    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [August 9, 1995]
    [Pages 1233-1236]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Black Enterprise Magazine 25th Anniversary Gala
    August 9, 1995

        Thank you, Earl. I'm delighted to be with you, and I appreciate your
    introduction. It is I who should be thanking you tonight and many of
    those who are there with you for your incredible effort over so many
    years and especially for your valuable input and support on the
    affirmative action policy.
        I also want to say hello to my Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown.
    [Applause] I'm glad you applauded him. He certainly is one of the finest
    Secretaries of Commerce this country ever had. He has done more to
    promote jobs and businesses for all Americans than anybody has in a long
    time. I want to say hello to Dr. Earl Richardson, the president of
    Morgan State. To

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    Tom Labrecque of Chase Manhattan Bank, thank you for being there and for
    your work. Reverend Jackson, I'm sorry I missed your prayer. I need it
    more than anybody who's there. [Laughter] I'm sorry I missed it. Mayor
    Schmoke, Governor Wilder, I enjoyed being with you a few days ago. And
    to my longtime friend Maynard Jackson, and to all the Graves family and
    all my friends who are gathered there tonight to honor your
    achievements, Earl, I want to send my best wishes.
        I also know that I speak for all of you when we offer our best
    wishes to someone who had planned to be with you tonight--our prayers
    and best wishes are with David Dinkins. We wish him well, and we know
    he's going to be all right.
        Earl, I want to add my congratulations to you and to Black
    Enterprise for 25 years of leadership in African-American business. This
    evening celebrates initiative, achievement, and opportunity. Initiative
    has always been the American genius, and Earl, you have set a singular
    example of that kind of genius. And because of your example, countless
    African-Americans have been empowered to take advantage of opportunity,
    to achieve. A life of accomplishment has exponential impact, and you,
    Earl Graves, have proved that.
        A quarter century ago, you and Black Enterprise began to fill a
    large void for African-Americans who needed a source for information,
    encouragement, and guidance, to become entrepreneurs and to succeed in
    business. And over the years Black Enterprise has helped dreams to
    become reality. I know it will continue to do so for more African-
    Americans for many, many more years to come.
        It's fitting that this anniversary is being celebrated with another
    important initiative by Earl Graves and that is to build up business
    education at one of our Nation's finest historically black universities,
    Morgan State. That's an investment that will pay great dividends for the
    next generation and beyond and I hope one that will encourage others to
    follow Earl's lead and to do their part to help expand opportunities in
    business and education for African-Americans. When we do that, all of
    America benefits.
        I declared the last week in September Minority Enterprise
    Development Week to call attention to an important avenue to economic
    empowerment in America. But the fact is, we should be celebrating and
    promoting business growth in minority communities every day of the year.
    This business growth is essential for our continued prosperity, and it's
    the right way to create wealth, to encourage self-sufficiency, to
    generate jobs, and to build our people up and to build our communities
    up.
        Our administration is working hard to strengthen all our Nation's
    businesses. We've opened new domestic and international markets, due in
    no small part to the hard work of Ron Brown and all those at the
    Commerce Department who have helped to expand the opportunities for
    American businesses. We've reduced the cost of borrowing for business
    start-ups and for expansions. While the Small Business Administration
    has cut its budget by 40 percent, it has doubled its loan output and
    increased its loan output to minority businesses and women by almost 80
    percent.
        Now, all this is making an impact. Overall, new businesses are
    growing as never before. And since 1992, nearly 100,000 new African-
    American businesses have been created in the United States. By 1997,
    according to the Census Bureau, there will be 717,000 African-American
    businesses in America, the result of the largest increase in any 5-year
    period. That's an accomplishment to be proud of, and I would tell you
    that if we get another 4 years to work on the economy, the number may be
    bigger than that.
        Last month, as Earl said, I reaffirmed America's need for
    affirmative action, including set-asides for minority business owners in
    Federal contract procurement. I did it because I believe our country
    still needs this tool to address the limits of opportunity which still
    exist in our society, based on gender and race. I did it because I
    believe we'll be stronger if every American has a chance to live up to
    his or her God-given abilities.
        We must have a mission, a national mission at the end of this
    century to restore the American dream of opportunity and the American
    value of responsibility. We must have a mission to do this together.
    We've got a big decision to make about whether we're going forward
    together or not. Whether we like it or not, we're all in the future
    together. We are a national family, whether we like it or not. And we're
    going forward, like a good family, together, or if we squabble and get
    divided and get side-tracked, we'll be held back, like a not very good
    family, together. We are a part of America's greater national community.
    All of you have to

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    be part of that mission. I am committed to doing everything I can to
    build a good partnership with you, to move our country forward.
        We've come a good ways in the 25 years since Black Enterprise was
    born, but there is still a lot to be done. Too many people still don't
    have the chance to reach their God-given potential, and affirmative
    action is just one part of a larger strategy to expand opportunities for
    all Americans, in education and business and all our workplaces. That
    larger strategy has to begin with Head Start for poor children. It has
    to include lower costs and better, more available college loans for the
    children of working families as well as poor families. It has to include
    adequate job training for people when they lose their jobs or when
    they're underemployed. It has to include creating business opportunities
    where none existed before.
        That's what our empowerment zones are for. That's what the community
    development financial institutions are for. That's what stronger
    enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act is for. We have to invest
    in our cities and the people who live there. We have to invest in our
    rural areas and the people who live there. We have to invest in our
    workers and in our working families.
        That's why I believe we need a real family values agenda, which
    includes raising the minimum wage, targeting tax relief to the raising
    of children and the educating of children, protecting Medicare for our
    seniors, and protecting the right of people to keep their own health
    insurance if they change jobs or someone in the family gets sick.
        We can balance the budget, and we should. Progressives, minorities,
    Democrats, those of us who care about public investment, we don't have a
    stake in a permanent Government deficit. That just gives more and more
    money every year to the people who hold the debt and less and less to
    the people who need the investment. But we have to balance this budget
    in a way that allows us to grow together, without gutting our
    responsibilities to our parents in health care, without gutting our
    responsibilities to our children in education, without undermining our
    responsibilities to maintain a social safety net and provide for a clean
    environment and a healthy and safe environment as well.
        We have to follow the right kind of strategy to balance the budget,
    grow the economy, and help all Americans, together. Only when we work
    together can we restore economic opportunity, solve our social problems,
    compete and win in the global economy of the 21st century, only when we
    do it together.
        We do not have a person to waste. That is the big decision that all
    of us have to face. Captains of industry, leaders in education, mentors
    to a new generation: that's what many of you are. You have a big role in
    this strategy for America's future. Every time you help a young person
    get an education, help someone get started in business, provide an
    example by being a successful person yourself who took on the challenge
    and responsibility of entrepreneurship and made it, every time you do
    one of those things, you're making a difference and helping to move us
    forward.
        I want you to think about what's at stake. Here in Washington, the
    old debate about what was liberal or conservative is really not what's
    going on. You know, I have cut the deficit more, reduced the size of
    Government more, eliminated more governmental regulations and
    governmental programs than my two Republican predecessors. I've also
    invested more in education, expanded trade, tried to help poor areas and
    minority businesses, tried to empower families with things like family
    and medical leave and affordable college loans and national service,
    things that have traditionally been called liberal. I'm trying to move
    people from welfare to work but only if they can support their children
    and help them to grow up and be successful.
        We've got to do things in a different way. But the debate we're
    having here is the most profound debate we've had in a hundred years.
    And every one of you has got to make up your mind to be a part of it
    because the old conservative things that I just mentioned, they're
    hardly on the radar screen here.
        We're debating here with a new generation of so-called conservatives
    who, I think, have some radical ideas. They believe that, except for
    defense, any tax cut, any tax cut, is better than any Government
    program. They believe that some of the things we'd like to do through
    Government are nice enough but not worth imposing any, any, requirement
    or sacrifice or contribution on Americans who aren't going to directly
    benefit. They believe in a future that really would unleash us all from
    each other, minimize our responsibilities to each other, and run the
    risk of giving us a country with a whole

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    lot of wealthy people but vastly more poor and a declining middle class.
        I believe in a high-opportunity, high-growth future where we grow
    the middle class and shrink the under class, where we support
    entrepreneurs but we also believe that we have an obligation to help
    everybody make the most of their own lives. And to do it, we need strong
    neighborhoods with safe streets and good health care systems and good
    schools and clean environments. And we need a commitment to help people
    through education and through efforts to deal with our very difficult
    and thorny social problems.
        In other words, I believe we really are a family. I think we have
    certain obligations to one another that we have a responsibility to
    fulfill. And I don't believe any of us are going to be the kind of
    people we want to be, and I don't think our children will have the kind
    of future we want them to have, unless we make up our mind that there
    are some things we have to do together.
        If you look at the 21st century, and you say, what's it going to be
    like--there will be a global economy, information will speed around the
    world quickly, goods will cross national borders, the world will get
    smaller--you have to say that the United States, because of the strength
    of our economic system and because we are the most diverse, big, rich
    country on Earth--racially, religiously, ethnically--that we're in
    better shape for the 21st century than any other great country, that our
    best days are still ahead of us. But we have to answer the debate now
    going on in Washington properly for that to be true.
        We haven't had a debate like this since the industrial revolution
    changed America and Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson had to answer
    questions like, ``How are we going to keep a private economy but have
    real competition in things like oil and steel?'' They had to ask
    questions like, ``How are we going to let people work but stop these 9-
    and 10-year-old kids from working 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, in coal
    mines and factories?'' We reached the right kind of decisions then, and
    we preserved the free enterprise system and broadened freedom and
    opportunity throughout the 20th century steadily. We even survived the
    Great Depression and conquered the oppressors in World War II because of
    the power of our country.
        Well, now we're moving into a dramatically different kind of
    economy. The way we work and live is changing dramatically. And we are
    literally having the debates again in Washington that we had a hundred
    years ago. You have got to be a part of that. You know that believing
    that we work together and grow together is not inconsistent with
    believing in enterprise and individual effort and personal
    responsibility and hard work. You know that.
        That is the lesson America must emblazon in its heart and its mind
    if the 21st century is going to be our golden age. I think it will be
    because of people like Earl Graves, because of efforts like Black
    Enterprise, because of all the African-American entrepreneurs who have
    made a difference in our Nation, knowing that whenever they succeed,
    they're helping us all to come closer together, closer to the dream of
    equal opportunity for all Americans, without which we will never, never
    have the progress we all want and need for our children in the next
    century.
        Thank you, Earl. Thank you all, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:10 p.m. by satellite from the Diplomatic
    Reception Room at the White House to the gala in New York City. In his
    remarks, he referred to Rev. Jesse L. Jackson of the Rainbow Coalition;
    Mayor Kurt Schmoke of Baltimore, MD; former Governor of Virginia L.
    Douglas Wilder; Maynard Jackson, former mayor of Atlanta, GA; and David
    Dinkins, former mayor of New York City.