    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [December 7, 1996]
    [Pages 2177-2178]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 2177]]

    The President's Radio Address
    December 7, 1996

        Good morning. This week I had the honor of lighting both the
    national Christmas tree and the national menorah. Both are symbols of a
    time of year filled with joy, hope, and expectation, a time, too, when
    we reflect on what we've done and what is left to do, a time to honor
    our obligations to family and community.
        Last summer we made a new beginning on one of our Nation's most
    vexing problems, the welfare system. When I signed the historic welfare
    reform law, we set out to honor a moral obligation for our Nation, to
    help many people in our national community to help themselves. This law
    dramatically changes the Nation's welfare system so that no longer will
    it fail our people, trap so many families in a cycle of dependency, but
    instead will now help people to move from welfare to work. It will do so
    by requiring work of every able-bodied person, by protecting children,
    by promoting parental responsibility through tougher child support
    enforcement.
        We've worked a long time to reform welfare. Change was demanded by
    all the American people, especially those on welfare who bore the brunt
    of the system's failure. For decades now, welfare has too often been a
    trap, consigning generation after generation to a cycle of dependency.
    The children of welfare are more likely to drop out of school, to run
    afoul of the law, to become teen parents, to raise their own children on
    welfare. That's a sad legacy we have the power to prevent. And now we
    can.
        I came to office determined to end welfare as we know it, to replace
    welfare checks with paychecks. Even before I signed the welfare reform
    bill, we were working with States to test reform strategies, giving 43
    States waivers from Federal rules to experiment with reforms that
    required work, imposed time limits, and demanded personal
    responsibility. And we were toughening child support enforcement,
    increasing collections by 50 percent over the last 4 years. That's about
    $4 billion.
        We were determined to move millions from welfare to work, and our
    strategy has worked. I am pleased to announce today that there are now
    2.1 million fewer people on welfare than on the day I took the oath of
    office. That is the biggest drop in the welfare rolls in history.
        Some of these reductions have been even more striking. The welfare
    rolls have dropped 41 percent in Wisconsin, 38 percent in Indiana--two
    States where we granted landmark waivers to launch welfare reform
    experiments.
        Throughout the country we're working to make responsibility a way of
    life, not an option. That means millions of people are on their way to
    building lives with the structure, purpose, meaning, and dignity that
    work gives. And that is something to celebrate.
        But this is just the beginning of welfare reform. We had a choice:
    We could have gone on as we had with a system that was failing, or start
    anew to create a system that could give everyone who's able-bodied a
    chance to work and a chance to be independent. We chose the right way:
    first, working over the last 4 years with the States to reform their own
    systems, then passing a new welfare reform law requiring even more
    change in every State and every community.
        But there is still much to do, and it now falls to all of us to make
    sure this reform works. The next step is for the States to implement the
    new law by tailoring a reform plan that works for their communities. As
    required by the law, we have already certified new welfare reform plans
    for 14 States. Today I'm pleased to announce we're certifying welfare
    for four more States: California, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Alabama.
    All their plans will require and reward work, impose time limits,
    increase child care payments, and demand personal responsibility. And
    across the board, as we give welfare funds back to the States, we will
    protect the guarantees of health care, nutrition, and child care, all of
    which are critical to helping families move from welfare to work. And
    we'll continue to crack down on child support enforcement.
        Welfare as we knew it was a bad deal for everyone. We're determined
    to create a better deal. We want to say to every American, work pays. We
    raised the minimum wage; we expanded the earned-income tax credit to
    allow the working poor to keep more of what they

    [[Page 2178]]

    earn. Now we have to create a million jobs for people on welfare by
    giving businesses incentives to hire people off welfare and enlisting
    the private sector in a national effort to bring all Americans into the
    economic mainstream. We have to have help from the private sector.
        Together we can make the permanent under class a thing of the past.
    But we have a moral obligation to do that through welfare reform,
    working together in our communities, our businesses, our churches, and
    our schools. Every organization which employs people should consider
    hiring someone off welfare, and every State ought to give those
    organizations the incentives to do so, so that we can help families
    reclaim the right to know they can take care of themselves and their own
    obligations.
        Our future does not have to be one with so many people living
    trapped lives. The door has now been opened to a new era of freedom and
    independence. And now it's up to us, to all of us, to help all the
    people who need it through that door, one family at a time.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 5:25 p.m. on December 6 in the
    Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on
    December 7.