    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [November 4, 1999]
    [Pages 1977-1980]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the North End Community in Hartford, Connecticut
    November 4, 1999

        Thank you very much, first, to you Dick Huber, for being such a faithful member of our new markets team.
    You started out with us in Atlanta; you made the trip to Appalachia and
    to the Delta and other places; and you led me home to Hartford today for
    you. You know, the first time we were talking about this--I should say
    this about Dick; he talks about how cynical he is. That's a front. I'm a
    politician; I recognize a front when I see one. [Laughter]
        He said, ``You know, I'm not sure I'm happy about you taking all
    these other businessmen on this new markets tour. It looks to me like
    there's a great business opportunity here, and I hate for everybody else
    to find it before I

    [[Page 1978]]

    do.'' And I want to come back to that, but I thank you.
        I thank my longtime friend the president of Trinity College, Evan
    Dobelle, and Heidi Miller from the Citigroup. And thank you, Robert
    Fiondella and all the other business
    leaders that are here. Thank you, Governor.
    Thank you, Congressman, and also Congressman
    Kanjorski, who has been a faithful member of
    all of our tours. I thank Speaker Lyons and
    Senator Sullivan and all the other leaders
    who are here.
        I want to say another word. I'm particularly glad to be in Hartford
    with Congressman Larson, because he's been
    after me to come here as well. And Secretary Slater, thank you for making all these trips. And Reverend
    Jackson, thank you for being such an
    inspiration for all of these efforts.
        I want to thank the Collective founders, Jackie and Dollie McLean. I thought
    of giving up my speaking time and letting Jackie play. [Laughter] And I
    appreciate the ``Hail To The Chief'' with the saxophone. And I just
    heard the jazz band upstairs; they played an old Sonny Stipp tune that I
    knew back when I was a young man. I don't believe I'm good enough to
    play it anymore, but I was astonished at the musical quality of the
    people here. And it's a great gift to your community.
        Today you're hearing in words rather than music, another sort of
    serenade for the people of this city. The corporate leaders together are
    pledging--listen to this--well over $200 million to the future of
    Hartford. That's one of the most impressive commitments in any city to
    developing the market potential of people who have not been part of our
    prosperity anywhere in the United States of America. And you should
    applaud them, support them, and be very proud of them. [Applause]
        They're all saying, ``Hartford is our home; Hartford is worth
    working for, worth fighting for, worth believing in.'' And we are
    committed to working with you to succeed.
        Today's announcements are just the latest sign of the renaissance of
    this city. Before I came here to the Artists Collective, I had a chance
    to meet some of the vendors at El Mercado, the Latino marketplace on
    Park Street. I actually had visited there in 1992, and I remarked, first
    of all, how excited I was to go back. I had a wonderful time there in
    '92. At the time I was battling with my weight, and they made it worse.
    [Laughter] I never wanted to leave any of the places. And I loved being
    back there today. And as far as I could see, everything was better than
    it was in '92, except for one thing. There was this picture of me when I
    was there in '92, and I look worse. But they look better. Everything
    else is better. [Laughter] So I want to thank the people there for all
    the work that they have done.
        Mr. Mayor, I want to compliment you on
    falling crime rates, dramatically falling crime rates. We have the
    lowest crime rate in America in 30 years, lowest murder rate in 32
    years. No single person can take credit for this, but every person who
    has supported community policing, responsible law enforcement policies,
    and working together can take a lot of credit for it. So I thank you.
        I also want to compliment everybody here who is responsible for the
    improvements we see in the schools here. I thank you for your commitment
    to the MetroHartford Millennium and Adriaen's Landing projects. I thank
    Trinity College, working with HUD, for Frog Holler, where they are
    turning a once devastated brownfield into a remarkable 16-acre learning
    corridor. I'm pleased to announce that Citigroup has just committed to
    build on the success of the learning corridor by offering more than $7.4
    million in equity and debt capital to help rehabilitate 70 single-family
    homes in the neighborhood, and I appreciate that.
        Let me just say this. One of the biggest problems we have in America
    right now is the product of our prosperity. There is not enough
    affordable housing for all the people who have jobs and have incomes,
    but because of the economy being so strong, they're still being priced
    out of the housing market. Therefore, there is an enormous opportunity,
    if we can get the capital to the right place, to create more jobs for
    people who still need them in rehabilitating existing structures in a
    way that will make them affordable for working people. So this is very
    good thing, and I hope it will be built on, because you can, Governor,
    help people not only in Hartford but in Bridgeport, in New Haven, and
    all the other places that still need help in Connecticut.
        And I want to say, if I might, I appreciate your being here, because
    I don't believe that this issue should be a partisan issue. I think all
    Americans want every American to have a chance to work, and I thank you.

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        I guess my message here is this: Number one, this is great; number
    two, let's build on it; number three, every other city in America should
    follow your lead. If we have now the lowest unemployment rate in 29
    years and the lowest welfare rolls in 30 years and the lowest poverty
    rates in 20 years and the lowest minority unemployment rates ever
    recorded since we have been trying for about 30 years to separate them
    out, if we have all this in the longest peacetime expansion in history,
    which come February, will be the longest economic expansion in the
    history of America, if we can't take this opportunity to bring real hope
    to the people in places who have not been touched by this recovery, we
    will never get around to doing it.
        So the first thing I want to say is, because we care about one
    another, it is the right thing to do, and possible. The second thing I
    want to say is, it's the smart thing to do. That's what Dick said the
    first time he talked about it. You would be amazed how much time I spend
    as your President trying to figure out how to keep this economic
    expansion going, you know, because if you read in the paper, about once
    every month or so there will be somebody saying the sky is finally going
    to fall, we can't keep this thing going anymore, inflation's around the
    corner or it's going to run out of steam.
        But the truth is, I always felt if we could get rid of this terrible
    deficit and start bringing down our debt, if we could still have enough
    money to invest in our people and new technologies, and if we could keep
    our borders open so we'd have to be competitive and keep inflation down,
    we could really grow this economy for a long time. I gave that speech
    back in '92, and I didn't know if I was right or not, but you all proved
    that that was right.
        Now, we have to say, how can we keep it going? How can we have
    growth without inflation? The answer is, invest in the people in places
    who still haven't felt the opportunity. They need the jobs. They need
    the businesses. They need the capital. They need the work. And they will
    be new customers. It is an inflation-free strategy to continue the
    growth of America, to find the people in places still not touched.
        So what I want to say to you is, yes, we have a lot of people in the
    clergy here. You can say, and you'd be right, that it is the morally
    responsible thing to do for the business leaders of this community and
    this State and this Nation to invest in these places. But you also
    should say, it is the economically smart thing to do, because it's one
    of the clearest ways we can continue to have this economic expansion
    with no inflation. It is a magic moment, and we dare not let it pass us
    by.
        Now, what I'm trying to do at the Federal level is to build a
    bipartisan coalition for giving the kind of tools you need to maximize
    the number of businesspeople and investors who can participate. The
    Congress has already, on a bipartisan basis, passed a bill which
    appropriates some of the money we need to start our national effort. And
    now, I'm trying to secure agreement to pass a set of tax incentives and
    loan guarantees, basically tax credits and loan guarantees, which would,
    for example, give--let's just take Aetna or any other business--the same
    financial incentives to invest in the inner city in Hartford, in a
    developing market in Hartford, or any other place in Connecticut, that
    they can get already to invest in a developing market in Central
    America, in South America, in Asia, in Africa.
        Now, I don't want to stop investing in those countries, but I do
    think that people in America with money ought to get the same tax breaks
    to invest in poor communities, in poor people in America, we give them
    to invest around the world.
        So I say to you, I am very grateful to Hartford for setting an
    example. I'm grateful for this vast and broad-based crowd of people for
    being here. But this is good business, as well as good social policy. We
    can be good citizens and actually improve the economy. And if enough of
    us believe that, then we can pass the laws we need to pass in Congress
    and get more people to follow the lead of the business investments we've
    seen here today. This is the right thing to do.
        One hundred and thirty years ago, Mark Twain came here for the first
    time. I like Mark Twain; we ought to all laugh, and besides, he was the
    first guy who said that reports of his death had been greatly
    exaggerated, something I came to appreciate more and more as I stayed in
    this business. [Laughter] Here's what he said about Hartford, ``Of all
    the beautiful towns it has been my fortune to see, this is the chief.
    You do not know what beauty is if you have not been here.''
        Thanks to your commitment, your pride, your faith in your city, the
    beauty is shining through again in new and different ways, with all
    kinds

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    of different people, from all different countries, and all different
    cultural backgrounds, contributing to a 21st century beauty for
    Hartford. You can see it in the beautiful children I saw dancing
    upstairs and all the work done here in the Artists Collective new home.
    You can see it in the pride of El Mercado and all those beautiful stores
    I saw up and down the avenue. You can see it in the brownfields
    transformed and the boarded homes make habitable again. This is what it
    means to develop America's new markets, and we ought to give the same
    chance to every hard-working American in every community in this
    country.
        Thank you very much. Thank you.
        I want to bring up here a man who was making this speech to me years
    ago and whose Wall Street project pioneered the partnerships we want
    everywhere in America between business and Government, to give people a
    chance and keep hope alive. Reverend Jesse Jackson.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:40 p.m. in the performance studio at the
    Artists Collective. In his remarks, he referred to Richard L. Huber,
    chairman and chief executive officer, Aetna, Inc., who introduced the
    President; Heidi Miller, chief financial officer, Citigroup, Inc.;
    Robert W. Fiondella, chairman, president, and chief executive officer,
    Phoenix Home Life Mutual Insurance Company; Gov. John G. Rowland of
    Connecticut; State Representative Moira K. Lyons; State Senator Kevin B.
    Sullivan; and Mayor Michael P. Peters of Hartford.