[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.