[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[October 25, 1996]
[Pages 1926-1930]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Teleconference Remarks to Religious and Community Leaders in Atlanta
October 25, 1996

    Thank you very much, my good and longtime friend Andrew Young. And I 
want to thank all of those who are gathered here at Paschal's in 
Atlanta. We have a good crowd of folks here. I know we've got about 300 
ministers and 600 elected officials from across the country. We've got 
people in homes and churches and church conferences.
    I'm glad to be joined here by two of my good friends and associates, 
Alexis Herman, who is the Special Assistant to the President for Public 
Liaison at the White House, and Carol Willis, who is with the Democratic 
National Committee, who helped to put this phone call together.
    I know that Mayor Cleaver is on the phone; Congressman Donald Payne, 
the chairman of

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the Congressional Black Caucus; Congressman and Reverend Floyd Flake, my 
longtime friend and one of my earliest supporters; our campaign 
cochairs, Alma Brown and Congressman John Lewis, who was just with me at 
this rally in Atlanta. And I understand that Reverend Henry Lyons, the 
president of the National Baptist Convention, is on the phone, and I 
want to thank you, Reverend Lyons, for your efforts to restore calm in 
the aftermath of last night's unfortunate events in St. Petersburg. We 
all have a responsibility to foster a climate of reconciliation and 
peace and to address the underlying causes of this outbreak of violence 
as well, and I thank you for what you're doing there in St. Petersburg; 
it's important to all of us in America.
    And I want to say a word of recognition to Bishop Chandler Owens of 
the Church of God in Christ and to others in that congregation. Let me 
say one of the oldest and most distinguished pastors of the Church of 
God in Christ, from my home State of Arkansas, passed away the day 
before yesterday, Elder Famous Smith, and I want to extend my sympathies 
to all of you who knew him.
    We just have a few days to go in this election. We just had a great 
rally in Atlanta. We had several thousand people there, and we focused 
on young people and their future. I talked about my plans to open the 
doors of college education to all Americans. I also challenged these 
young people to take some time to serve in their communities, especially 
to teach young children to read.
    And I guess that I'd like to begin by saying I ran for President not 
only to enact certain policies that I think are important for the 21st 
century--to give us a strong economy, a clean environment, the world's 
best educational system, a way of dealing with the problems abroad to 
make America safer and more secure, and a way of driving down the crime 
rate and the violence rate here at home--I had certain policies I wanted 
to implement, but I also wanted to change the way our country was 
working.
    Politics for so long in America has been about dividing people, and 
at the national level especially, the whole rhetoric, the language that 
you use, the labels that are put on people, always about dividing us one 
from another, whereas that's not the way we run anything else. Those of 
you that are listening to me, you couldn't run a church that way. 
Atlanta couldn't have put on the Olympics that way. We're having a 
brilliant Major League World Series; if all of a sudden one of the teams 
starts calling their own team members names in public, they're not going 
to win. I tell you, whichever team does that, the other team is going to 
win. And so our national politics had gotten to the point where we were 
running it the way we wouldn't run our families, our businesses, our 
churches, our common community endeavors.
    Yesterday I was in the town of Lake Charles, Louisiana--has a very 
dynamic young woman mayor named Willie Mount. And she got the community, 
which is a very biracial and increasingly multiethnic community, to 
adopt the slogan of ``moving forward together.'' Atlanta now, I think, 
is one of the, literally, the urban centers of the world because 40 
years ago it became the city too busy to hate. And yet, national 
politics was dominated essentially by negative political ads and name-
calling. And we changed all that.
    I wanted to have an administration that looked like America and an 
administration that worked more like the other things that work in 
America. And one of the reasons I spend so much time on community 
colleges and one reason I try to open the doors of college to every 
American, to make sure every person would be guaranteed at least 2 years 
of education after high school is that I think our country ought to work 
more the way these community colleges do. If you go to one, they're not 
bureaucratic; they're flexible; they're changing all the time. They have 
to meet high standards of performance or they go broke. Everybody that 
graduates from them gets hired. And they're open to everybody, and 
everybody is treated the same. That's what I'm trying to do for America.
    So I'm proud of the results we've achieved. It's not only true that 
the overall economy is better, but we have, according to the Government 
statistics from the Census Bureau just last month, the biggest decline 
in inequality among working people in 27 years, the biggest drop in 
child poverty in 20 years, the biggest drop in poverty among female head 
of households in 30 years, and the lowest overall poverty rate among 
African-Americans and American senior citizens ever recorded.
    Now, African-Americans have had a higher increase in their average 
earnings in the last 2 years, even in the overall economy. And things

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like homeownership, which is at a 15-year high overall, are much up 
among African-Americans. The Small Business Administration has doubled 
its loans overall and tripled its loans to women and minorities. And we 
haven't been making loans that violate our standards of quality. We're 
just outreaching, working hard, trying to move this country together and 
move this country forward.
    I'm sure most of you on this phone call know we have appointed more 
African-Americans to important positions in the Cabinet and the White 
House, in the administration, on the Federal bench than any other 
administration in history by a good long ways. And yet, I'm proud of the 
fact that my Federal judges, even though there have been more women and 
minority appointments by far than any previous administration, the 
American Bar Association has given higher ratings to my Federal judges 
than any other President since the rating system began, which proves we 
can have excellence and diversity, which proves you can have affirmative 
action and equal opportunity and high standards.
    When we were fighting for the battle over affirmative action, the 
battle which still rages in our country, and it became all the rage to 
just say, ``Let's get rid of it,'' I said, ``No, we ought to mend it, 
not end it.'' And I believe my view is beginning to prevail in the world 
and in the United States.
    I was in Houston the other day, which is hardly a bastion of 
strength for the Democratic Party. And the mayor there, who is a very 
talented mayor, explicitly, forthrightly, and aggressively defended the 
city's affirmative action policy and still won support for reelection 
from over 80 percent of the people in his city. And so I think our 
``mend it, not end it'' policy in the end will prevail.
    I believe that the economic efforts we have made are important. You 
know, our campaign became the first campaign ever to invest some of the 
money that we have to save--that we get from the taxpayers and we have 
to save to pay bills and make up for any mistakes that have been made 
and make sure all the accounting is right--Peter Knight, our campaign 
chairman, announced that we were going to deposit millions of dollars in 
four leading minority banks in America. No campaign had ever done this--
two African-American banks, including the Citizens Trust here in 
Atlanta, and two Hispanic banks--and I'm proud of that.
    The empowerment zones that we created and the enterprise communities 
we created, and the community development banks that we created, 
including one worth almost $500 million in Los Angeles, these are 
beginning to loan money to people and to create jobs. In Detroit, under 
the leadership of Mayor Archer--when I took office, the Detroit 
unemployment rate was nearly 9 percent. Today, the unemployment rate in 
Detroit is 4\1/2\ percent. The empowerment zone has generated $2 billion 
in private sector capital.
    So we can turn our cities around. In virtually every city in the 
country there has been a big drop in the violent crime rate as we put 
more police officers on the street and adopt strategies to prevent crime 
from happening in the first place.
    So I believe we're moving in the right direction there. We still 
have a lot of challenges in the future, and I'd just like to mention two 
or three, if I might, that you can play a particular role in.
    Our young people are still faced with a lot of challenges. And you 
know that as well as I do. If anyone had told me 4 years ago we could 
bring the violent crime rate in America down 4 years in a row to a 10-
year low, but we just barely make a dent in crime among young people, 
people under 18, I would have had a hard time believing that. If anyone 
had told me 4 years ago our efforts would stem a lot of the flow of 
drugs into America, we'd have a 30 percent decline in cocaine use and a 
13 percent decline in overall casual drug use among adults, especially 
young adults, but drug use would go up among children under 18, I would 
have had a hard time believing that. So we've got some challenges to 
meet there, and let me just make some suggestions.
    First of all, we should do no harm; we should keep doing what we've 
been doing, getting that message out in our churches and in our schools 
that drugs are illegal and wrong and can kill you. We definitely should 
not do what the other side wants to do, which is to cut the safe and 
drug-free schools program. We need more things for our children to say 
yes to. We shouldn't cut our school programs that--we're giving funds 
now to schools to stay open after school so kids will have something 
else to do. We're trying to help our cities start things like sports 
leagues to give kids positive things to be involved in, to increase 
recreational opportunities.

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    And so the fight I had with folks in the other party when they 
wanted to cut out the summer job program or cut back on the safe and 
drug-free schools program and undermine that is that I just don't think 
you can punish these children into obedience. I think we have to lead 
them into a good, harmonious, positive life. If somebody does something 
terrible and they need to be punished and put in jail, fine, let's do 
that. But first we have to try to give them a chance to have a better 
life.
    And let me just say one other thing. Last week, I asked our young 
people to make a little sacrifice to serve our country, and I hope you 
will help me sell it, because I know a lot of them won't like it. But 
it's important to point out that 90 percent of our children are still 
drug-free. Ninety percent of these kids are out there doing the right 
thing, trying to be good citizens. But still, to have 10 percent, or 
nearly 11 now, having experimented with drugs is too many, when we had 
it down to about 5\1/2\ or 6 percent just a few years ago.
    And so I think that we ought to make a drug test a part, a regular 
part, of getting a driver's license. Now, we know that for 90 percent of 
the kids, they don't need it, but if they'll do that and be responsible 
and help us, how many of these other children are we going to be able to 
find and save before they get in serious trouble and before it's too 
late? I think this is very important.
    And the last point I'd like to make is this: We have to keep growing 
the economy, and we have to keep moving people into work, and we have to 
do it in the right way. In the last 4 years, I'm very proud of the fact 
that we've moved about 2 million people from welfare to work and we've 
increased child support collections by almost 50 percent, right at $4 
billion a year.
    The welfare reform bill poses a special challenge to all of us, but 
it also give us a terrific opportunity. Because what it says is, we'll 
keep paying for the health care and the food for poor families as a 
national guarantee for all poor families. If someone moves from welfare 
to work we will spend more on child care than ever before. But that 
portion of the Federal Government's money that used to go to the welfare 
check will now go to States and by extension, the local communities. And 
everybody will have 2 years to figure out how to turn that welfare check 
into a paycheck.
    Now, this is a terrific opportunity for us. And let me give you an 
example--Mayor Cleaver is on the phone here--in Kansas City 2 years ago 
we gave them the chance to do something I've been begging every State in 
America to do. We gave them all the welfare funds, and we said that you 
could have permission to give employers a welfare check as a wage 
supplement for up to 4 years if they will hire people off welfare in 
creating new jobs, not replacing people. And we'll guarantee that 
they'll be able to keep their Medicaid for several years if they go to 
work in a business that doesn't give health insurance.
    Almost immediately hundreds of people got jobs. And businesses that 
never thought they would even consider hiring anybody off welfare before 
did it and could afford to help train the people because they were 
getting the welfare check as a wage supplement.
    Now, I want to challenge all the pastors here--you can think about 
that, if that option were given to you, you might be able to do such a 
thing as that. You might be able to add to the church staff if the local 
folks would give you the welfare check and say, ``Here is the welfare 
check; this is the premium we're paying you to train folks, to see after 
their kids, and make sure they're all right and they're going into the 
future.''
    We can do this. This is the right way to do it. We're going to give 
special targeted tax credits to private sector businesses to do the same 
thing. This is the right way to do it. We don't have the ability to have 
a big Government public works job, and we want all these families to be 
brought into the mainstream. They need homes and neighborhoods and 
support systems. And we can do this.
    Now, all of this depends upon this election. And that's the last 
thing I want to say. Your vote will decide this election. But whether 
you vote will also decide this election. And I can do a pretty good job 
of saying no if I have to. I've shown that I know how to sign that veto 
pen pretty good.
    But we also want to say yes to America--to a new direction, to keep 
this economy growing, to keep preserving the environment, to clean up 
these toxic waste sites in our cities so our children will be growing up 
next to parks, not poison, to continue to expand health care coverage to 
people when they're unemployed for 6 months, to expand coverage to a 
million

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more children--all this is in my balanced budget plan--to provide 
mammograms to women who are on Medicare, to help families care for a 
member who has Alzheimer's, to give them a little time off. All this is 
in our balanced budget plan--to open the doors of college education to 
all. All these things require affirmative steps to move America forward.
    And you can look at these races all across America, and you can 
look--a lot of States in the Presidential race are very close, and the 
outcome will be determined by the turnout.
    Don't be fooled by the polls. In the first place, the polls don't 
count much in Presidential elections; it's who wins the largest number 
of States. You know, I could win one State by two to one and Senator 
Dole could win two States by one vote, and I'd have lots more votes, and 
he'd have more electoral votes.
    And let me tell you, that's not an accident. We've had two times in 
American history where the person with the most votes lost the White 
House. This turnout question is not an academic question. Twice already 
in American history, the President--the person that ran for President, 
got the most votes, actually lost the White House. The choice of the 
people didn't serve. The choice of the States served. We still have the 
system we started with.
    We won Georgia in 1992 by eight-tenths of one percent. The last poll 
had us 6 percent ahead on Saturday night before the election. And you 
may remember, I came here, and Senator Nunn and Governor Miller and Hank 
Aaron and I did a rally in a stadium outside Atlanta. We had over 25,000 
people there. But on election day--and the 6-point poll was right, but 
on election day they showed up in higher numbers than we did. That's 
what happened. We won New Jersey by one percentage point. We won Ohio by 
2 percentage points. And I could go on and on and on and on.
    So in the President's race, in the Senate races, in the House races, 
in the governorships, it's not--the choice people make for their future 
is not just for whom they vote, but it's whether they vote.
    Now, you know what to do. You know how to do it. I think every one 
of you listening to me today understands the profound historic 
significance of this vote.
    But I just sit here--I'm in Georgia today, we just left this rally, 
so I'm thinking especially about Max Cleland. It's hard to imagine an 
American serving in public life today who sacrificed more for his 
country than Max Cleland, a man who nearly gave his life, gave up three 
of his limbs to serve America in the war in Vietnam. But he's still out 
there with a smile on his face, a song in his heart, trying to serve the 
public--being attacked as being too liberal? Is he? I don't think so.
    It's just that his idea of sacrifice is not taking Head Start away 
from children or telling people they can't have a college loan or 
telling young people who live in poor inner-city neighborhoods they have 
to go on living by their toxic waste dumps because we're going to cut 
environmental enforcement and environmental protection. His idea of 
service is helping other people to make the most of their own lives so 
that the sacrifice he made so many years ago is for the America of his 
dreams. And that's why I so--I want Max Cleland to win. He is a 
remarkable man. I've known him many, many years. He's a wonderful man.
    It all depends on the turnout. So I ask you all to think about that. 
Do what you can. You know what to do. You know how to do it. And if we 
all show up, we'll have a real celebration on November 5th.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 2:05 p.m. from Paschal's Restaurant. In his 
remarks, he referred to former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young; 
Carol Willis, senior adviser to the chair, Democratic National 
Committee; Mayor Emanuel Cleaver II of Kansas City, MO; Alma Brown, 
national cochair, and Peter Knight, campaign manager, Clinton/Gore '96; 
Bishop Chandler Owens, presiding bishop, Church of God in Christ; Mayor 
Bob Lanier of Houston, TX; Mayor Dennis W. Archer of Detroit, MI; Gov. 
Zell Miller of Georgia; former Major League baseball player Hank Aaron; 
and Max Cleland, Georgia senatorial candidate.