[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
[January 10, 1997]
[Pages 24-26]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Business Leaders and an Exchange With 
Reporters
January 10, 1997

    The President. Good morning, everybody. We are here in the Cabinet 
Room to meet with business leaders and members of the Cabinet to discuss 
what we all have to do together to provide jobs and training for people 
who will be making the transition from welfare to work as mandated by 
the new welfare reform law.
    But before we talk more about this, I want to report some good 
economic news. The Department of Labor reported this morning--on 
Secretary Reich's last day on the payroll--where is he? [Laughter] He's 
ending with a bang. The report says that 11.2 million new jobs have now 
been created in the past 4 years. This is the first time in the history 
of our economy that over 11 million jobs have been created during one 4-
year administration. It is a great tribute to the private sector in 
America. It is further evidence that our economy is strong, and finally, 
that our economic strategy to bring down the deficit, expand trade, and 
invest in our people is working.
    I want to thank Secretary Reich for all he has done. I also want to 
acknowledge--there are two other outgoing members of the administration 
that had a great role in this economic recovery, Secretary Kantor, both 
as trade ambassador and as Commerce Secretary, and of course, Mr. 
Panetta, who was OMB Director at the time we adopted our economic plan.
    The meeting we are convening here this morning builds on the 
exceptional efforts that have been made over the last 4 years to allow 
States and local communities the freedom to test their own welfare 
reform strategies. Last year I signed into law an approach that 
revolutionized welfare and made it a national mandate to move people who 
are able-bodied from welfare to work within 2 years. But as I have said 
repeatedly since that time, that was not the end of welfare reform; it 
was only the next step.
    Now we have to launch a national effort in every State and every 
community to make sure that the jobs are there for people who have to 
make the transition from welfare to work. As a first step in that 
effort, every State has to tailor a welfare reform plan that requires 
and rewards work, imposes time limits, increases child care payments, 
and demands personal responsibility. We've already given the green light 
to 26 of our States to carry out the welfare reform plans they have 
designated. Today I am pleased to announce that three more States, 
Louisiana, Maryland, and North Carolina, have been given approval to 
implement their plans.
    The steps we've taken over the last 4 years, working with individual 
States and communities,

[[Page 25]]

have helped to reduce the welfare rolls by 2.1 million people. Those 
efforts and the stronger economy have led to the biggest reduction in 
welfare rolls in the history of this country. But welfare reform now 
must go on to the next step, and it cannot succeed by Government action 
alone. There cannot be in our efforts to balance the budget enough money 
to have some big public works program here to put everyone to work who 
is required to move into the work force within 2 years. So welfare 
reform, if it's going to work, will have to have the leadership of the 
private sector in turning welfare checks into paychecks.
    Now, our balanced budget plan has provisions in it to support the 
business community in helping to create a million more jobs. But today 
we are going to meet with these business leaders to talk about what 
specifically they and others can do to help to move people from welfare 
to work and also to talk about what they can do to help make sure that 
the States and the communities in this country have actually designed 
plans that will be attractive to the private sector in helping 
businesses of all sizes, not just larger businesses, to move from 
welfare to work and, I might also add, nonprofit organizations who are 
also eligible to participate in these initiatives. Just a few days ago 
we had our annual prayer breakfast here, and I challenged the religious 
organizations, as employers, to participate in this program.
    So a number of these companies represented around this table have 
already been very active in this. We're going to have a good meeting, 
and I look forward to success. But I do want to make it clear to the 
American people, that welfare reform law did not put anybody to work. 
Unless we can create new jobs in the private sector within the 2-year 
timeline, the welfare reform effort will not succeed. And we're 
depending on the leaders around this table, people like them throughout 
America, to help us to achieve that goal.

Conspiracy To Manipulate the Media

    Q. Mr. President, do you think there is a right-wing cabal in the 
press against you?
    The President.  No.

Presidential Immunity From Civil Charges

    Q. Mr. President, are you concerned that the purely legal question 
that goes to the Supreme Court on Monday in your civil case will become 
a pretext for hauling out the whole story again and causing you more 
difficulty?
    The President. I don't have any control over what anyone else does. 
I can only control what I do. It's not going to cause me any difficulty 
because I'm going to do my job here.

National Economy

    Q. Mr. President, you referred to the jobs figures that came out 
earlier today as good news. As you're aware, not only was the December 
report pretty strong but both the October and November reports were 
revised upwards. Are you concerned at all that this strength may signal 
a building up of inflationary pressures in the economy?
    The President. No. Based on the conversation I had with Chairman 
Greenspan last week, that's one of the things--or I guess earlier this 
week--one of the things that he noted--Secretary Rubin and I were 
there--was that the normal inflation pressures, at least if you go back 
till the end of World War II, that you would see with this kind of job 
growth and by modern standards a low unemployment rate just have not 
materialized. And he speculated on a number of the reasons why that 
might be so.
    But I basically believe, as long as we're competitive, as long as 
our markets are open, as long as we're reaching out to new markets 
around the world, as long as we're seeing American workers continue to 
upgrade their skills and American businesses employ technology and 
better production techniques to improve their productivity, that we can 
keep this going without undue inflation. At least now there's no 
evidence of it. The only place we've had any spike in inflation is in 
energy prices, which was unrelated to the general growth in jobs. So I'm 
very hopeful right now.

Federal Reserve Board Nominations

    Q. When do you expect to nominate replacements for the two Fed 
Governors who are leaving? Do you have any people in mind?
    The President. I don't know. One of them just materialized. But I'll 
turn my attention to it, and I'll do it in a timely fashion.

Political Consultant Dick Morris

    Q. Did Dick Morris violate his confidence by writing a book and 
taking credit for everything good that happened to you in the last 
several months?

[[Page 26]]

    The President. I thought the last sentence of the introduction of 
his book said that he was not responsible for my getting reelected, I 
was. [Laughter] So I would think that you would have to say that was a 
rather selective reading of the book, if that's the way you read it. 
[Laughter]

Note: The President spoke at 10:15 a.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White 
House.