    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [September 24, 1999]
    [Pages 1583-1585]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Announcing the Adoption Bonus Awards
    September 24, 1999

        Thank you very much. When we have events here in this room with
    people who have come to share their experiences, very often I feel like
    a fifth wheel. I think everything that needs to be said has already been
    said. [Laughter] But I want to begin by thanking Dawn Keane for her wonderful statement; her husband, Steve; and Sean, Brian, and Sarah. They're beautiful
    children. They did a good job at the microphone, didn't they? [Laughter]
    I want to thank Olivia Golden and Pat
    Montoya for their work at HHS on this important
    issue.
        I'd like to thank this remarkable bipartisan delegation from the
    House of Representatives here, Dave Camp and Nancy
    Johnson and Ben Cardin and Maxine Waters, Sandy
    Levin and Congressman DeLay. This may be the only issue all six of these people agree
    on. [Laughter] Tom's nodding his head up and down. [Laughter]
        I'll tell you a funny story; this is a true story. The other day I
    was reading a profile of Tom DeLay in the
    newspaper. And I got about halfway through, and he was giving me the
    devil for something. You know, he's very good at that. [Laughter] And he
    started grinding on my golf game and saying that I didn't count my
    scores and all this, and I was getting really angry.

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    [Laughter] And then I get to the next part of the story, and it talks
    all about his experience and his commitment to adoption and to foster
    children and the personal experience that he and his wife had. And my heart just melted. And all of a sudden,
    I didn't care what he said about my golf game. [Laughter]
        And I say that to make this point: The Keane family, the Manis, the
    Brown, the Vasquez families, who are behind me today, they represent
    what we all know is basic and fundamental about our families and our
    country, more important than anything else we can think of. And they
    open their homes and their hearts to children, and they open our hearts
    to them and to each other as we work for more stories like those we
    celebrate today.
        I'd also like to say a special hello to the Badeau family. Some of
    you may remember this. Two years ago, almost, Sue
    and Hector Badeau joined us at the White House
    when I signed the Adoption and Safe Families Act. They brought 18 of the
    22 children they have adopted. Now, you need to know that, as if they
    didn't have enough to deal with, this summer they also welcomed into
    their home a family of eight Kosovar refugees. So if you ever need proof
    that there's no limit to human goodness, you can look at Sue and Hector
    Badeau. I'd like for them to stand. Where are they? There you go.
    They've got some of their kids here. Stand up. [Applause] Thank you. God
    bless you.
        I would also like to say just a very brief word of thanks to
    Hillary. You heard her tell the story
    of her involvement in this, but when we were in law school together,
    before we were married, she was talking to me about how messed up the
    foster care and adoption laws were in the country, how many ridiculous
    barriers there were. And not long after we moved to Little Rock and I
    became attorney general of our State, she took a case for a young couple
    who had had a child from foster care for 3 years that they desperately
    wanted to adopt--this is over 20 years ago. And together they changed
    the law in our State so that foster parents could be considered for
    adoption, something that used to be verboten in most States in the
    country.
        So I've watched her work on these
    issues now for almost 30 years, and I am very grateful that one of the
    many blessings of our time in the White House has been the chance to
    make a difference on these adoption and foster care issues, and I thank
    her for making it possible.
        Finally, let me say, again, I want to say a special word of thanks
    to the Members of Congress in both parties who have come to this event
    today. We have had a raging, often stimulating, occasionally maddening,
    debate on what should be the role of Government over the last 5 years in
    this town. But we have all agreed that Government has a role to try to
    protect children but to facilitate the most rapid, reasonable, orderly
    process for both foster care and for transition to adoption.
        Hillary said that the House had adopted this provision to let kids
    coming out of foster care keep their Medicaid until they're 21. I'll
    just give you one more example of how these issues unify us. Within a
    36-hour period, about 6 months ago, my cousin,
    who runs the public housing unit in the little town where I was born in
    Arkansas, which has 8,000 or 10,000 people, came up to a HUD conference.
    And she spent the night with me and we were having breakfast, drinking
    coffee, and she says, ``You know, you've got to do something about these
    foster kids. They keep going out of the--they come out of the foster
    homes, and they've got no money, and they need to do some things.'' And
    then the next day, literally within 36 hours, I'm talking to these
    people from New York City who tell me it's maybe the biggest social
    problem they have now, with all these kids coming out of foster care. So
    this is an issue that spans the experience of America, the whole sweep
    of it. And I'm very grateful; I'm grateful that we have this consensus,
    and I'm grateful that they've acted on it. I urge the Senate to follow
    suit.
        Now, you've already heard about the things that we're doing to try
    to double the number of children we help move into permanent homes. We
    have new evidence that these efforts are bearing fruit. The Department
    of Health and Human Services has just given me a report that tracks our
    progress in meeting our adoption goals. It shows that the number of
    adoptions from the foster care system increased from 28,000 in 1996 to
    36,000 in 1998. That is the first significant increase in adoptions
    since the national foster care program was created almost 20 years ago.
    Now, that's an amazing thing. That's more than--it's about a 30 percent
    increase. That's a very impressive increase in 2 years. And we are well
    on our way to meeting

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    our goal of 56,000 in 2002, doubling the number. For all of you that had
    anything to do with that, I say thank you. You should be very proud of
    yourselves.
        Now, if you look at this HHS report--and I urge those of you who are
    interested in it to actually get it and scan it, at least--you will see
    how much this bipartisan cooperation I talked about and the work that's
    being done by people in the trenches to clear away the barriers is
    making a difference, a stunning example of what we can do when we put
    our children first. You will see that we have acted on each and every
    one of the 11 recommendations set forth in the original Adoption 2002
    report, breaking down barriers to adoptions, ensuring accountability,
    rewarding innovation, supporting adoptive families themselves.
        One of the key recommendations we adopted into law in 1997 was to
    give States, for the first time, financial incentives to help children
    move from foster to adoptive homes. Under the new bonus system, States
    are entitled to up to $4,000 or $6,000, depending on whether the child
    has special needs, for each adoption above their previous average.
        Today I have the honor of presenting the first round of these
    awards, worth $20 million, to 35 of our 50 States. The good news is that
    these States did this, using creative new approaches and exceeding their
    own high goals. Illinois, for example--listen to this--the State of
    Illinois increased its adoptions 112 percent--112. [Applause] Yes, you
    can clap for Illinois. That's good.
        Now, the bad news, if you can call it that, is that even though we
    believed this would work, we didn't think it would work this well this
    quickly--[laughter]--and we didn't put enough money in to give all the
    States all the money to which they're entitled. So I hope we can rectify
    that, because I think we all think that we want to give the States the
    incentives to figure out how best to do this. But the fact is, I think
    all of us are very proud of what these States have done for some of
    their most vulnerable citizens. And I look forward to working with the
    Congress to make up this shortfall and get the other 15 States above
    their goals as well.
        Today I am also awarding $5.5 million in adoption opportunity grants
    to outstanding public and private organizations in 16 of our States to
    help fund research and new ways of increasing interstate adoptions and
    adoptions of minority children. Together these efforts will help to
    accelerate the remarkable progress we've seen.
        Now, again let me say, I think the big goal we ought to have for
    this legislative session is to get the Senate to follow the lead of the
    House and schedule a vote on the Chafee-Rockefeller bill to ensure that
    the foster children are not cast out in the cold when their time in
    foster care ends. I hope--I know if we can get it up and get it on the
    calendar, it will pass with the same overwhelming bipartisan support
    that we've seen in the House. So I urge all of you to do what you can to
    make sure that that is a big priority for the Senate, and I will do my
    part.
        Together, we can help our foster children--all of them--first grow
    up in good homes and, if they turn 18 as foster children, to make a good
    transition from--transit to independence with health care, education,
    housing, and counseling.
        Now ultimately, let me say the credit in all this does not really
    belong to all of the political leaders, even though they've worked very
    hard, all of us have together. It does not belong to all the public
    servants, even though there is a real new attitude, I think, in the
    organizations, the social services organizations, to try to do the right
    thing and move this along.
        But none of this will work if there aren't good people in every
    community like the Keanes, the Manises, the Browns, the Vasquezes, the
    Badeaus, who are willing to give a child unconditional love and a good
    upbringing. They are the proof of the unlimited goodness of the human
    heart. All the rest of us are trying to do is to unleash it. And we need
    to keep right on doing that.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 10 a.m. in Presidential Hall (formerly Room
    450) in the Old Executive Office Building. In his remarks, he referred
    to Dawn and Steve Keane, and their adopted children Sean, Brian, and
    Sarah, who introduced the President; Christine DeLay, wife of
    Representative Tom DeLay; and Myra J. Irvin, program manager, Hope
    Housing Authority in Arkansas. The transcript released by the Office of
    the Press Secretary also included the remarks of the First Lady.