    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [August 20, 1996]
    [Pages 1314-1317]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1314]]

    Remarks on Signing the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996
    August 20, 1996

        Thank you very much. Cathy, it may be your birthday, but I would say
    that everybody here feels that you have given us a great gift today by
    reminding us about what this is all about. And we wish you and your fine
    children well. And I don't think being in the band will hurt them a bit.
    I'm glad you're going to do that. [Laughter]
        I want to thank the members of our administration who are here:
    Secretary Reich, Small Business Administrator Phil Lader, and others. I
    want to thank all the Members of Congress who are here, especially
    Senator Kennedy who, himself, probably broke the wage and hour laws by
    working so hard to pass this bill. If we'd been paying him by the hour,
    we'd be underpaying him in the last year. Thank you very much.
        There are a lot of people who worked hard on this bill who aren't
    here: Senator Daschle, Congressman Gephardt, Congressman Bonior,
    Congressman Clay in particular did. I want to join with others and thank
    the countless labor unions who have championed this bill, led by the
    truly tireless John Sweeney.
        I'd like to remind the American people of something, because
    sometimes our unions are criticized for looking out for their members
    too much. There are very few unions in America that have minimum wage
    workers. Most of these unions did this because they thought it was the
    right thing to do. They spent their time and their money and their
    energy trying to help other people who do not belong to their
    organizations, and I thank you for that.
        I'd like to thank the religious groups, the economists, the business
    people who have made this their cause of concern. Again, I thank the
    Members, including members of both parties, who supported this
    legislation.
        I'll say more in a moment about the rest of the bill, but let me
    just begin by saying this is a truly remarkable piece of legislation. It
    is pro-work, pro-business, and pro-family; it raises the minimum wage;
    it helps small businesses in a number of ways that I will explain in a
    moment, including retirement and incentive to invest; and it promotes
    adoption in two very sweeping ways that have long needed to be done in
    the United States. This is a cause for celebration for all Americans of
    all parties, all walks of life, all faiths. This bill represents the
    very best in our country. It will give 10 million Americans, as Cathy
    said, a chance to raise stronger families and build better futures. By
    coming together across lines that have too often divided us and finding
    common ground, we have made this a real season of achievement for the
    people of America.
        At its heart, this bill does reaffirm our most profoundly American
    values: offering opportunity to all, demanding responsibility from all,
    and coming together as a community to do the right thing. This bill says
    to the working people of America, if you're willing to take
    responsibility and go to work, your work will be honored. We're going to
    honor your commitment to your family. We're going to recognize that
    $4.25 an hour is not enough to raise a family.
        It's harder and harder to raise children today and harder and harder
    for people to succeed at home and at work. And I have said repeatedly
    over and over again to the American people, we must not force our
    families to make a choice. Most parents have to work. We have a national
    interest in seeing that our people can succeed at home where it counts
    the most in raising their children, and succeed at work so they'll have
    enough income to be able to succeed at home. We must do both, and this
    bill helps us achieve that goal.
        These 10 million Americans will become part of America's economic
    success story, a success story that in the last 4 years has led us to
    900,000 new construction jobs; a record number of new businesses
    started, including those owned by women and minorities; a deficit that
    is the smallest it's been since 1981 and 60 percent less than it was
    when I took office; 10 million new jobs; 12 million American families
    who have been able to take advantage of family and medical leave; almost
    4\1/2\ million new homeowners and 10 million other Americans who
    refinanced their homes at lower mortgage rates. And, most importantly of
    all, perhaps, real hourly wages, which fell for a decade, have finally
    begun to rise again. America is on the move.

    [[Page 1315]]

        But our challenge, my fellow Americans, is to make sure that every
    American can reap the rewards of a growing economy, every American has
    the tools to make the most of his or her own life, to build those strong
    families, and to succeed at home and at work. As the Vice President
    said, the first step was taken in 1993 with the passage of the family
    and medical leave law and with the earned-income tax credit, which cut
    taxes for 15 million working families. Today, that earned-income tax
    credit is worth about $1,000 to a family of four with an income under
    $28,000 a year.
        Well, today we complete the second half of that effort. Together
    with our tax cut for working families, this bill ensures that a parent
    working full time at the minimum wage can lift himself or herself and
    their children out of poverty. Nobody who works full time with kids in
    the home should be in poverty. If we want to really revolutionize
    America's welfare system and move people from welfare to work and reward
    work, that is the first, ultimate test we all have to meet. If you get
    up every day and you go to work, and you put in your time and you have
    kids in your home, you and your children will not be in poverty.
        We have some hard working minimum wage people here today supporting
    Cathy. Let me tell you about them: 70 percent of them are adults, 6 of
    10 are working women, and for them, work is about more than a paycheck,
    it's about pride. They want a wage they can raise their families on. By
    raising the minimum wage by 90 cents, this bill, over 2 years, will give
    those families an additional $1,800 a year in income, enough to buy 7
    months of groceries, several months of rent, or child care, or as Cathy
    said, to pay all of the bills from the utilities in the same month.
        For many, this bill will make the difference between their ability
    to keep their families together and their failure to do so. These people
    reflect America's values, and it's a lot harder for them than it is for
    most of us to go around living what they say they believe in. It's about
    time they got a reward, and today they'll get it.
        I would also like to say a very special word of thanks to the
    business owners, especially the small-business owners who supported this
    bill. Many of the minimum wage employers I talk to wanted to pay their
    employees more than 4.25 an hour and would be happy to do so as long as
    they can do it without hurting their businesses, and that means their
    competitors have to do the same thing. This bill will allow them to
    compete and win, to have happier, more productive employees, and to know
    they're doing the right thing. For all of those small businesses, I am
    very, very appreciative.
        I would also like to say that this bill does a remarkable number of
    things for small businesses. In each of the last 3 years, our Nation has
    set a new record in each succeeding year in the number of new businesses
    started. And we know that most of the new jobs in America are being
    created by small and medium-sized businesses. In 1993, I proposed a
    $15,000 increase in the amount of capital a small business can expense,
    to spark the kind of investment that they need to create jobs. Well, in
    1993 we only won half that increase, but today I'll get to sign the
    second half into law, and I thank the Congress for passing that, as
    well.
        As the Vice President said, this bill also includes a work-
    opportunity tax credit to provide jobs for the most economically
    disadvantaged working Americans, including people who want to move from
    welfare to work. Now there will be a tightly drawn economic incentive
    for people to hire those folks and give them a chance to enter the work
    force as well. It extends the research tax credit to help businesses
    stay competitive in the global economy. It extends a tax incentive for
    businesses to train and educate their employees. That's good news for
    people who need those skills, and it's good news for America because we
    have to have the best educated work force in the world in the 21st
    century.
        This legislation does even more to strengthen small business by
    strengthening the families that make them up. It helps millions of more
    Americans to save for their own retirement. It makes it much easier for
    small businesses to offer pension plans by creating a new small business
    401(k) plan. It also lets more Americans keep their pensions when they
    change jobs without having to wait a year before they can start saving
    at their new jobs. As many as 10 million Americans without pensions
    today could now earn them as a result of this bill.
        I'm delighted we are joined today, among others, by Shawn Marcell,
    the CEO of Prima Facie, a fast-growing video monitoring company in
    Pennsylvania which now has just 17 employees, but that's a lot more than
    he started with. He

    [[Page 1316]]

    stood with me in April and promised that if we kept our word and made
    pensions easier and cheaper for small businesses like his, he'd give
    pensions to all of his employees. Today he has told us he's making good
    on that pledge. I'd like him to stand up, and say I predict that
    thousands more will follow Shawn's lead. Thank you, Shawn. Please stand
    up. Let's give him a hand. God bless you, sir. [Applause] Thank you.
        I'd also like to say a special word of thanks to our SBA
    Administrator, Phil Lader, and to the White House Conference on Small
    Business. When the White House Conference on Small Business met, they
    said one of their top priorities was increasing the availability and the
    security of pensions for small-business owners in America. This is a
    good thing. It is also pro-work, pro-family, and pro-business.
        Finally, this bill does something else that is especially important
    to me and to Hillary, and I'm glad she's here with us today. It breaks
    down the financial and bureaucratic barriers to adoption, giving more
    children what every child needs and deserves, loving parents and a
    strong, stable home.
        Two weeks ago, we had a celebration for the American athletes who
    made us so proud in Atlanta at the centennial Olympics. Millions of
    Americans now know that one of them, the Decathlon Gold Medalist Dan
    O'Brien, speaks movingly about having been an adopted child and how much
    the support of his family meant in his life. Right now, there are tens
    of thousands of children waiting for the kind of family that helped to
    make Dan O'Brien an Olympic champion. At the same time, there are
    thousands of middle class families that want to bring children into
    their homes but cannot afford it. We're offering a $5,000 tax credit to
    help bring them together. It gives even more help to families that will
    adopt children with disabilities or take in two siblings, rather than
    seeing them split up. And lastly, this bill ends the long-standing bias
    against interracial adoption which has too often meant an endless,
    needless wait for America's children.
        You know, as much as we talk about strong, loving families, it's not
    every day that we here in Washington get to enact a law that literally
    creates them or helps them stay together. This is such a day. Although
    he can't be with us today, I also want to thank Dave Thomas, himself
    adopted, who went on to found Wendy's and do so much for our country.
    Perhaps more than any other American citizen, he has made these adoption
    provisions possible, and we thank him.
        Lastly, I'd like to point out that we do have some significant
    number of adoptive families here with us today, including some who are
    on the stage. And so I'd just like to acknowledge the Weeks family, the
    Wolfington family, the Outlaw family, the Fitzwater family, and ask them
    and anyone else here from the adoptive family community to stand up
    who'd like to stand. We'd like to recognize you and thank you for being
    here. Thank you all for being here. [Applause] Thank you.
        Beside me, or in front of me now, is the desk used by Frances
    Perkins, Franklin Roosevelt's Labor Secretary and the very first woman
    ever to serve in the Cabinet. She was one of our greatest Labor
    Secretaries. It was from her desk that many of America's pioneering
    wage, hour, and workplace laws originated, including the very first 25
    cent an hour minimum wage signed into law by President Roosevelt in
    1938.
        Secretary Perkins understood that a living wage was about more than
    feeding a family or shelter from a storm. A living wage makes it
    possible to participate in what she called the culture of community, to
    take part in the family, the community, the religious life we all
    cherish, confident in our ability to provide for ourselves and for our
    children, secure in the knowledge that hard work does pay. A minimum
    wage increase, portable health care, pension security, welfare to work
    opportunities: that's a plan that's putting America on the right track.
        Now we have to press forward, giving tax cuts for education and
    childrearing and child care, buying a first home, finishing that job of
    balancing the budget without violating our obligations to our parents
    and our children and the disabled and health care, to education and the
    environment, and to our future. That's a plan that will keep America on
    the right track, building strong families and strong futures by working
    together.
        For everyone here who played a role in this happy day, I thank you,
    America thanks you, and our country is better because of your endeavors.
        God bless you. Thank you.

    [[Page 1317]]

    Note: The President spoke at 2:25 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Catherine Wilkinson, an employee
    of West Virginia Northern Community College who introduced the
    President, and John Sweeney, president, AFL-CIO. H.R. 3448, approved
    August 20, was assigned Public Law No. 104-188.