    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [July 16, 1996]
    [Pages 1127-1130]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the National Governors' Association Conference
    July 16, 1996

        Thank you. Thank you very much, Governor Thompson, for your kind
    words and for all your good work as chairman of the NGA over the past
    year. And thank you also for your work on reform, especially on
    reforming welfare, not only in the bold plan you have developed in
    Wisconsin but also as a leader on behalf of the NGA on Capitol Hill. And
    to Governor Miller, let me add my congratulations to you as you take on
    the responsibility of leading the NGA. It's one of the best jobs I ever
    had, and I know you'll enjoy it as well.
        I regret very much that I can't be with all of you for this meeting.
    I had especially looked forward to being with my good friend and my
    fellow Democrat Governor Pedro Rossello in Puerto Rico, and I hope I can
    see you there before too long. But I'm glad you're there, and I'm glad
    you're having a good meeting.
        This is the 4th year I have spoken to the NGA as President. And more
    than ever before, I believe that we are poised together to make real,
    bipartisan progress and that our Nation's Governors have a critical role
    to play. I want to thank all of you for the work you have done so far to
    grow your economies, to help your people be better educated, to reform
    welfare and fight crime and preserve the environment and move people
    forward.
        We have to think a lot about that now. We all know that just 4 years
    from now we will enter that long awaited and very much discussed 21st
    century. You know as well as any group of Americans that there are
    tremendous forces of economic and social change remaking our country. I
    believe that on balance this is a positive and hopeful time, an age of
    enormous possibility, a chance for us to build a country and a world for
    our children that is stronger and safer and more full of opportunity
    than any that has existed before. I believe we can do that if we meet
    these new challenges with our most enduring values. We have to offer
    opportunity to all. We must demand responsibility from all. And we must
    work hard to come together across all our diversity as a great American
    community. We'll have to meet these challenges not by edicts from
    Washington but by working together at all levels, by cutting redtape and
    working with the private sector, by setting national goals

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    for ourselves but challenging States and localities to find the best way
    to meet those goals.
        Four years ago when I sought the Presidency, our Nation was drifting
    with uncertain steps toward this new century. Unemployment was nearly 8
    percent; job growth was very slow; the deficit was at an all-time high.
    After 12 years as a Governor, I vowed to do what chief executives in
    every statehouse in America must do: Put in place a comprehensive
    strategy for economic growth and follow a path of fiscal responsibility.
    We cut the deficit, expanded trade, invested in our people and
    technology and the future.
        The results are in. Our economy has now created over 10 million new
    jobs; 3.7 million Americans have become new homeowners. Today we learned
    again that inflation continues to moderate. Real hourly wages have begun
    to climb for the first time in a decade. And we have surpassed our goal
    of cutting the deficit in half.
        Just this morning we're releasing the mid-session review of the
    budget. Four years ago the deficit was $290 billion and headed upward.
    Today we are projecting it will be $117 billion this year. We've cut the
    deficit by 60 percent in 4 years, bringing it to its lowest level in
    dollar terms in 15 years. As a share of our economy, it's now at its
    smallest level since 1981, the smallest percentage of the economy--
    excuse me--since 1974. We've got a lot more to do. I am determined to
    finish the job and balance the budget in a responsible way and at the
    same time do more to give all Americans the education and training they
    need to succeed in this new economy.
        But the fact is our economy is now the soundest it's been in a
    generation. Unlike the expansion of the 1980's, we can also be pleased
    that this growth is being felt in all regions of our country. America is
    growing, and your States are helping it to grow.
        We're also making real and bipartisan progress in other areas as
    well. We've put in place an anticrime strategy that was tough and smart,
    putting 100,000 police on the street, toughening penalties, taking guns
    off the street by banning 19 deadly assault weapons through the Brady
    law. Now, not a single hunter has lost a gun due to these bills, but
    60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers have been denied guns. We're
    encouraging communities to pull together to give their young people the
    values and the discipline they need. That's why we've been working to
    give communities the ability to impose stronger curfews, enforce truancy
    laws, and require things like school uniforms.
        These strategies are being tried in communities all across our
    country. And all across our country the crime rate is coming down for 4
    years in a row. We must now bring this same focus to bear on the rising
    tide of youth crimes and gangs and drugs. I ask you to work with our
    administration to tackle this challenge as well. Although the crime rate
    is going down, in too many areas in our country the juvenile crime rate
    is going up. But we see in the areas where it's going down that there
    are strategies that work there, too.
        If you look at the areas where we've moved forward in the economy,
    in dealing with the crime problem, we've done it not by clinging to old
    arrangements or discarded philosophies or political partisan divisions
    but by moving forward together, developing new approaches, taking the
    best ideas from all sides, putting our values of opportunity,
    responsibility, and community to work.
        Now, as all of you know very well, none of our challenges cries out
    for these approaches more than welfare. All Americans, without regard to
    party, know that our welfare system is broken, that it teaches the wrong
    values, rewards the wrong choices, hurts those it was meant to help. We
    also know that no one wants to change the current system in a good way
    more than people who are trapped in it.
        Since the time when I served as cochair of the NGA's welfare task
    force about a decade ago now, I have been committed to ending welfare as
    we know it. I worked with many of you for years to fashion new
    solutions. Today, after long years of effort, I believe we are poised
    for a real breakthrough in welfare reform. Real welfare reform requires
    work, imposes time limits, cracks down on deadbeat parents by enforcing
    child support, provides child care.
        Now, you haven't waited for Congress to act, and we've worked with
    you to change the face of welfare. We've cut through redtape and worked
    with you to set up 67 welfare reform experiments in 40 States, with more
    to come. We've granted more than twice as many waivers as the previous
    two administrations combined. And now, 75 percent of all welfare
    recipients are already under new rules. The New York Times called this a
    quiet revolution in welfare.

    [[Page 1129]]

        Well, I am proud that there are 1.3 million fewer people on welfare
    now than the day I took office and that child support collections are up
    40 percent. But there's more to do. As you know, the State of Wisconsin
    has submitted a bold plan to reform welfare. We're working closely with
    Governor Thompson's staff, and I am committed, as I've said before, to
    getting this done.
        I'd just like to emphasize the things about this Wisconsin plan
    which are compelling to me: the idea that people should be required
    immediately to be ready to go to work but that in return, they would
    have health care and child care guaranteed and that the welfare money
    could be used to pay income supplements or wage supplements to private
    employers to put these people to work and that if there is no private
    employment, these folks would be given community service jobs.
        That's what we ought to be doing everywhere. If we can create these
    jobs, we ought to require people to take them. I know every Governor
    would agree with me that for all the good that's come from these
    waivers, however, we can do a lot more once we pass comprehensive
    national welfare reform. If we pass national welfare reform, we can do
    an even better job of collecting child support across State lines. And
    if we pass national welfare reform, we can eliminate this waiver process
    altogether.
        For too long the welfare issue has been marred by partisanship; it's
    been mired by gridlock. But in recent weeks up here, all this seems to
    be changing. I think we've now reached a real turning point, a
    breakthrough for welfare reform. The new leadership of the Senate, along
    with the leadership of the House of Representatives, now indicated that
    they want to move forward with bipartisan welfare reform and are
    dropping their insistence that welfare be linked to the block granting
    of Medicaid. They've said that they want to work to pass legislation I
    can sign, rather than sending me legislation they know that I would
    reject.
        As you know, Congress sent me a welfare reform bill last year that
    fell short of my principles as well as those expressed by the NGA in
    your February resolution. After my veto and your unanimous resolution, I
    am pleased that the congressional leadership has made several
    significant improvements that have made this a much better bill. They've
    added $4 billion in child care, included a $1 billion work performance
    bonus to reward States for moving people from welfare to work. They
    removed the spending cap on food stamps so that States don't come up
    short in tough times. Their original bill made cuts in structural
    changes that were tough on children: a school lunch block grant, a 25
    percent cut in SSI for disabled children, cuts in foster care. The
    current bill drops all these provisions.
        Congress has taken long strides in the right direction. Now as we
    approach the goal line, we do have a chance to make history and make
    this bill even better. We can give all our people a chance to move from
    welfare to work, to transform our broken welfare system once and for
    all.
        So I hope that Congress will continue to improve the bill along the
    lines that you and I have long advocated and along the lines of the
    strong bipartisan bills introduced by Senators John Breaux and John
    Chafee and Representatives John Tanner and Mike Castle, another former
    colleague of ours. We must not let this opportunity slip from our grasp
    as it has too many times before. Let's put politics aside. Let's give
    the American people the best possible welfare reform bill. And let's do
    it before the August congressional recess.
        I am determined that this will be the year that we finally transform
    welfare across America. If Congress doesn't act, we still have to
    continue to act, to make responsibility a way of life and not an option.
    Today I am taking the steps that I can take as President to advance the
    central premise of welfare reform, one that is embodied in all the
    proposed welfare bills: that anyone who can work must do so. We'll say
    to welfare recipients, ``Within 2 years you will be expected to go to
    work and earn a paycheck, not draw a welfare check.''
        Here is how we will do that. I am directing the Department of Health
    and Human Services to require everyone who takes part in the jobs
    program to sign a personal responsibility contract and commit to going
    to work within 2 years. States can then take away the benefits if they
    fail to live up to that commitment.
        Today, 28 States already impose work requirements and time limits,
    every one of them under welfare waivers granted by our administration. I
    believe all 50 States should follow that lead. This action will ensure
    that that happens even before welfare reform legislation passes. Of
    course, this will take effect only if Congress

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    fails to enact welfare reform legislation. I far prefer a bill passed by
    Congress, and I know you do too. So let's agree: One way or another we
    will make work and responsibility the law of the land, but we want a
    good welfare reform bill.
        Ten years ago at an NGA meeting in Hilton Head, South Carolina, I
    heard testimony from a woman from Little Rock, a woman who had moved
    from welfare to work through our State's work program. She told us,
    ``The best thing about work is not the check. The best thing is when my
    boy goes to school and they ask him, what does your mama do for a
    living, he can give an answer.''
        Well, today, 10 years later, that lady has a job, and she's raised
    three children. One has a job, and two are in school. By her undying
    effort and her unbreakable spirit she shows us that we can make a
    difference, that this cycle of welfare can be broken, that welfare can
    be a second chance, not a way of life.
        So let me say in closing that we can meet all our challenges if
    we'll work in this way and if we'll follow the example of the NGA: be
    bipartisan, cooperative, look for results, not abstract rhetoric, not be
    ashamed to learn from each other and take our best ideas from each
    other, and putting our values to work. That's how we can reform welfare
    and meet our other challenges. If we do that, this country will enter
    the 21st century stronger and more vibrant than ever before, with the
    American dream alive for all our people.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke by satellite at 11:20 a.m. from Room 459 of
    the Old Executive Office Building to the NGA conference in San Juan,
    Puerto Rico. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Tommy G. Thompson of
    Wisconsin and Gov. Bob Miller of Nevada.