together,
    we can build common ground on an empowerment agenda while putting our
    fiscal house in order. I will do everything in my power to make sure
    this happens.

                                                          William J. Clinton

    The White House,

    August 3, 1995.