    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [March 10, 1998]
    [Pages 343-347]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at Housatonic Community-Technical College in Bridgeport,
    Connecticut
    March 10, 1998

        Thank you very much. First of all, I think Pamela did a terrific job with her speech. And secondly, when
    Anthony stood up, I thought to myself, in a
    few years Congressman Shays

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    will be retiring, and I--[laughter]--may be looking at his successor
    right there. He was great. [Laughter] I love it. Senator Dodd, you might want to hire him as a consultant
    this year. [Laughter]
        Mr. Mayor, I'm delighted to be back in
    Bridgeport with you and Jennifer and the
    officials of the city government. I thank Senator Dodd and Congressman Shays and
    Representatives Barbara Kennelly and
    Rosa DeLauro for joining us today; Attorney
    General Blumenthal, Treasurer Paul
    Sylvester, Speaker Ritter and members of the legislature.
        Like Senator Dodd, I want to extend my condolences on behalf of
    Hillary and myself to the families of the victims of the shooting
    incident in Newington, and our prayers are with them.
        And like Senator Dodd, on a happier note, I want to congratulate
    Connecticut for getting both its teams into the NCAA. [Laughter] So did
    Arkansas. [Laughter] Thank goodness we don't have a contest anytime
    soon. And what Senator Dodd didn't say is that UCONN's men's team is
    actually playing in Washington this week. And so I think you all should
    keep score and see which Members of your congressional delegation show
    up to root the home team on. [Laughter]
        I'm glad to be back in Bridgeport. I really like this community, and
    I have admired the courage with which the people here have struggled in
    the tough years and moved to move the community forward. I should tell
    you, whenever I come to a place you all notice that there are a few
    members of the press who come with me. [Laughter] And sometimes it seems
    that we're on opposite sides of the line, but you should know that one
    member of the press, Larry McQuillan, who
    works for Reuters News Service and is actually the president of the
    White House Press Corps this year, is from Bridgeport. He will write a
    totally biased, favorable story--[laughter]--about this wonderful
    college and child care program today, I can assure you.
        I want to thank President Wertz for
    showing me around the school and the unbelievable art collection here,
    which you should be very proud of.
        And I want to thank Marie Nulty for taking
    me through the wonderful preschool program. In the Early Childhood Lab
    School's parent handbook, there is the following quote: ``A child is
    like a butterfly in the wind. Some can fly higher than others, but each
    one flies the best it can. Each one is special. Each one is different.
    Each one is beautiful.'' After going through this child care center, it
    seems to me that that is a motto that every teacher I saw lived and
    worked by, and that every child I met was made to feel special every
    day.
        The reason I came here today is twofold: First of all, because of
    the extraordinary leadership for children, and especially on the child
    care center issue--child care issue, of Senator Dodd, along with the Members of your House delegation who are
    here who have been terrific on this issue; and second, because what I
    see here today is what I believe every child in America needs, and it's
    important that we graphically demonstrate to the country that with so
    many parents in the work force or going back to school, there is a
    crying unmet need--which the mayor graphically and numerically
    demonstrated in his remarks just here in Bridgeport--all over the
    country for the kind of high quality child care that you offer here.
        Today we have to make a commitment to extend that option to every
    family in America that needs it. I want to talk about what we in the
    Federal Government can do on our own to improve child care at Federal
    centers, but most importantly I want to talk about what Congress should
    do in the next 70 days to help every working family give their children
    the kind of child care we see here.
        As has been said already, these are good times for America. We have
    15 million new jobs, the lowest unemployment rate in 24 years, the
    lowest inflation rate in 30 years, the highest homeownership rate in
    history, the lowest welfare rolls in 27 years, the lowest crime rate in
    24 years. And I'm proud of it. These numbers only matter insofar as they
    reflect differences in the lives of ordinary Americans, a different life
    story that can be told. The reason I was proud to be introduced by
    Pamela Price is that she embodies the
    changing story of America over the last 5 years, and that's what we want
    for every American who's willing to work for it.
        In last year's historic balanced budget agreement we provided a
    child care tax credit of $500 per child for families; expanded health
    care coverage to 5 million more children in lower income working
    families who don't have access to it now; and perhaps most important,
    have virtually opened the doors of college to all Americans. For
    example--and you can compare

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    it, what it means here at Housatonic--in the last years we have added
    300,000 work-study slots, hundreds of thousands of more scholarships;
    we've made the interest on student loans tax deductible; 100,000 young
    people have worked their way through college or earned money for college
    by serving in AmeriCorps in community service projects. You can now save
    for a college education in an IRA and withdraw from the IRA tax-free if
    the money is used for a college education. But most important, now there
    is a $1,500 tax credit--that's not a deduction, a credit--a reduction of
    your tax bill for the first 2 years of college, and a lifetime learning
    credit that is substantial but not quite that large for junior and
    senior years, for job training programs, for graduate schools. I think
    we can really say that insofar as community-based institutions like this
    are concerned, we have opened the doors of college to all Americans who
    are willing to work for it. And that is a profoundly important
    achievement for our country.
        Senator Dodd talked about what the Family and Medical Leave Act
    means. The American dream is now in reach for more and more families,
    and that is a very, very good thing. But as you heard Pamela say, what
    made all this work for her as she was struggling to put her life on
    track was knowing that her child would be in a safe, healthy, positive
    child care environment. And if we really want to open the doors of
    opportunity to all Americans, we not only have to finish our agenda of
    bringing job opportunities and business opportunities into every
    neighborhood and every city like Bridgeport in America, we have to make
    sure that if the jobs and the educational opportunities are open, the
    parents can actually go without having to worry that they're neglecting
    their children.
        We can never have a country that is fully successful if millions of
    people every day get up and look forward to a day in which they are
    terrified that they will have to make a choice between being a
    responsible parent and a good worker or a good student. If we have to
    choose, we lose. Society has no more important work than raising
    children. If everyone did that successfully, I think we would all agree
    we'd have less than half the problems we have today.
        On the other hand, this economic boom we celebrate was fueled by
    having nearly two-thirds of the American adults in the work force, the
    highest percentage of people in the work force in history. That's how
    you get a low unemployment rate. Well, by definition, a lot of those
    folks are parents with children who have to be supervised and nourished
    and supported and helped.
        So when you think about this child care issue, if you look at it the
    way I do, not just as President but as a parent and as someone who's
    worked all his life, I say to myself, we cannot have a country that asks
    people to make a choice between succeeding at home and succeeding at
    work, and insofar as we have to choose, we lose. When we know we can
    succeed at home and at work because of an effective child care center,
    every American wins. The country wins. We're stronger in the 21st
    century; our families are stronger; our economies are stronger; they
    reinforce each other. That's really what this child care issue is all
    about.
        Now, we've worked hard on this for the last 5 years. We've helped a
    million more parents to pay--or the parents of a million more children
    to pay for child care. But obviously--remember the mayor's numbers for
    Bridgeport--there is a huge amount of work to be done here. And today
    we're releasing a report that confirms the overwhelming need still
    existing all across America. The report shows that States have come up
    with a lot of innovative ideas, and the Congress allocated $4 billion
    more to States for child care as a part of welfare reform. But even with
    all that, it is clear that the resources are simply not there yet to
    meet the needs of all the families in America. States have been forced
    to turn away literally thousands upon thousands of low-income families.
        In Connecticut, the State Child Care Bureau has to restrict its aid
    to families on welfare or teen parents in high school. They've actually
    stopped taking applications from families that are so-called ``working
    poor'' altogether.
        So here we are at a time of unprecedented prosperity, when people at
    the lower end of the income scale are finally beginning to get pay
    raises and have some security in their jobs, but we know they can't
    afford quality child care without help. So here we are at a time--the
    best of times for our country, and yet we still have millions of people
    getting up every day going to work worrying about their children. We are
    forcing them to make choices that no family should have to make, that no
    country should tolerate, and that we will pay for down the road sooner
    or later. So what we want to

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    do is pay for it now, the right way, and have a good, positive
    environment.
        Now, let me say some of the things that I intend to do with the
    Federal child care centers. We care--the Federal Government cares in its
    child care centers for some 215,000 children, quite a few. We want them
    to be a model for the Nation. Today I'm going to direct my Cabinet to do
    four things:
        First, to make all the centers fully accredited by the year 2000.
    Now, what does that mean in terms of quality of facilities, training for
    workers, and child-to-staff ratios? Today, believe it or not, 76 percent
    of our military child care centers are already accredited, but only 35
    percent of our nonmilitary centers are. We'll make both categories 100
    percent in the next 700 days.
        Second, we have to make sure that all the centers conduct thorough
    background checks on workers. In too many States there is no checking to
    see if the people we trust with our children are even trustworthy in the
    eyes of the law. Connecticut is one of the few States that actually does
    require a criminal background check of child care workers. Every State
    should do it, and the Federal Government should certainly do it.
        Third, we have to make sure that all Federal workers know about all
    their child care benefits and options in the first place.
        And finally, we're going to do more work with the private sector to
    make Federal child care better and more affordable. If we do all that,
    there will still be millions of kids out there and their parents who
    need help. In the balanced budget I have presented to Congress for this
    year, I've proposed a comprehensive and responsible plan to strengthen
    child care. There will be other proposals to do the same thing.
        Now, Congress is only going to meet about 70 more days this year. I
    know you say, ``Well, it's only March,'' but anyway that's--in
    Washington, Congress plans to only sit about 70 more days. Now, there is
    enormous support, I believe, among people in both parties in our country
    and, I believe, among people in both parties in the Congress for taking
    action on child care. I have a plan, and there are others, which would
    double the number of children receiving child care subsidies, at a
    million or more new kids, give tax cuts to businesses which provide
    child care, expand child care tax credits to 3 million working families,
    and improve the standards of child care centers and provide more funds
    to train--adequately train--workers in child care centers.
        Now, we're not talking about peanuts here. Let me tell you what
    we're talking about. The tax credits that we will offer, if Congress
    would pass them, would mean that a family of four living on up to
    $35,000 a year that has high child care bills would not pay any Federal
    income tax. That would be a terrific incentive to help working families
    afford quality child care. And for lower income working families who
    don't owe any Federal income tax anyway, if we increase the block grant
    going to the States, it goes to subsidized care for lower income working
    families, plus the money that we have given the States for people moving
    from welfare to work--we will be able to make a huge dent in this
    problem.
        If Congress acts, we can make child care safer as well as more
    affordable. We can even give scholarships under our plan to talented
    caregivers to train more people. We also can expand after-school
    programs to keep 500,000 more kids, when they get a little older, off
    our streets and out of trouble after school. I think that's very
    important. As I said, there are only 70 days left. There are always,
    with something this big, some controversy around the edges of the issue.
    But all these things can be resolved if the Congress will make up its
    mind to act. Because these 70 days of meetings where they can vote will
    be spread over most of the year. There's still time for committee
    meetings, for staff to do their work, for all that kind of stuff to
    happen. We can do this. We do not need to wait another year just because
    this is an election year to pass this. We need to do this now.
        The other thing I want to say that's related to this, is that
    Congress must pass comprehensive tobacco legislation to reduce teen
    smoking and raise the price of cigarettes by up to a dollar and a half a
    pack, impose strong penalties on companies that continue to advertise to
    children, and give the FDA full authority to regulate tobacco products
    and children's access to them. The revenues we raise from the tobacco
    company would help to make a partial contribution to the child care plan
    that I have proposed as well.
        Again I say, there's some controversy--there's some issues that have
    to be resolved in this tobacco settlement, to get the legislation. But I
    want to, again, graphically illustrate--I just

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    watched all those little kids in that room, those two rooms, these
    beautiful children--every single day, even though it is illegal in every
    State in America, 3,000 more children begin to smoke; 1,000 of those
    3,000 children will die sooner because of that decision. Hardly anybody
    becomes a chronic, lifetime smoker who does not start in their teenage
    years.
        So I know there are only 70 days left, and I know this is a big
    bill. But I know that there are Democrats and Republicans in substantial
    numbers who want to do this. We should not let the calendar get in the
    way of the urgent need for action. We can pass the child care reforms,
    and we can fund them. And we can pass the tobacco legislation, and we
    must. Just think about it: 1,000 kids every day that wants--just like
    all these children did in here. Just think about it, every single day.
    There is no need to wait. There is no excuse for waiting. The time to
    act is now.
        I leave you with this thought. I'm glad you clapped when I said
    these are good times for America. And you ought to be proud of
    yourselves, because the whole country helped to create these good times.
    And the efforts that we make in different areas, from the economy to
    crime to welfare reform to early childhood to health and education, they
    all reinforce each other. But sometimes when times are good and people
    clap and they feel good, they relax. I tell you, when times are good but
    challenges are large and the future is coming at you like a fast train
    down a track--and that's how the 21st century is coming at you, with
    things changing more rapidly than ever before--then an obligation is
    imposed to use the good times to act, not to relax.
        So I say to all of you, the Members of Congress who are here are
    ready to act, so give them all a pat on the back, but do everything you
    can to send a clear and unambiguous signal that you do not want the
    election year to be a relaxation year; you want it to be a legislating
    year for the children of this country to make them stronger in the new
    century. After all, it's only 700 days away. Let's spend 70 days to make
    sure that in 700 days we'll have the healthiest, strongest children in
    the history of our Nation.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:30 a.m. in the Performing Arts Building.
    In his remarks, he referred to Pamela A. Price, a student with a young
    daughter in the college's child care program, who introduced the
    President, and her teenage son, Anthony; Mayor Joseph P. Ganim of
    Bridgeport, and his wife, Jennifer; State Attorney General Richard
    Blumenthal; State Treasurer Paul Sylvester; Thomas D. Ritter, speaker,
    Connecticut House of Representatives; Janis M. Wertz, president,
    Housatonic Community-Technical College; and Marie Nulty, director, Early
    Childhood Laboratory School. The President also referred to a March 6
    incident in which a Connecticut State Lottery employee killed four
    coworkers at the headquarters building in Newington before killing
    himself.