    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [December 14, 1999]
    [Pages 2297-2299]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Signing the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999
    December 14, 1999

        Thank you. Thank you, please be seated. At this moment, about all I
    can think of is merry Christmas. [Laughter]
        Senator Rockefeller, Senator
    Collins, Representative Cardin, thank you all for being here. And Senator
    Chafee, thank you for being here,

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    and with you, the spirit of your father, for all his great work on this.
        I want to say a special word of thanks to our mayor, Tony
    Williams, and his mom, Mrs. Virginia
    Williams. He has become America's exhibit
    A of the potential for foster care success. He is a good man, and she is
    a magnificent woman, and we thank them for being here. Thank you.
        I thank Secretary Shalala and all of
    her staff, and I thank Alfred Perez and Kristi
    Jo Frazier and the other young people
    behind me, for whom they spoke. They spoke so well and so bravely and so
    frankly. What they have achieved in their own lives is truly heroic, and
    we should all be very grateful that they are determined to make that
    kind of difference in the lives of other young people.
        I want to thank the groups that have done so much to champion the
    cause of foster children: the Child Welfare League of America, the
    Children's Defense Fund, the Annie Casey Foundation, the Casey Family
    Program. I want to thank especially--I won't mention them, but they know
    who they are--the people who have come up to me personally and lobbied
    me on this issue over the last couple of years. [Laughter]
        I've got a cousin that's been a friend of
    mine over 50 years, all my life; we were little kids together. She runs
    a public housing program in the little town in Arkansas where we were
    born. And she came up here to a HUD conference on kids aging out of
    foster care, and she spent the night with me at the White House. I got
    up the next morning; I never know, you know, what's on her mind. This is
    about a year ago. And she said, ``Bill, you have got to do something
    about these kids that are aging out of foster care.'' She said, ``It's a
    huge problem in New York and California, but believe it or not, it's a
    problem at home, too. And nobody's doing anything about it.'' I want to
    thank all those people, and they know who they are.
        And most of all, I want to thank Hillary. When we were in law school, she worked at the Yale
    Child Studies Center. Her first job was with what became the Children's
    Defense Fund. When I became Governor, in my first term she founded the
    Arkansas Advocates for Families and Children. She has always cared more
    about the welfare of all of our children than anything else and our
    mutual responsibilities to them. And she challenged us a long time ago
    not to forget those foster children who leave the system each year with
    no financial or emotional support, no one to turn to. She put a lot of
    herself into getting this bill passed.
        Hillary likes to quote the
    Chilean poet and teacher Gabriela Mistral about our responsibility to
    children: ``Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the
    time his bones are formed, his mind is developed. To him, we cannot say
    `tomorrow.' His name is `today.'''
        We are here today because all of you, and especially the Members of
    Congress from both parties, stood as one to say that America's foster
    children can finally have the name ``today.''
        The Foster Care Independence Act expands access to health care,
    education, housing, and counseling for young people who must leave
    foster care when they turn 18. For the very first time, States will be
    able to pay housing costs and health insurance for people under 21.
        The bill also gives States more resources and flexibility to help
    former foster children finish high school and go on to college, to help
    young people get jobs and vocational training, to provide counseling for
    young people learning to live on their own--you've already heard how
    important that is--and above all, to make sure young adults leaving
    foster care know they are not out there alone.
        The bill makes $700 million available to the States over 5 years
    under very flexible conditions. I challenge the States to use every
    penny of it, and I know I can depend upon the advocates here--
    [laughter]--to make sure they do.
        You also have to help the States, though, to design good programs,
    to implement them so the money will be spent with maximum impact. We
    simply cannot afford to have our high school students sleeping in metro
    stations, as some of these young people had to do.
        We cannot afford to lose our future entrepreneurs and teachers and
    lawyers to the kinds of obstacles the young people behind me have faced.
    We can't afford to give up on the future, and these young people are a
    big part of our future and our shared responsibility.
        We have tried to help America's most vulnerable children grow up
    healthy and safe, to make the transition into happy, productive adults.
    We've tried to encourage adoption so that we can end the sadness of
    young people shuttling from house to house and never knowing a home.

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    We've made adoptions easier and more affordable, given States more
    flexibility, passed incentive programs for States to promote adoption.
    These worked so well, we actually ran out of money to reward the States.
    [Laughter]
        I'm pleased that this bill also authorizes additional funds that
    program needs, because it is working. Our most recent figures show that
    adoptions are up 29 percent, the first significant increase in two
    decades.
        Now when we get to the end of the session, sometimes we have to
    combine a bunch of things in bills, just to get all our work done. And I
    want to mention one other thing this bill does that is unrelated to
    young people aging out of foster care or to adoption. This bill includes
    a provision to honor and assist veterans from other lands who fought
    with and as a part of the United States Armed Forces during World War
    II. It creates a special cash benefit under Social Security for veterans
    who want to leave the United States and return to their homelands.
        We have 10 such veterans, 10 Filipino veterans, who are here with us
    today. I want to thank them for their service, and I ask them to stand
    and be recognized. We thank you.
        So this bill keeps a promise to our children and a promise to our
    veterans. It was passed with overwhelming support from both parties,
    proving that we can put partisanship aside, and when we do, it's good
    for America.
        I hope that we will see more of this in the new year. I hope that we
    can use the historic millennial year to take the rest of the steps we
    need to deal with the aging of America, by securing Social Security and
    Medicare; to give our children health coverage; to raise the minimum
    wage; to pass the commonsense legislation on gun safety and hate crimes;
    to do the things that we need to do to support working family, including
    the Patients' Bill of Rights.
        These young people here should give us all a lot of courage and a
    lot of heart. They represent, out of the most difficult circumstances,
    the very best not only of our country but of what is at the core of
    human nature. And in this special season for so many of the world's
    great religious faiths, we should be very grateful for the gifts they
    have given us, the gifts they will give us, and the gifts so many other
    children will be able to give because of this legislation.
        Thank you very much.
        Now, I'd like to ask the Members of Congress to come up here. We'll
    sign the bill.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:45 p.m. in Presidential Hall (formerly
    Room 450) in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building. In his
    remarks, he referred to Senator Lincoln D. Chafee, son of the late
    Senator John H. Chafee; Mayor Anthony A. Williams of Washington, DC;
    Alfred Perez and Kristi Jo Frasier, who as children were in the foster
    care system; and Myra J. Irvin, section 8 program manager, housing
    authority, Hope, AR. The transcript released by the Office of the Press
    Secretary also included the remarks of the First Lady. H.R. 3443,
    approved December 14, was assigned Public Law No. 106-169.